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This project was conceived from the idea that the hot rod-
ders that came post WW2 and prior to professional racing
modified and built vehicles in their small shops for land speed
racing at the dry lakes and salt flats. What we wanted to ac-
complish is a tribute to those men and women of vision and
passion that dedicated their live to the sport. We started with
a 1939 Ford cab and bed fabricated a custom chassis based
of the latest nascar chassis technology, the power train is a
Ford C3 NASCAR dry sump engine producing nearly 900
horsepower, that is mated to a CR1V2 4 speed transmission
and the power get to the ground through a NASCAR 9 inch
Ford 31 spline full floating rear axle. pelimnay testing show
promise of speed upwards of 230mph all while being com-
pletely street legal which would make it a great tool for cor-
porate events for test drives and rides
My background
Moving to North Carolina in 1992 after serving 4 years in
the United States Navy as a nuclear power welder on sub-
marines I got my first job at the Precision Products racing
team which Rick Mast was the driver in the NASCAR win-
ston cup series, Through 2007 I worked with drivers such as
Geoff Bodine, Bill Elliot, Dale Earnhardt JR, In 1999 i was
approached by Ray Evernham to head to head up the Dodge
R&D program for their return to Winston cup, while there i
over saw special projects, wind tunnel development and the
chassis dynamics program. There were ties made for me at
Dodge that would pay off in the future.
After some success winning at Homestead the fist year and
the brickyard 400 in the second year i was approached by
Dale Earnhardt INC to become part of the infamous R.A.D
program it was an opportunity that i could not pass up, the
program was specifically put in place by Dale Earnhardt,
Richard Childress and Andy Petree to further the develop-
ment of racing at Daytona and Talladegga, the program was
responsible for over 26 restrictor plate wins including 3 Day-
tona 500s. it was great to be a part of it and that made ties
that would soon come back to pay off.
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RenegadeMagazine.com 39
In 2006 After 16 years of working for teams i decided to
start my own shop specializing in performance fabrication
and consulting for struggling teams made it through the first
year when i received a call from Dodge informing me that the
Land speed record for a stock car that Bobby Iassac set in
1970 had fallen to a Ford stock car, the record was originally
216mph by Bobby the ford went 226 in 2006.
After a meeting with Dodge in 2007 the plans were laid out
and set in motion in late august of 2007, we had 3 weeks to
build a car haul it to the bonnievile salt flats and break the ex -
isting record of 226 mph. On October 8 2007 we did just that
setting a new land speed record for a stock car on a two way
run average of 244.9mph, which was the very first full power
run the car ever made.
During this evolution I learned and experience a lot of things
on a personnel and business level. the pre and post effects in
social media and print were amazing. The exposure reached
across many demographics, I felt there was something here
for the future.
Which brings us back around to the project 39, I believe that
for success there must be passion and not driven by financial
gain, there must be a quest to see the project through at any
cost, this project was built solely in house by people that have
just that passion. Our goal is to have our shop be home to the
worlds fastest rat rod, show people that drive determination
and ingenuity still exist today. That a small group of people
can build something that will out perform the super cars of
today. But most of all use this vehicle to interact with other
people to gain exposure for my business and our partners.
Our tentative race schedule carries us across the country to
many different venues of racing and shows, below
March 27-29 2015 The Texas Mile , Beeville Texas
May 2-3 Ohio Mile, Hot rod top speed challenge
May 17-19 Steel in motion, Union South Carolina
June 28, Pikes peak International hill climb
Pikes peak Colorado
September 17-21, Bonneville Salt Flats, Wendover Utah