And The Don's wallet takes yet another hit
- Thread starter Mike
- Start date
smokeyco75
Member
Crashes always suck but the spectators usually seem to enjoy them. Having been involved with stock car racing for several years I have seen my share as a team member and I can tell you that once I was assured that the driver was okay I was broken hearted about the damage to the car. We put so much effort into those cars to make them the best possible it hurts to have the car bent up and coming off the track on a hook or worse being drug up onto your trailer because it got tore up so bad. We had some dang fast cars though.
benT
Active Member
DSR will start building a new chassis asap. I figure we'll see some parts to coat in a week or so. Can win if you don't push it.
Seriously, Antron is an awesome dude. I'm glad he's ok. He come is the shop quite a bit to hang or drop off parts for his RC boats. I don't think I've met a nicer guy in racing.
Seriously, Antron is an awesome dude. I'm glad he's ok. He come is the shop quite a bit to hang or drop off parts for his RC boats. I don't think I've met a nicer guy in racing.
fluidfloyd
Active Member
Just thought you might like to see what the cost of Top Fuel and Funny Cars can be when things go wrong. Seem they all went wrong on the same day this time!
Mega-team owner Don Schumacher had a very expensive weekend at Atlanta. Antron Brown’s dragster was totally destroyed; both Jack Beckman and Tommy Johnson had major engine explosions that not only destroyed $70,000 engines but also a pair of $50,000 carbon fiber/titanium bodies and probably tweaked the chassis. The Agent estimates that DSR was out a half-million bucks and Mr. Schumacher verified that number on a TV interview.
On the bright side for DSR, Spencer Massey won Top Fuel and picked up a $40,000 check. At approximately $3,000-$4,000 per pass, that money just covered the cost for the eight laps Spencer made over the weekend to get the win.
I
Mega-team owner Don Schumacher had a very expensive weekend at Atlanta. Antron Brown’s dragster was totally destroyed; both Jack Beckman and Tommy Johnson had major engine explosions that not only destroyed $70,000 engines but also a pair of $50,000 carbon fiber/titanium bodies and probably tweaked the chassis. The Agent estimates that DSR was out a half-million bucks and Mr. Schumacher verified that number on a TV interview.
On the bright side for DSR, Spencer Massey won Top Fuel and picked up a $40,000 check. At approximately $3,000-$4,000 per pass, that money just covered the cost for the eight laps Spencer made over the weekend to get the win.
I
Mike
Well-Known Member
When I worked for Murf McKinney, I would watch the races on TV and keep a mental, running total on how much business we would do on Monday. If the dragsters shake the tires very hard, the forward wing struts will bend, so we were always building struts for everyone. And you would be amazed at how much damage a small wheelstand can do to one of the cars. New A-arms, new tie rods, new spindles, new steering box, etc. Back in the late 90's, a small wheelstand could cost upwards of $4,500. And, as Ercie Hill always said, everything on those cars is made of unobtanium. 
10-15 years ago, when NHRA took over the Bristol, TN track. We went with Top Fuel owner Terry Mullins. It was the first race at the new track, just to date when this happened. He qualified 17 in a 16 car field. So we are in the suites in the top of the tower, just watching the races now and Alan Johnson joins us. Him and Terry got talking about the cost of racing. Now this the end of May, first of June. Terry was running this top fuel team unsponsored. Fuzzy Carter was the crew chief. So Alan ask Terry point blank, just how much has it cost you, out of pocket to run so far this year. Terry answered $1.5 million. That was a lot of money way back then, still is today. I can't imagine what that would cost to do today.
Terry Mullins owns Oak Ridge Tool Engineering, his company builds most of the International Space Station.
Check them out http://ortool.com/
Terry Mullins owns Oak Ridge Tool Engineering, his company builds most of the International Space Station.
Check them out http://ortool.com/
fluidfloyd
Active Member
Mike,
I'm sure a pro stock engine is well over the $70,000.00 fuel motor price quoted in the article. I have no idea what a T/F or FC bare chassis goes for now but in the early '80s I was selling them for around $7500.00 including the first of the fabricated 9" housings. I don't miss any of it.
George
fluidfloyd
Active Member
When I worked for Murf McKinney, I would watch the races on TV and keep a mental, running total on how much business we would do on Monday. If the dragsters shake the tires very hard, the forward wing struts will bend, so we were always building struts for everyone. And you would be amazed at how much damage a small wheelstand can do to one of the cars. New A-arms, new tie rods, new spindles, new steering box, etc. Back in the late 90's, a small wheelstand could cost upwards of $4,500. And, as Ercie Hill always said, everything on those cars is made of unobtanium.
I always made more money repairing cars then building new ones.
Mike
Well-Known Member
The real problem with trying to run a competitive Pro Stock program is that you really need multiple engines. You need one for the car, at least one for a spare, with at least one more in the engine shop, getting hammered on. Which means a good engine program is scary-expensive.
When I was at Murf's, it seems a Top Fuel car was going in the high $30K range. But prices could vary wildly, depending on if the car was getting an aluminum or a mag body, steel or titanium bolts, fiberglass components or carbon fiber, etc. That was about the time that everyone was throwing budgets to the winds and building the lightest cars they could build.
It now seems insignificant, but I remember Lee Beard had gone to work for Bernstein, so the car came to us for a back-half, to accommodate Beard's combination. I was walking through the jig shop and as I walked past the front end of the car, I noticed they had bolted in a couple of lead biscuits, using a titanium bolt. To me, it was just a sign of how ludicrous it had all become.
When I was at Murf's, it seems a Top Fuel car was going in the high $30K range. But prices could vary wildly, depending on if the car was getting an aluminum or a mag body, steel or titanium bolts, fiberglass components or carbon fiber, etc. That was about the time that everyone was throwing budgets to the winds and building the lightest cars they could build.
It now seems insignificant, but I remember Lee Beard had gone to work for Bernstein, so the car came to us for a back-half, to accommodate Beard's combination. I was walking through the jig shop and as I walked past the front end of the car, I noticed they had bolted in a couple of lead biscuits, using a titanium bolt. To me, it was just a sign of how ludicrous it had all become.
fluidfloyd
Active Member
I always thought the same thing about weight saving and common sense. Built 4 T/F cars in late 1980 for the ist race of '81. One to Gene Snow, One to Dave Settles and Ray Fisher (Fishers Fever), One to Marvin Graham and Mark Danakus(TR3 Resin Car). Settles, Tom Elliston (yes the R-M pro stock sponsor) and I had formed a chassis company called SFI and Settles was hired to drive Fisher's car. All three cars were identical chassis wise. I don't remember the ready to run weight but the Fisher car was close to 80 lbs lighter the the TR3 car. Danakus calls and was pissed because we built them a heavier car. Next race was the Gator Nationals and Settles went over to their car and sees the same kind of mentality of swiss cheesed everything with big steel bolts. Not only that they plumbed it like a battle tank. Lots of big stainless lines that weren't necessary. Usual not thinking mentality but it looked good. List went on and on and finally the light went on in Marvin's head. Not sure if Danakus ever got it. It was interesting times to say the least.
In the pros anyway, winning at Indy can make your career. And back in 1973 a TV repairman from Oklahoma City came out of nowhere to win the prestigious NHRA US Nationals. This was at a time when the Big Go was on ABC's much watched Wide World of Sports program and Indy was the race to win. It was then that Graham earned the now famous nickname "Marvin Who".
Later Graham teamed up with Top Fuel bad boy Marc Danakus. The pair briefly expanded to a two car team and brought in then TR-3 Resin Glaze secretary Lucile Lee to drive a second car. Pretty soon the team concentrated on the one car that Lee drove. Lee made headlines the next year by defeating Shirley Muldowney in the first ever all female Top Fuel final which happened at the famed Bakersfield March Meet. Coincidentally Graham later became a stunt driver in the film Heart Like a Wheel about the life of Shirley Muldowney.
The team later closed up shop and Danakus teamed up with his brother to race a Top Fuel Dragster appropriately called "Adversity" which made one run and crashed. In the mid eighties, Mr. Danakus was found dead in a back alley in San Bernadino when a "business" deal went bad. And most recently Lee sadly died of natural causes. Photo by Tom West
Mike
Well-Known Member
Here you go -
I took that one at the finish line, during the 1980 US Nationals. Graham was putting the chute out, as he came into the lights.
Yeah, I had always heard there were some 'things' going on in Marc Danekas' life. It was all hear-say, but if any of it was true, he certainly wasn't the only one. Remember how Evan Knoll splashed into the middle of it all and was suddenly giving away money, as if it were candy? And look at his sorry arse, sitting in prison for another 11 or 12 years, with 5 years supervised, once he gets out. And when he does get out, he 'only' owes the IRS a 'mere' $82,933,652.95. I could sit here all day long, typing about people who have left the country to avoid arrest, or the people who have had government agencies meet them at the race track, only to have their entire operations seized.
One of the biggest names in the sport, back in the 80's, had two, identical haulers. One was used to haul the race car and the other was used to haul stolen Lincoln Continentals. A gang was stealing the Abrahams, up in the Chicagoland area, and bringing them down into a rather small town, here in north-central Indiana, where they were parked behind a building owned by yet another racer. Once they would get enough, the hauler would arrive in the dark of the night, the Abrahams would be loaded up and off they would go. It was amazing to see those two racing operations being down-sized, after the arrests.
Yeah, everything has become stupid, when it comes to racing. I don't earn enough money in a single year, to buy a pair of rear shocks off a top-ten Pro Stocker. When I was at Murf's, we had a top-five Top Fuel crew chief send us a drawing for a fairly simply stand off bracket, for the reverser cable. Two pieces of .250 tubing, in a V, with short pieces of tubing to mount the cable bracket and a third piece to hold the cable. The whole thing could not have weighed a pound. We built it and shipped it. And the phone was ringing, as soon as he received it, because we had used steel tubing, rather than titanium. I get it, I really do. If you can find 16 places to save an ounce, then you have saved a pound. But this tuner demanded we make one in titanium and then next day air it to the race track, because he could not (get this) afford to add that much weight to the car. I got a package from a multiple championship winner, one day. It was very thin, and was actually packed in a box we used to ship out our block plates. But this package was really light. I opened it up and can you imagine, it contained a fuel block plate. But it was obvious this thing was not made of steel, as per the rules, because it didn't weigh anything. I put it back in the box and quietly carried it down to Murf's office. His jaw dropped, when he realized I had seen what it was, so I was immediately sworn to secrecy. He pulled a small magnet out of his desk, and it stuck to the plate. I've no idea what they had coated the plate with, but it was ferrous. I still get cold chills, thinking what could have happened, had that car ever grenaded a clutch. It would not have been pretty. I don't know who had built that plate, but I do wonder how well they sleep. I wouldn't be able to get any sleep, pulling those kinds of stunts.
I took that one at the finish line, during the 1980 US Nationals. Graham was putting the chute out, as he came into the lights.
Yeah, I had always heard there were some 'things' going on in Marc Danekas' life. It was all hear-say, but if any of it was true, he certainly wasn't the only one. Remember how Evan Knoll splashed into the middle of it all and was suddenly giving away money, as if it were candy? And look at his sorry arse, sitting in prison for another 11 or 12 years, with 5 years supervised, once he gets out. And when he does get out, he 'only' owes the IRS a 'mere' $82,933,652.95. I could sit here all day long, typing about people who have left the country to avoid arrest, or the people who have had government agencies meet them at the race track, only to have their entire operations seized.
One of the biggest names in the sport, back in the 80's, had two, identical haulers. One was used to haul the race car and the other was used to haul stolen Lincoln Continentals. A gang was stealing the Abrahams, up in the Chicagoland area, and bringing them down into a rather small town, here in north-central Indiana, where they were parked behind a building owned by yet another racer. Once they would get enough, the hauler would arrive in the dark of the night, the Abrahams would be loaded up and off they would go. It was amazing to see those two racing operations being down-sized, after the arrests.
Yeah, everything has become stupid, when it comes to racing. I don't earn enough money in a single year, to buy a pair of rear shocks off a top-ten Pro Stocker. When I was at Murf's, we had a top-five Top Fuel crew chief send us a drawing for a fairly simply stand off bracket, for the reverser cable. Two pieces of .250 tubing, in a V, with short pieces of tubing to mount the cable bracket and a third piece to hold the cable. The whole thing could not have weighed a pound. We built it and shipped it. And the phone was ringing, as soon as he received it, because we had used steel tubing, rather than titanium. I get it, I really do. If you can find 16 places to save an ounce, then you have saved a pound. But this tuner demanded we make one in titanium and then next day air it to the race track, because he could not (get this) afford to add that much weight to the car. I got a package from a multiple championship winner, one day. It was very thin, and was actually packed in a box we used to ship out our block plates. But this package was really light. I opened it up and can you imagine, it contained a fuel block plate. But it was obvious this thing was not made of steel, as per the rules, because it didn't weigh anything. I put it back in the box and quietly carried it down to Murf's office. His jaw dropped, when he realized I had seen what it was, so I was immediately sworn to secrecy. He pulled a small magnet out of his desk, and it stuck to the plate. I've no idea what they had coated the plate with, but it was ferrous. I still get cold chills, thinking what could have happened, had that car ever grenaded a clutch. It would not have been pretty. I don't know who had built that plate, but I do wonder how well they sleep. I wouldn't be able to get any sleep, pulling those kinds of stunts.
old round fart
Well-Known Member
Pete Robinson was a real weight nut too. In the early '70's he had aluminum spindles, his steering box had a mag case and aluminum gears and he filled his tires with helium.
Mike
Well-Known Member
I used to have a computer modeler that would allow me to play around with variables, to see how they would affect ET and MPH. I used to sit in front of the thing for hours, trying to find a little something extra, just to have an edge. And one thing that would always show improvements was weight. If you took a car at a given weight break and used a smaller motor, which meant a lighter car, ET would always improve. You would think that building a bigger motor would make more power and would be able to run faster, but that also meant moving a heavier car from a standing stop. When we built bigger engines, there was always a learning curve associated, to sort how to move the heavier car.
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