There are cars taking shape!

Things are exciting, now, as we have a pavement car ready to go sans engine and fuel tank. It's waiting on placement of graphics  and we expect it to look really sharp this season. Jimmy's been working closely with a contact from a local graphics shop and has come up with some great ideas on a way to make the car stand out and look especially good for the night races. We can't wait to get the vinyl on the car and get some pictures on here. Oh, the suspense is killing us!

We wanted to offer a good compare-and-contrast on the nose of the pavement car. This is what we had configured last year:

This is what it looks like, now:

It's easy to see just how much sleeker the car looks and no doubt, how much more aerodynamic it will be on the race track during the season. We have a couple of configurations that we can run based on track conditions that we didn't have last year. It's nice to be in a position to have options to make ourselves that much more competitive. Jimmy's got a great feeling about how the car will race with these changes made to the front end.

The dirt car is also coming along nicely. We hope to get some pictures posted of that in the next couple of weeks as Jimmy continues to make the necessary modifications to that chassis and gets it ready for the Indiana State Fairgrounds run in May.

Keep checking back as we continue with our weekly updates. In the coming weeks we'll have, not only, the updates about the dirt car but we'll be getting engine modifications done for the ethanol conversion, running them on the dyno and finally, dropping them into the frame and have rolling chassis soon. Things are getting exciting and we're looking forward to a great season!


-Gar

Well, holy cow! We've got a race car, sitting here. For all intents-and-purposes, it's a race car, anyway.

Jimmy's been able to get the cockpit finished up sans seat and all we have left to do is install a fuel tank and drop an engine in and we should be good-to-go!

We're hoping to get an engine out to the engine guys within the next couple of weeks to get the ethanol conversion done. After USAC dropped the bombshell on the teams over the winter, there's been a bit of a scramble to get the engines converted to run ethanol. Everyone's in the same boat as we press ahead on this. If we want to run, this is what we do.

The cockpit on the pavement car looks good. Jimmy was able to shorten some hoses and lines and that should drop us a bit of weight as we won't need to carry the extra weight of liquid for brakes and coolant. Jimmy was also able to mount the oil tank on the inside of the frame to get it out of the slipstream. We haven't mounted the gas tank yet, so we may have to move it yet again but we're hopeful that we may be able to keep it where it is.

Here's the cockpit as it looks, currently:

I have to admit that we're pretty impressed with the way the nose of the car came out after Jimmy was able to glass-coat and refinish it. He primed it earlier in the week and we're just waiting to coordinate with the painter to get it done.

The radiator sits at a much better angle, now and after my first metal-working project, we've got plenty of room for coolant lines and  hope that the additional air will keep this thing running nice-and-cool during the season.


Now, it's time to start working on a dirt car. As i sit here typing this in the shop, Jimmy's busy, working on the bell-housing for the steering and we'll be lifting the rear-end into the frame in a bit.

Another good piece of news has been the graphics that we've got advance copies of to see. These should be good-looking cars this year as there's a more-modern look to the numbers and there are some high-lighted borders added to the numbers to make them stand out better at the track. We'll add pictures when they get on the car.


So as we can continue to make progress while it snows outside, we're excited that things are moving along. However, given the summer temps that we had last year, we'll take the snow while we work on the cars!


- Gar

After an eventful off-season that found me traveling the world on behalf of the United States military, it's time to get back to all things racing and preparing cars and personnel for the upcoming season.

Since the team last raced at Toledo in October, Jimmy and Geoff were busy, building a loft in the Brownsburg facility to create a more ergonomically-friendly work environment. They did a fantastic job of constructing an upstairs level and organizing the things in the shop. Many kudos to them for the hard work they put in.

Jimmy was also able to secure some of the machine-shop items that he had at his former place in Missouri. This will make us a bit more independent when it comes to fabricating parts for the race cars. While we greatly appreciated the assistance and guidance that was provided last year, we felt that we were wearing out our welcome with a few local folks and did not want to spend this year, continuing to beg and borrow. It also helped to save time and resources as we don't have to run all over Central Indiana to get something done!

We've also found out that Geoff may be getting close to having a sprint car commitment that may preclude him from being as involved this season as he was last year. We'll look forward to having Geoff's expertise around when we can get him and we wish him a few wins in the upcoming sprint car season!

The pavement car has begun to take shape and is beginning to look more and more like a race car and less and less like a bare frame. Jimmy had some glass-coating done to the nose piece and has been able to get the radiator to sit at a better angle to allow more air flow into it. We hope that this will alleviate the over-heating issues that we faced at IRP last summer.

I assisted Jimmy with re-attaching the drive shaft to the rear end of the car. After some serious weight-lifting and shimmying, we were able to get everything reconnected smoothly. I don't know about Jimmy but I'm still sore after that episode!

There were also areas that Jimmy was able to tweak and outright remove to save some weight and give us a further advantage over what we had run with last year. It's amazing how the simple removal of some length of hose or using less fasteners here-and-there can really make a significant difference. 


In the coming weeks, we expect to get one or two of the engines out for the ethanol upgrade. If things go as planned, we should be able to have them out before the end of this month and back by the beginning of April. Our first race is scheduled for the 19th of May and that will give us plenty of time to drop it into the frame and even give it a test run if need-be.

So, as winter continues to amble along, so do we. Jimmy and I are feeling very good about the prospects for the upcoming season and we'd like to think that it will go much better than what we had last year. Here's the upcoming season schedule:

2012 Silver Crown schedule


Right now, we're focusing on the Indiana races in May and as things progress, we'll start taking a serious look at what the rest of the year may hold.


- Gar