There has been a change of plan (Again) on the rebuild of The Black Hole.
A few weeks ago, a veteran racer was severely burned at a race at The Texas Motorplex. We do not know the details other than it was an alcohol funny car (not a ProMod like our car). Those cars use a similar engine to ours and the potential to have an engine related fire is the same.
That began some discussions between Traci, Mike Janis (Mikey), and myself about my ability to get out of my car in a hurry if there was an engine fire. All of us agreed that my car is very restrictive when it comes to access and egress.
That began the discussion of how do we fix it? We decided that a new chassis built around my body might solve the problem, so we started talking to chassis builders. Every builder that we talked to told us that the 63 Vette was the worst body/chassis combination for an old, big guy like me. This was sad news considering we just bought a very expensive carbon fiber body for it to help lose some weight from the car.
After several discussions with Traci and Mikey, we realized that the Corvette was not the solution! Traci and Mikey both came back to "What is the goal for this adventure" The goal has and will always be to qualify for an NHRA national event, period. We have compromised our goals over the last couple of years because of the car we owned. It would be nearly impossible to accomplish the original goal using our current car.
Once we came to the realization that our car was not the right one for my safety or to accomplish our ultimate goal, we made the decision to build a new, more modern car that had a larger frame and body to fit me better. But what car would it be? After talking to the chassis guys and Mikey, the choice was clear. It became really clear after seeing this video of a new car built for one of the professional teams. Larger frame, larger body/doors, and just drop dead gorgeous!!!
Take a look:
We will buy a new professionally welded bare chassis, a new 1967 Mustang body, a new Mike
Janis NHRA legal engine, new Janis roots supercharger, new suspension, new electronics, and a bunch of other stuff that we need to complete the car. We will basically be starting over right where we started with our current car (a welded bare chassis) but we will be building an NHRA legal car capable of competing at a national event (providing the driver can do his job). Everything will be built to meet the current rules for an NHRA, roots supercharged ProMod. We will build it according to the way the Janis's believe we could be competitive so we can accomplish our goals.
We will put our old car back together, mount the new lightweight body and sell it for the best price we can. It is in a million pieces right now so there is a lot of work to do just to get it together.
We will also sell our current engine so we can get a more modern Janis powerplant similar to this one.
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| This engine has a screw type blower on it. Ours will have a roots type blower. This is a work of art! |
All of this means that we will probably not get to run the car this year but we should be ready next year. Everything is hard to get these days. There is a 3-4 month wait just to get a chassis and similar wait times on most other big items.
We think we are finally on track to accomplish our long term goals. The Black Hole did it's job of proving that we could build a car and make some test runs without killing myself!!! We also met some awesome people along the way that have been critical in keeping us moving forward.
Thanks to my Sunshine for always supporting me, my family, my friends, our Axis family for making our business successful, Shawn for trading me his car as a catalyst for getting me going, and the Janis family for spending hundreds of hours guiding me along the way. We could not have done what we did without all of you!
Now we are moving on to the next chapter that will eventually lead to us being pitted close to our Janis family to qualify for an NHRA national event.
After all, with God on our side, nothing is impossible!
Luke 1:37, For nothing will be impossible with God.
