By Rory Ward – Racers Only Motorsport Designs
It’s been a while since the last update and a lot has happened since then so I will try to catch everyone up.
With the Chassis freshly powder coated (ALLCOAT), it was now time to have Pete Corwin build me some new front a-arms. Originally I thought I would only need the drivers side lower arm but upon further inspection all the arms were a little tweaked so new ones were needed. Using the originals as a template, Pete was able to make a jig for the new arms after straightening out the tweaks. Sway-A-Way supplied the torsion bungs that were welded into place and then broached.
I was still looking for a Magnesium 3rd member on ebay with no luck so i called Byron at Henry’s again and begged him to build me one. Turns out he had about 10 of them in various stages of completion buried in the back of his shop so he agreed to finish one up for me and deliver it to the next off road race. PERFECT!!!!
Everything was coming together just fine but now it was time to put the class 12 car up for sale since it was not being raced. After 8 months in the classifieds I sold it to a lucky guy out of Canada, he definitely got a great deal.
With the 12 car gone I was able to get some big ticket items I had been putting off like shocks, engine, trans and a rebuild of the rear end.
Sandy Cone was called on to handle putting the rear end back together and also happened to have a set of front Halibrand hubs, he only needed to change them from 6 pin to 5 pin and then heat treat them.
The beginning of 2013 started off with a bang. Mastercraft Safety jumped on board as a sponsor (Seat, seat belt, race suit) along with Ironclad gloves (official build apparel). It was great to have MasterCraft on board because they were one of the original sponosrs on the car and Robbie & Kelli were more than happy to help us out.
Another big step was the building of the rear wing that was missing from Challenger IV. Larry Storck of Zoom Factor, along with Scott Neth, built the rear wing perfectly, so good in fact I’m sure Nye Frank was smiling down from above.
Finding a set of original tires and wheels for CH4 was proving just as difficult to find as the Halibrand hubs. After 8 months of hitting ebay and craigslist, I found a set of front tires in Butte Montana and rear tires in Phoenix Az! The Centerline wheels I happened to stumble upon when mentioning to Sandy Cone while we talked about the rear end build. Seems an old class 8 racer that lived near him had a set sitting in his garage that he claimed they were originally owned by Parnelli Jones for his Blazer. True or not, the story is being told like that from now on.
With the MINT 400 coming up (March 2013), CH4 was almost a rolling chassis. Next thing I know we had been invited to put CH4 on display at the NORRA booth during Tech and Contingency if we could get it to a rolling chassis in time. We made it and what a great event it turned out to be. CH4 sat next to Cam Theriot’s recently restored BFG Blazer once driven by Frank Vessels and Bob Gordon. It was great to see people surrounding the vintage racers throughout the day and into the evening. Once the event was over, CH4 was trailered over to Collins Motorsports for some much needed meticulous work that only a high end race shop can provide. I would have to wait a few months to see CH4 again but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I was able to concentrate on sponsorship proposals and ordering parts for CH4’s return to the race shop.
Stay tuned for more…