Dream Car

Photo by Cuzzin Ricky

While Cuzzin Ricky and I were off chasing the sprint cars, I had a chance to try one on for size at Bloomington. Pretty snug fit but I would assume that's what you would want. Sprint cars have a chassis that's pretty similar to the old Indy roadsters, at least as far as the suspension and steering are concerned. The newer cars do a much better job of protecting the driver than the older style, whether that be an Indy car or a sprint car. However, if a guy wanted to build a really cool street car, a stretched sprint car chassis would be a really good place to start.

Photo From Here

I've got several books on older Indy cars that have excellent photos of the chassis and suspension layouts that were tried over the years. Most all the roadsters used torsion bar suspension front and rear. Some of the early cars used channel frame rails but most, however, used round tube. Building the frame/chassis would be easy enough but I know nothing about figuring out the spring rates for the torsion bars. I'm sure that information would be easy enough to come by. Schroeder has charts with the spring rates of the different sizes of bars on their website. Plus there are more than a few sprint cars floating around the state of Indiana. Probably wouldn't be too tough to locate a friendly car owner/mechanic willing to give a guy a little advice on where to start.

This one was restored at Gary Bridge and Iron. I had some dealings with the owner in the past - super talented. I'm sure I could get some advice there. Actually, a car like this one is pretty much just like I want to build. I think you can get away without fenders in Indiana. If not, then something like the Bocar.

One of these days.