Thanks, BP! It's my favorite thing to do...well, almost <g>
My pick for Racers of the Week are Dave and Mandy Pearce, from Tauranga, New Zealand. Their hot rod stands out as a great nostalgia gasser, and Mandy and Dave have been very enthusiastic and helpful in putting their feature together for me.
The car is a 1952 Ford Pop S/ST powered by a 455 Pontiac bored out to 462. It has an 850 double pumper, a hot rod cam, flowed heads, the power is delivered by a Pontiac 400 trans shift kitted with a 4000 stall unit, running to a Ford 9 inch diff with 4.11 differential gears.
The car sits on a custom 3x2 chassis. It has an independent front end with 4 pot calipers, an 8 point roll cage, a tubbed rear end, it's running front 15x5 et gassers and rear 15x12 Mickey Thompson slicks. The weight of pop is 1090 kgs. It has been dynoed in 2014 as 430 hp @ the rear wheels. The body mods on the car are as follows : fiberglass bonnet & nose cone ,fiberglass boot lid and the remaining body is steel. It has a homemade gasser barrel just for show . It's covered with custom mixed 2k green paint with custom lace & pin-striping by owner Dave .
Mandy gave A Brief history of the car:
We brought the pop as a bit of a barn find ,had been built & raced for years by Stu Clifton of Sliverdale in Auckland . Stu had decided to retire from racing and the pop had been sitting for quite a few years unraced; thats when we purchased it. Once we got the pop home we decided to leave the motor alone and concentrate on the body.We totally stripped the body from top to bottom and straightened & recoloured it .We removed the tilt front & replaced it with fiberglass . We changed the wheels & slicks and added new brakes ,and added a line lock system. We spent many hours on the body but was well worth it ..
Racing:
Mandy said the 1st season 2013-2014 , I spent getting a feel for the pop and getting some confidence .spent most of the season changing small things due to the car not being raced for awhile .The Best ET for that season was 11.7 @ 119 mph.
The 2nd season 2014-2015, I really was comfortable with the pop & hoping to better my times ...On the last day of racing for the season the motor decided to throw a connecting rod threw the sump, which put a stop to everything ,but did my PB 11.1 @ 123 mph .
Future plans :
We have a fresh engine being built by wild bunch & doorslammer racer Bobby Owens .The engine will be getting all new parts: rods, pistons etc and we will be adding a 671 RBS supercharger from California especially built for the pontiac , a blower cam ,twin carbs set up for E85. More horsepower and better ETs are sure to come.
We will be adding more custom lace & stripes to make the pop more nostalgia looking ...
Our Racing goals :
I am hoping to better my reaction times / race times as well as trying to get the pop more consistent .I would really like to step up a bracket to prove to myself I know I can do it .
Mandy gives thanks to:
My biggest thanks would be to my wonderful husband Dave who works & supports me all the way , honestly I could not do it with out him . My family who support my racing .To Bobby & Wendy Owens for their help & support with building new motor, and all the racers that have helped & guided me .
And a big thank you to JB for featuring our pop. We are very grateful for all the interest and support that we have had with our hot rod.
"BRING ON NEXT SEASON."
That's Dave & Mandy Pearce, Racers of the Week. We wish y'all good luck, safe racing and the best of times in the future!
The ZZ Top story ended last week with the worldwide smash hit, the album Eliminator in 1983. They followed that album up with another couple of releases that also went platinum, Afterburner and Recycler. They toured the world in the 80s. I saw them at the Astrodome opening for the Rolling Stones and they were fantastic.
Recycler signalled the end of the band's synthesizer period, and the beginning of the band's return to its blues roots. They had conquered the world by then, and the formula they had created with the trilogy of albums that defined the 80s was wearing thin on them, so they changed again. They appeared in the movie Back to the Future Part III doing an old west version of Doubleback from Recycler. It was great. The look Michael J. Fox had on his face in that scene was perfect.
In the 90s, the band played the halftime show for Super Bowl XXXI, they inducted Cream into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, they released a special single of Viva Las Vegas, signed a 35 million dollar contract with RCA, and appeared on a compilation album that included Pink, the Dave Matthews Band, and Wilco. During this period, Gibbons, who was never stifled creatively, increased his car customizing and collecting, and he has produced some of the finest hot rods ever to roll down the street.
ZZ Top is back playing the blues, and although their records haven't sold on a par with their new wave records of the 80s, you can hear the happiness in the grooves they play. They were a featured act in Eric Clapton's Crossroads festival, Gibbons reunited the Moving Sidewalks and played some shows with his original psychedelic band, he was the bandleader for the Austin City Limits tribute to Roky Erickson, playing lead guitar on all of the 13th Floor Elevators classic songs, and in the post-show interview he said that Roky Erickson's voice is a universal treasure and he should be given the recognition and rewards that he deserves.
Gibbons also developed his own line of sauces that is available as BFG products on his personal website. They include Barbecue sauce, Piquante sauce, marinades, and Zombie Cajun sauce. He lent his talents to several performances including Kid Rock and they began an association with producer Rick Rubin and his stable of artists.
In 2004, ZZ Top was inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame by Keith Richards. They performed Tush and LaGrange in their performance that night. the band has gone on to release several blues albums that defy traditional description, sampling other styles of music and putting it all together in their own mix of sound. They played the Orange Bowl, they are an annual feature at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, they played NASCAR races, toured the world several times and continue to be the definitive American band. But it's far from over as far as Billy Gibbons is concerned. He's always out there finding inspiration and material to write and perform with the band. He'll never run out of ideas, and I look forward to his next project. His recently released solo album, Perfectamundo, covers hit songs from our teen years, and it's a wonderful recollection of the best of times for us all. We're lucky to have ZZ Top with us, folks. If you haven't already, be sure to catch a show the next time they're in town.
Thanks to Danny White for his input and advice in helping me with these features. He's been a great partner in this project, and I appreciate everything he does.
Y'all be sure to tune in tomorrow evening at 7 PM Eastern on Racers Reunion Radio for Racing Through History. It's Thee Goat Rodeo you don't want to miss!
Thanks, I'll see y'all next week.