thought i'd share........
Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:20 pm
so this morning i was reading a thread over on dirtoval.com, i thought this was kinda neat.
rob cutman of custom works was replying to another member about a comment he made about the stealth cars from the 89 worlds in australia, having increased front end kickup, narrow front bulkhead, longer a-arms, etc. here was rob's response:
Actually the stealth car was designed by Cliff Lett and debuted at the 89 Worlds in Austrailia. Cliff spent a good bit of time fondling my Terminator at the Dirt Oval nats in Burlington, NC in May of that year. I remember thinking how ironic it was that the car he designed for the worlds 4 months later had a narrowed front end with more kickup and longer arms. Now I am not claiming Cliff copied anything, lol, just pointing out the Irony. As I said in my ealier post Joe Schmitz gets the credit for coming up with the front end and was the first person to utilize it in off-road racing. Joe didnt have the same success that Cliff did with it, but then again Joe wasn't Masami either!
now if you don't know who joe schmitz is, and how the terminator d.o. car with the 40 degree kickup came to be, rob explains it in this post:
An offroad racer in Tucson AZ named Joe Shmitz built the first 40 deg kickup nose plate that bolted to an RC10 Gold tub chassis. He raced for Wizard motors which is who I also raced for in 1986/87. Chuck Saladin from Wizard built a Sprint car with a gold tub chassis that used the front kickup, Optima Front arms and an MRP outlaw sprint body. I ran Chucks sprint car at the 87 JG race at the Ranch Pit Shop in Pomona where I TQ'd and finished 2nd to Gil Losi JR. Gil was running a prototype version of the JRX2 that had not yet been released with a Bolink Sprint car body on it.
Wizard sold the front kick up plates for another year or so before going out of business. In the fall of 87 myself and George Vardzik built a carpet car with a fiberglass chassis, an offset battery and a mid motor transmission design to race at A1 raceway in Hummelstown, PA. This car just had a stock RC10 front end mounted flat to the chassis, no kickup. It was actually a pretty good carpet car. Over the winter we chopped the front end off of it and bolted the noseplate to it for racing on dirt in the spring. Needless to say it was pretty impressive from the get go. We made a few more prototypes with carbon chassis changed a few things, dubbed it the terminator (after the recently release move) and started production.
kinda make you think. what would those stealth cars have looked like had cliff lett not fondled rob's terminator prior to the worlds? would there even be a stealth worlds car? or were they already in the works prior to that JG race in may?
rob cutman of custom works was replying to another member about a comment he made about the stealth cars from the 89 worlds in australia, having increased front end kickup, narrow front bulkhead, longer a-arms, etc. here was rob's response:
Actually the stealth car was designed by Cliff Lett and debuted at the 89 Worlds in Austrailia. Cliff spent a good bit of time fondling my Terminator at the Dirt Oval nats in Burlington, NC in May of that year. I remember thinking how ironic it was that the car he designed for the worlds 4 months later had a narrowed front end with more kickup and longer arms. Now I am not claiming Cliff copied anything, lol, just pointing out the Irony. As I said in my ealier post Joe Schmitz gets the credit for coming up with the front end and was the first person to utilize it in off-road racing. Joe didnt have the same success that Cliff did with it, but then again Joe wasn't Masami either!
now if you don't know who joe schmitz is, and how the terminator d.o. car with the 40 degree kickup came to be, rob explains it in this post:
An offroad racer in Tucson AZ named Joe Shmitz built the first 40 deg kickup nose plate that bolted to an RC10 Gold tub chassis. He raced for Wizard motors which is who I also raced for in 1986/87. Chuck Saladin from Wizard built a Sprint car with a gold tub chassis that used the front kickup, Optima Front arms and an MRP outlaw sprint body. I ran Chucks sprint car at the 87 JG race at the Ranch Pit Shop in Pomona where I TQ'd and finished 2nd to Gil Losi JR. Gil was running a prototype version of the JRX2 that had not yet been released with a Bolink Sprint car body on it.
Wizard sold the front kick up plates for another year or so before going out of business. In the fall of 87 myself and George Vardzik built a carpet car with a fiberglass chassis, an offset battery and a mid motor transmission design to race at A1 raceway in Hummelstown, PA. This car just had a stock RC10 front end mounted flat to the chassis, no kickup. It was actually a pretty good carpet car. Over the winter we chopped the front end off of it and bolted the noseplate to it for racing on dirt in the spring. Needless to say it was pretty impressive from the get go. We made a few more prototypes with carbon chassis changed a few things, dubbed it the terminator (after the recently release move) and started production.
kinda make you think. what would those stealth cars have looked like had cliff lett not fondled rob's terminator prior to the worlds? would there even be a stealth worlds car? or were they already in the works prior to that JG race in may?
Nu Sealand 
, very few tingles come from the other place. Although Pete did "surprise" me with a box last week 