Chapter 2 This Needs SALT

My first exposure to land speed racing was by way of a fellow I had met purchasing my first Studebaker, a 5,000 mile all original R2 Avanti. Greg had found the car, stored in a garage for the last 43 years, and brought it to running condition. When I answered the ad I had no idea what chain of events would be triggered. You see, Greg had another Studebaker that he was racing at Bonneville. A 1953 coupe that was run with several powerplants and had already set several records.

Months later, when Greg came by our place to check in on my progress with the Avanti, I learned of the Salt2Salt race team. After a few war stories I was hooked. After meeting the rest of the team at a swap meet and, unbeknownst to me, passing the verbal interview, I was asked to join their effort.  Later that year I made the pilgrimage to the salt with the Salt2Salt team and the die was cast.

 

Very quickly, a plan I had been working on, namely running a GT Hawk at the Pure Stock Muscle Car Drag Races, was detoured to run the car at Bonneville first. In the 2 day drive back home we scoured the rule book for a configuration to run the Hawk on the salt. It didn't take long to decide to run as Studebaker did in the early '60's; a stock bodied car with safety and endurance modifications to represent the brand and follow the sales mantra of the 60's. "What wins on Sunday sells on Monday." Thus the Classic Production Supercharged class was selected. But what about engine size?

Studebaker as an engine manufacturer had a long and storied past of successful endurance engines. The last of the line was a group of V8's, the fastest of which were supercharged. But displacement was not their strong suit. The largest displacement V8 raced and sold by Studebaker was the R3 and R4 engines. With a displacement of 304.5 cubic inches, modern racing classes at Bonneville would place those engines near the top of D Class by Southern California Timing Association (SCTA). The destroked engine was 259 cubic inches which falls into Class E. Studebaker engines are raced to this day at Bonneville, many holding and breaking world speed records in those classes.

 

The Salt 2 Salt boys had built a 182 cubic inch V8 Studebaker engine.  In tech inspection, it was confirmed to be the smallest displacement Stude V8 ever run at Bonneville.  Always striving to be different and with a keen sense of symmetry, I felt it would be fun to build the largest displacement Studebaker that had ever been raced on the Salt. At the time, I was thinking about boring a block to the razor's edge. Enter fate.

Chapter 1 Introduction

First, a bit of explanation about the team name.  We use centrifugal superchargers in our engines in the Studebaker tradition of big power from small displacement.  If you look at a centrifugal supercharger from the intake scroll side you will notice the snail shell like appearance.  Of course, Snail Racing wouldn't be all that exciting, so we looked for a hook to create that double take moment. Making that snail rabid was just the touch needed.  Taking cues from the Super Bee and Mr Horsepower characters we worked out a crude logo and "Speedy" was born.  As our mascot, Speedy needed to represent Studebaker proudly, so he wears a helmet with the Lazy S logo.  And that gave us the team motto.

 Watch That "S" Car Go !!!!

  We would love to find a good Photoshopper who is excited about giving Speedy some improvements and bring him to life.  If you love creating graphics, have the talent and would like to contribute to our team effort, please contact Jim at jim@rabidsnailracing.com

 

 

  Our current race project is a 1964 Studebaker GT Hawk being prepared for the Bonneville Salt Flats to compete the C/CPS which means an engine between 306 and 372.99 cu. in. competing in Classic Production Supercharged.

 

  The race engine in it's final form is 362.6 c.i.d.  Of course, it must be supercharged by the same type of blower originally offered by the manufacturer.  In our case that means no turbos.  The blower must be a belt driven centrifugal piece.

 

   Over the next few days I will be adding information in a compressed time frame to catch everyone up to the point the project is at currently.

 

  Some pictures of the car as we acquired it below.

 

 

 

 

As you can see, this is an extremely good body without rust or mangled panels.  The interior is better than it looks.  The sun simply ate the seat upholstery and carpets, but the underlying material is solid.  There is not much happening with the body and chassis, but the engine program is moving along nicely.

 

Starting with a 1959 259cid block that was abandoned in a pine forest, the block came to us by way of Dan Miller via Matthew Burnett from the Atlanta, GA area.  The bare block was so rusted that we had to cut 0.040" in the cylinders just to get a sonic reading of the wall thickness.

On the same trip to GA, I stopped by Jeff Rice's DeepInHock Acres.  Jeff had a rolling chassis from a '63 GT Hawk, so I picked that up as well.  This allows me to build on the chassis before pulling the body from its original rolling stock.



 

 

 

In the next installment I will take you through the block's transformation from boat anchor to real racing bones.  You will also learn of an amazing coincidence that allowed the addition of another 103 cubic inches to that 53 year old block.