 In addition to a top-five points finish after winning the season’s final race, Dillard was named ORSCA’s 2006 Rookie of the Year. |
“It was 25.5 before, so basically we cut from the firewall back out of the car because the 25.2 chassis has all different bar diameters and more bars in it all over,” the chassis man explains. “And now we’re going with a four-link so we’ll have a lot more adjustment in the rear suspension and we’ll set the engine back about 1.5 inches in order to better distribute the front-to-rear weight percentages. Hopefully we’ll be able to put more power to the ground now.”
Rebuilding a chassis and rollcage is meticulous, time-consuming work and Bell says his SFI rule book is never far from reach as he, Dusty Kirchner and Jim Walters transform a pile of straight, chrom-moly tubing into an intricate web of safety and performance. If a question arises over just how to proceed, Bell says he calls on the expertise of NHRA Div. 2 Technical Director Mike Welles for clarification. “There are an awful lot of cuts and welds to be made and you really don’t want to find out later you have to cut something out and fix it to get certified,” he says. “You have to go by the book on everything.”
The car will feature a Funny Car-type rollcage when completed and Dillard will be custom fit to the machine within a week or so, says Bell. “We’ll have him sit in it with a helmet on so we can take a few measurements. There are specifications on how far forward of the
driver’s helmet the bars have to come and we need to make sure there’s nothing blocking his vision, too. We’ll also be fitting him for a new steering column with a removable wheel because the car just had a stock steering column and stock steering wheel when it came in here.”
After starting work on the car just a few days before Christmas, Bell expects to finish by mid-February, just in time for the 2007 race season to get underway. He estimates it will cost $20,000-$25,000 to complete the chassis transformation from 25.5 to 25.2 certification, which also will include provisions for wheelie bars and the larger 10.5W slicks that Outlaw 10.5 entries are allowed.
“Our main focus this year is to win the ORSCA Limited Street championship and hold both records, but we also want to enter a couple of big Outlaw races,” Berry confirms. Dillard adds that entering the Heavy Street class at Orlando’s World Street Nationals late in the year also presents a big goal, where he expects to break into the six-second zone over the quarter mile.
