With the old R&C stories floating around in our foggy little heads and the newfound possibility of booking the California Speedway for legitimate "performance testing," we came up with a stellar thought. What if we mashed all of this together into a single story, testing a high-zoot street rod loaded for bear with piles of cool gear against a brutally basic traditional hot rod (we shudder to use the term rat rod, since the car we used actually has a floorpan) in a showdown for speed and glory. At the same time, we could throw a few different pairs of wheels and tires into the mix, which would not only allow us to check out the performance variance between modern road race rubber and classic rolling stock, it would also give you readers a chance to scope a few different looks and styles of wheel/tire combos on two very different cars-talk about having our bases covered! This story would also give us a chance to play hooky from the office and spend a day at the track burning equal amounts of high-test and rubber, which is the highest priority of all. So how did things work out? Read on!
After a few rounds of phone calls we managed to line up two cars that were as different as monkeys and wombats but representative of the two sides of our hobby. Gary Riley of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, agreed to drag his gorgeous pearl orange '32 sedan delivery out to the track for our testing enjoyment. The show-winning high-tech Deuce may be familiar to dedicated R&C readers, as it was featured on the cover of the October '01 issue. Equipped with ginormous by humongoid 18- and 20-inch Budnik billet rollers, which are attached to chrome Kugel (front) and Jag (rear) independent suspensions along with disc brakes the size of trashcan lids, Gary's ride was our choice for the handling champ of the day, and we commend him for allowing a gaggle of greasy magazine guys to set foot in his pride and joy. With the street rod side of our rodding civil war taken care of, we needed to find a proper representative for the old school crew. Interestingly, most high-tech rods are owned by gentlemen of advanced age (who are usually of advanced means, as well), while the old-fashioned, beat-your-kidneys-till-they-bleed cars are shoed by young guys of the x-y-z generations. We didn't want a so-called "rat rod," as those cars are usually set up with Fred Flinstone-style engineering (no floor, no front brakes, and worse). Instead, we wanted a basic but brutally fast traditional rod set up correctly, the way they used to do it. We found what we were looking for in Troy Ladd, who built the gray '34 Chevy three-window in the days prior to launching his shop, Hollywood Hot Rods. While Troy wanted us to delay the story until his new project (a red Deuce roadster with an injected early Hemi) was complete, deadlines forced him into bringing his old Bow Tie out of storage for a thorough round of beatings. Once both cars were secured for competition, we started calling every wheel and tire manufacturer we could think of and ended up borrowing a diverse lineup of wheels and tires to "test" at the track. The board was set, pieces were in play, and the fun was about to begin.
The final step was to secure a Shoe to handle driving duties. We needed somebody fair, balanced, and willing to hash the hay out of these two rides as hard as his coffee-fueled little heart would allow. Andrew "F-ing New Guy" Schear, the feature editor at our sister publication Super Chevy, spearheaded the Primedia performance testing program, so when he volunteered for driving duties, we beat him senseless and took his job. That's a lie. Actually, we gracefully allowed him to do the deed, with the single stipulation that he drive the cars like they were stolen, and do copious burnouts.
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