Suspensionless Car
Posted on April 15, 2007 at 04:49:11 PM by SuperDave



The Suspension less Car!
By Duane Depuy:

Fortunately I was in on this car from its’ inception to its demise. Back in about 1983 and when innovation was not curtailed by rules this car came from the collaboration of three people.
Bill Port, at that time was part owner of the Midwest Racing Stores. He and I had been involved with each other from the early days of drag racing starting back in 1954. Bill was always an engine man and was the most painstaking person I have ever known when it came to putting engines together. In fact he built the 289 Ford that was in my rear engined car of the early sixties. Well actually he didn’t build it expressly for me but built it for a 900-pound dragster that he had. Unfortunately his garage burned down and the dragster was destroyed while the engine was in his shop. So he sold it to me and he began circle track racing.
First he bought my RE car and ran it several times with Bob Hayduk driving. However shortly after he saw Bill Hites RE FWD car at Heidelburg with Rat Lane driving. He began a long relationship with Hite and Armond Holley in several RE cars. So you can see he was not some “Johnny come lately” to the racing scene.
Well one night while just BS-ing in the shop he comes up with “If you were going to build another super, what would it be?” Well we kicked around the idea of a very light non-suspension RE car. It was just BS-ing , but he got on the phone with Bill Hite. After a lot of phone conversations Hite thought the idea had some merit and considering the tires and wings available why not? So he drew up some plans and submitted them to Port, who bought the project.
The car was absolutely unique. Completely rigid, the right rear had a U joint on it so as to allow camber adjustments. Both front spindles had camber, caster and height adjusters (for load adjustment) and zero scrub radius built into them (most guys don’t even know what that is)! Lightness remember no power steering. The whole project less engine was designed and built by Hite.
Gene Lee Gibson was selected to do the driving, while Bill and I and a couple Leahy boys (one is in the picture I think) were the pit crew.
Trouble the first night as the Leahy’s not familiar with zero scrub inadvertently put the wheels on backwards and the brake calipers tore out both front tire valves.
Also later it was discovered that the rigid driveshaft was too long and put undo pressure on the rear main and the engine burned a bearing.
There was a learning curve with the chassis as to air pressures and wedge so these mishaps during the first couple nites track performance was not spectacular. Bill was subjected to a lot of ridicule at Myles Engines (they did his machine work) as “bouncy bouncy”. However, we finally got it dialed in and Gene Lee was going for the lead in the feature when he was forced off the number two turn into the backstretch guard rail at Lorain County and crashed the right front section of the frame.
All these incidents convinced Port that the car was jinxed. He was a very superstitious person. So he abandoned the project and stripped the car and gave me the frame. I salvaged the frame by cutting most of the brackets and non-suspension items off and made it into a mini outlaw racecar using a 750cc Kawasaki engine and won a championship with it!
Those were the days when unhampered by rules guys would try all sorts of things and I think we have lost some of that.


When RE cars were outlawed, Port had Hite build him a roadster with 4 wheel independent suspension. He was disatisfied with it and turned it over to Jerry Mong for analysis and re-work. Unfortunately it never really worked out to Ports' satisfaction. So he sold the chassis to my bucks down brother who tried using a turbo-charged SB with gasoline (silly guy) and had Bob "Hunter" (Al Woods) drive it. It might have been a success had he used alcohol as Woods really liked the car as long as it didn't overheat! He kept it inactive for a few years and then scrapped it to build a mini-outlaw car using a two-stroke engine.


P.S.
from Armond Holley Jr.
I've got a couple of notes to add on the "non suspension car". Armond Holley was scheduled to be the original driver of this car. He drove down to Hites shop in Alabama and towed the car back up to Port. They tested the car for a full day at Oswego and it was quite bouncy. Bill was very uneasy about the car, Dad said he thought we would get get it figured out, and my stepmom would rather he not drive it. Dad and Port did a little brainstorming and decided to have Gene Lee shake it down the first season, and if anything could be made of it, Dad would drive it the following year. Bill called my Father and told him Gene Lee wrecked the car pretty hard and that the car is unsafe and he was scrapping it. Dad was pretty mad that Bill wouldnt want to fix it because he thought the car could be really good, but he also knew that's how Bill was, he valued his drivers safety above all else.