The Team at Rad Rides by Troy Is Famous for Building Top-Notch Street Machines and Rods, but George Poteet Pushed Them To Build an All-Out Race Car. Boy, Did They Deliver.

ur Ol' Dad, the late Gray Baskerville, lived for Bonneville Speed Week. With salt between his toes, standing somewhere near the three-mile mark, maniacally rubbing his hands together as a streamliner thundered by at 350-plus, Gray was in heaven. He's probably standing there right now in an endless running of Speed Week somewhere in the afterlife. "It's soooooo bitchin'!"
      For years Gray tried to persuade his pal and fellow hot rodder George Poteet to experience life on the salt. Eventually, George relented, and his life was never the same.
      "Twelve years ago, I went to Bonneville as a spectator. After a while, I built a Modified Roadster with a flathead just so I could see the other end of the course as a participant," George said.
      That roadster only ran 129 mph, but it more firmly squirted Bonneville blood through George's veins. A couple of roadsters later, George was running 210 mph, but it wasn't enough for a record and therefore not enough to get into the prestigious Bonneville 200 mph Club. So that was his next goal. He experienced the speed, for sure, and had

been 280 mph behind the wheel of Ron Main's EcoFire steamliner (he later ran 340-plus in it), but the red hat was an elusive thing, and George wanted it. "We all wanted to be remembered for something in history, whether it's building cars or whatever," George said.
      At the '05 Detroit Autorama, George was hanging out with Troy Trepanier (Rad Rides by Troy, builder of several of George's hot rods) and fuel-injection guru John Meaney (BigStuff3). The bench racing turned to George's desire to enter the Two Club and eventually have the fastest door-slammer in the world. Meaney brought up the new Mopar Performance four-cylinder midget race block, which he considers a sleeping monster; it accepts a P5 Hemi cylinder head. They started talking about what kind of car it would be cool to put the motor in, and Troy and George agreed on a '69 Barracuda, just because it's different. You can see where this if going, right? By the time they were finished talking, the plan was hatched to build a full-on Bonneville car, and George had his historical ride under way. On Sunday afternoon of the show, on his way home, George called Troy and said he found a car, and it would be at Rad Rides' shop in a week.
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"I've gone 129 mph in a flathead roadster and 340 mph in the streamliner, so I know when a car drives good and when a car drives bad. Blowfish drove like a bullet."—George Poteet

"I picked the body, Chrysler picked the engine, and Troy did the rest."—George Poteet

1. This is Blowfish's humble beginning. George's buddy had this '69 Barracuda sitting for 15 years and gave it to him for the project.
2. From that rusty bucket of bolts would emerge something like this Adam Banks rendering.
3. The Barracuda was torn apart and taken down to not much more than a body shell with no floors.
4. After Imperial Blasting stripped the body, it was set on the jib, and the ride height was determined thusly.
5. The windshield posts were chopped 2 inches, and the rear sail panels were cut loose at the fender line and allowed to lie forward then were welded back in place for a bitchin' (and aerodynamic) rake.
6. The front and rear bumpers are narrowed Camaro parts tucked in tight to the body for minimum aero drag; this stuff is hidden under the nose cone.
7. Before the chassis was even begun, supports were built into the body to add strength that would be necessary at 300 mph. Notice the rear wheeltubs and incredible sheetmetal work.
8. With the body at ride height, the engine, trans, and rearend were mocked into place to begin building the chassis.
9. Here's how the framerails attach to the body, shown here simply tack-welded during mockup.
10/11. Adam Banks sketched out the aero nose, then the Rad Rides crew fabricated it out of hand-beaten sheetmetal.
12. The highlight of the car is the 175ci Chrysler four-cylinder with a Mopar Performance P5 Hemi head. Built by Bob Sweeney at FX Engines, it's essentially a USAC midget long-block (though MP offers this version with a bellhousing flange) with a big turbo and BigStuff3 sequential engine management.

CLOCKWISE > Rad Rides fabricator Dan Holohan created the intake manifold from sheet aluminum starting with these formed sections that turned into... >...intake runners mounting the injectors. This photo shows a single injector per runner, but the final configuration has two Bosch 130-pounders per cylinder. > The runners were mated to an aluminum plate that formed the base for the plenum. > This would be the plenum.

13. The turbo is an oversized Precision Turbo T45, chosen based on performance calculations to make 35-plus pounds of boost at 9,500 rpm. Here you can see just part of the fabricated plumbing.
14. On Power Pete's dyno, the Little Engine That Could did, making 1,030 hp at 8,000 rpm and 680 lb-ft of torque, also at 8,000, on only 20 psi boost. There's way more in it when they turn up the wick and run it to 9,500.
15. Dan Holohan also fabricated the exhaust in 5-inch 321 stainless. The headers were HPC-coated, and out of the turbo, the exhaust comes through the firwall and routes next to the trans and driveshaft with a 5-inch Flowmaster Outlaw Series muffler. The entire exhaust system was covered with header wrap to keep heat under control. Notice the Jerico four-speed transmission with a Gear Vendors overdrive.

16. The packaging on this car would make an IndyCar builder jealous. Notice the trick 2x10 oval tailpipe that exits in the middle of the rear valence.
17. The underside of the car got a full bellypan that actually added downforce to the front end.
18/19. Due to the complexity of the chassis and rollcage tubing, rather than paint it, Rad Rides had Bob Buckley at Coating Specialties powdercoat it all with high-metallic powder and clearcoat.
20. Warren Lewis, Ryan Kircher, and Rich Milton of Rad Rides sprayed the car with Glasurit Golden Rod (how appropriate) paint.
21. Bob Thrash created the custom two-tone and gold-leaf lettering on the car. He did the cartoon Blowfish, too.
22. The chassis was modeled after a modern Jerry Bickel Pro Stock car but uses Air Ride Technologies air springs for minute adjustability on the salt. Adam Banks at Rad Rides built the control arms around the Air Ride bags and Bickel-sourced struts. Steering is from Bickel slow-ratio rack-and-pinion, and there's a ton of caster in it to keep the car straight at speed.
23. The air springs are controlled by Air Ride solenoids and pump plumbed to this air tank, which was mounted in the nose of the car.
24. A powermaster 80-amp alternation is driven off the 2.91-geared Strange 9-inch rearend.
25. Terry DeKoninck, DaimlerChrysler's aerodynamicist, uses a smoke wand to evaluate airflow on Blowfish during aerodynamic tuning at the DCX wind tunnel in Detroit. The car did 22 "blows" in the tunnel over two sessions and was slippery as 0.20 Cd. With the downforce needed at Bonneville, the car still slips through the air at a sleek 0.21.
26. Michael "Sparky" Browne of Wires & Pliers wired Blowfish. Here, he's creating the injector harness.

      The car George had found was pretty rough, so the Rad Rides crew gutted it and then Imperial Blasting used its mineral process to strip away 37 years of grunge. Once back at Rad Rides, the top was chopped and raked. Then the car was cut apart to a bare body shell, sans floors and framerails, and set on a jib to determine ride height. With the body sitting where it needed to be, the engine, trans, Gear Vendors unit, and rearend were put into place on the jig, and everything else was built around them.
      Rad Rides built the tube chassis using Jerry Bickel chassis parts, including custom struts in front and a Pro Stock—style four-link in the back. Air Ride Technologies air springs support it and allow quick, incremental changes in ride height. Chassis stops

were fabricated so that once the minimum ride height is set, the car can't go lower when 300-mph worth of downforce tries to bury it in the salt.
      "Bob the Builder" Sweeny of FX Engines got the job of building the 1,000-horse engine—no easy task when you're only talking four cylinders and 175ci of displacement. With a big turbo and Meaney's BigStuff3 EFI tuning, that power level was accomplished on "only" 20 psi boost, so there's a lot of growing room left here. The engine was connected to a Jerico four-speed stick with a Tilton four-disk, 5.5-inch clutch. There's also a Gear Vendors unit bolted to the Jerico that gives a 0.78:1 percent overdrive. The rear is a Strange 9-inch with an open Eaton diff, 31-spline strange axles, and a 2.91:1 ring-and-pinion. With the Gear Vendors

engaged, final drive ratio is a cellar-dwelling 2.27:1.
      The substantial bodywork was all done in the name of speed. The most obvious modification was the nosepiece, reminiscent of the '70 Plymouth Superbird/Charger Daytona but completely designed by Troy and Fabricated in-house at Rad Rides. In fact, nearly everything on this car was created at the Rad Rides shop out of sheet steel, billet aluminum, and tubing. There are just way too many other details to tell in words, so we've shown as much of the buildup as possible in photos, but even then, we don't have nearly enough room to show everything the Rad Rides guys did to this car. Scott Killeen is creating one of his Build Books on the car, and even that will probably leave some stuff out. This thing is killer.

> Back-to-back 255-mph passes on the long course got George Poteet the record for F/Blown Fuel Competition Coupe (the designation on the car should actually be F/BFCC). The next goal is put Troy behind the wheel so he can get a red hat.

      Once the car was put together but before it was finished or painted, Troy met with Terry DeKoninck, DaimlerChrysler's head aerodynamicist, to ask advice on the nosepiece and rear wing. Terry extended the envious invitation to bring Blowfish, as it was now being called, to the DCX wind tunnel. Working all night in the tunnel led to the final wing and nose shapes (among other things) and brought the aero down to a staggering 0.20 Cd with a frontal area smaller than both the Ford GT and the Corvette Z06. Oh yeah, it was going to go fast.
      With the body configured, Bob Thrash conceptualized the two-tone paint scheme, which was sprayed by

Warren Lewis, Ryan Kircher, and rich Milton of Rad Rides in Glasurit Golden Rod. Thrash painted the graphics and gold-leaf lettering on the car. Before it made the trip to Utah, the car went back into DCX wind tunnel for the final configuration. With suggestions from DeKoninck and other land-speed racers, the car was set up to provide just enough downforce to run over 200 mph, and the final aero number was 0.21 Cd. Blowfish was one slippery sucker and was finally ready to propel George into history.
      When the team first got to Bonneville, most people pegged Blowfish as just another Troy Trepanier show car. But in his

qualifying pass on the short course (also the car's very first run ever), George and Blowfish pounded the salt at 233 mph. That qualified him to make a backup run to set a record, since the old class record was 230.853 mph, but instead of taking the car to the mandatory impound, George brought it back to the pits to check everything over—remember, that was the first time the car had ever been run. They found a few small issues, one of which was that the center-exit exhaust scorched the parachute bags. Rad Rides' Dan Holohan extended the exhaust outlet a few inches to prevent that from happening again, and they got ready for the long course.

>Above: Painted, plated, and pretty, the little turbo-four fills the fish's engine bay. >Left: The HKS wastegate is adjustable via a button on the steering wheel. The car leave the line at low boost, and when George wants to go for three bills, the button gives the engine 35-plus pounds pressure.

      On the car's maiden voyage down the five-mile course, George looked at the tach as it went through the three-mile and realized he had hit the 255-mph target speed, so he ended the run and headed for impound with a 255.659-mph timeslip. The next morning, the result was the same: a 255.166-mph time at the three-mile and a new 255.412 record for F/Blown Fuel Competition Coupe (F/BFCC). The car could have gone much faster (George didn't even shift into overdrive), but all they wanted was the record and a red hat for George, and they got it. On top of that, George also got into the 300 MPH Club at the same event, setting a 325.934-mph record behind the wheel of Ron Main's EcoFire streamliner.

>Below: Dual Aeroquip oil-to-water coolers keep the coolant and engine-oil temps within 20 degrees of each other. >Below left: George's office is all about safety. Sitting in a Rad Rides- fabricated 0.090-inch-thick aluminum seat (with custom-designed head protector), George holds a Bickel wheel with buttons for boost and overdrive activation, and his right hand grabs the cool billet shift knob from CV Products controlling the Hurst Nextel Cup shifter. There's also a 20-pound Halon fire system with six nozzles. >Left: The RacePak V300 dash display provides the team with 43 channels of data. Fire buttons and battery cutoff switch are within easy reach.

      The ultimate goal is for blowfish to run well over 300 mph and become the fastest door-slammer in the world, and with Meaney tuning the engine to full song and George riding it out in high gear, the car should be able to do it. For now though, the goal is not three bills but rather to put Troy and as many of George's buddies as possible into the Two Club. All they have to do is bump the record in 10-mph increments and they can put four more people in the club. But George said, "I'm gonna be driving it when it hits that three." He also alluded to different engine combinations ("there's room for a big Hemi, a turbocharged big Hemi, whatever."), so this is a car that will probably see several different combos and plenty more entries in the record book.
      George said, "Troy and them did a fantastic job, and they made it too easy. Troy, Meaney, and Bob the Builder gave me a bullet to drive, and I'm still on a high from it."
      His only regret? "I just wish Gray could have been there with us."

>1. It's run an easy 255 mph in only three miles. With boost, rpm, and more distance, 300 shouldn't be a problem.

> The Rad Rides team: Troy Trepanier, Jack Trepanier, Dan Holohan, Adam Banks, Levi Green, Brian Ferguson, Andy Leach, Alex Marion, Al Taylor, Ryan Kirsher, Warren Lewis, and Rich Milton.

Special Credit to: Bob Thrash (graphic art designer), John Meaney (engine control and design), Bob Sweeny (engine design and builder), Terry DeKoninck (DaimlerChrysler head aerodynamics engineer), and Jon Clark (Mopar Performance). HRM