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~ Critters Negotiable ~
Black Moon Rising
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Freddie Valdez of Kustom Kreations did a magnificent job considering what we gave him to work with....The top ended up being chopped 5 1/2" and the only other thing Dave asked Freddie to do was to make "all the parts, the fenders, the doors, etc. come apart". Not asking too much of a friend and freebie now were we ? It's how it was around our complex back then, each did for the other for cost of materials. While Freddie and his crew were doing the basic bodywork, Dave was calling and asking around to get someone to build the chassis for it. The chassis Dave wanted was to be front engine, trans, third member and true four link. Even with all of our good friends and contacts in the chassis business, all said no, the car was just too small for their style of work which was V8 Pro Stock chassis. The only person that said yes was Greg Peterson Peterson Fabrication over on the next street as he had done a similar set up with his Hilborn Injected BBC Chevette street car but Greg was buried with chassis orders and said he was really sorry but couldn't get to it for ages.
Hmmmm.... Kenneth McGehee, a good friend and customer back in South Fulton, TN had a young son, Randy, that was building very competitive sand rails. Literally nagged Randy into building the chassis, so we loaded up Blackie's body, put her on a truck and off to Tennessee she went. Randy spent quite a bit of time at any and all NHRA drag race he could, crawling under Bob Gliden's and any other NHRA Pro Stocker he could and asking questions. You would have to know Randy to understand how he could get away with this but Randy later told us that Bob Gliden was the most gracious and the one that shared the most info and knowledge with him. Lot of tries and do overs, get one thing done and in place but then the next thing wouldn't fit. Eventually Blackie's chassis was done and Randy asked how we wanted to get it back to CA. Told Randy we would pay him what any freight charges would be to bring it back if he would be willing to do that. Randy called and said he couldn't but he had a friend that would "trailer" Blackie back to us. Blackie showed up on a homemade dune buggy T-trailer, Praise the Lord we didn't know she was coming home that way but she did make it just fine. Randy McGehee later started his own successful chassis building business, TRP, also known as Tennessee Racing Products.
Blackie's first burn out....
Lord love a duck ! It worked ! Blackie worked ! A customer of Phill Whetstone's, Chuck Phelps ~ RIP ~ , who in our opinion had the most gorgeous all black with pink and magenta graphics B Fuel Coupe that Phill lettered, striped and maintained and Chuck had named Bad Moon Rising. I called Chuck and asked if he would mind if we named our car Black Moon Rising, Chuck said that would be cool. When Chuck was in town for an NHRA event, Chuck would come by Phill's to visit and then on over to our shop to see how his car's "little sister" was doing. |
