George asks:
> Is there anybody out there that has actually taken an SP car and >
prepared it to the rules in the Prepared category? If so,
> were wheels really a major consideration?
Rick Tinsley did that with the silver Civic hatchback in which he trophied
in EP and Betsy Bryan-Tinsley drove to the EPL title at last year's
national
championships. They used to run that car in CSP, and I can guarantee you
that you are correct about the wheels being one of the last things on the
list of items to consider during the building process.
I was talking to him this past weekend about my DSP Civic and he mentioned
that they started building their car in 1986 and are now almost where they
wanted to be with it when they started. Keep in mind that Rick works at
Racer Wholesale so he has ready access at wholesale prices to just about
anything you would need to build a race car, including access to the lathes
and such to machine your own parts.
Yes, it can safely be said that it did not take him 13 years to figure out
what to do about wheels.
To add further fuel to the fire, Betsy won the CSP National Championship in
that car in 1990, and then started winning in EP in 1994 (I think). So
this is not just any CSP car that moved to prepared - it was a nationally
competitive CSP car that became a nationally competitive EP car.
-Brett
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