Rookie Rod - How We Did It
Here is an article I have written about what we have done to our Rookie Rod since we bought it late last year.
I have many fond memories of going to Arlington with my dad as a kid to watch on Wednesday nights and just wishing that one day I would get the chance to have a car of my own to throw around the tight ¼ mile ovals. Up until early last year I had not been to a meeting for a few years but a couple of trips to Wimbledon were all it took to get hooked again. My dad Mick (a very successful minicross and Hot Rod racer in the 80’s) and I then decided it was time to get me behind the wheel of a race car.
So the search was on for a Rookie Rod. We decided that this was an ideal starting point for a newbie racer who’s current racing CV consists of a few action packed quad bike parties and the odd run out in a grass buggy.
At this moment in time we were still living in a cul-de-sac where it would have been frowned upon by the neighbours to have a car more than 8 years old sitting on the front drive. Now though we have moved somewhere much more peaceful in the Sussex countryside with a lot more room for storage.
We almost decided to get an old 2nd hand nova and build one from scratch because I had been looking everywhere for months to find a ‘ready to race’ Nova Rookie Rod but nothing came up. However we were advised that this would be a wrong move. Everyone I had spoken to said that your first car wants to be one that has already been raced, gain all the knowledge from that one and use that knowledge to build your 2nd car so you have a better idea of where all the wiring, fixings etc should go. All of a sudden I saw an advert for a car that was up for sale in East Anglia.
It was a long trek there and back
but we picked up the car, trailer and lots of spares, there were so many spare
wheels and panels that we could not fit them all inside the car, we had to strap
some very securely on the bed of the trailer underneath the car at the front and
the back. We became a bit suspicious when the old bill tailgated us for several
miles but luckily they turned off down onto another road much to our relief.
“Trailer lights must still be working then,” Dad said. When we were about 20
miles from home I glanced in the mirror and noticed one of the straps had come
loose and one of the spare bonnets was just about to fly off the trailer into
the path of some poor unsuspecting person. We made sure everything was secure
once more and carried on our way home with no further problems.
The very next day we were straight to work on the car and the first job I quickly found out was to reposition the seat as my knees were hunched up tight underneath the steering wheel, which would have felt fine until I wanted to turn right! Locating the 4 bolts under the seat and undoing them were the hardest part, I was there for ages with the spanner, it was so hard unscrewing the nut when I could hardly get any leverage with the spanner or actually see what I was doing. I had the mole grip (which I had just learnt how to use) firmly clamping the screw on the top side of the seat whilst I went to work unscrewing the nut underneath the seat and what a struggle it was. A few bad words were uttered but finally after persevering long enough we managed to get all the bolts undone and the seat was freed. It was now vital that we got the seat position spot on! We decided to move it back about 3 or 4 inches and then set about drilling the holes to re-fix the seat back into place. Thankfully now the seat is just where I want it, not too far forward that I’m leaning on the steering wheel and not so far back that I’m like Stretch Armstrong trying to reach the controls. I may however, have to lengthen my left leg to reach the clutch pedal!
The next job on the cards was to knock out any previous battle scars. Dad went to work on the back end of the car to just push it out ever so slightly using several big wooden blocks, one of which would be wedged against one of the roll bars and the other one against the part of the car that we wanted to push out, in-between these would be a bottle jack. The blocks we had were different shapes and sizes to we had a pretty amusing time deciding which ones to use and trying to re-arrange them in different orders so that enough force was applied to the metal. It felt like we were doing one of those mind-bending puzzles you get in Christmas crackers.
We quickly found out that the metal was very springy; when the back end of the car was jacked out to where we wanted it to be we looked at it and thought, wow that’s right where we want it to be. However when we let the jack out and removed the blocks the metal would spring right back almost to where it was before. I’d say we managed to move it back a few centimetres a time at the most. So after repeating the same process several times over and getting it almost out to where it should be the only thing left to do was rely on brute force. A metal rod was found and a club hammer picked from the toolbox. We found that method very tiring but much more effective as we had the back end fully straightened out in no time. That was only the first stages of panel beating completed though.
The next job was to take out our aggression on the front wings. Hours were spent in the garage one Sunday afternoon with the rain hammering down outside. We had the car jacked up on the side that we were working on and took the wheel off so we could have a real go at beating out the dents. We tried clamping the wooden blocks to the underside of the wings and just beat out the worst bits with a club hammer so that it would straighten the metal but we found out that directly hitting the dents from the underside of the wings was a much more effective method for smaller dents. It certainly looks a lot better now than it did.
After so much panel beating it was time for something completely different. It was time for all the sign writing to come off now. To do this we used the drill but obviously put a coarse wood sanding disk bought from a local DIY store on the end of it. After a few practice goes with it and making a complete hash of one part of the bonnet by grinding all the paintwork down to the bare metal I was eventually getting the hang of it, sanding just the surface this time, just lightly enough to take all the signwriting off. It took me all of one afternoon to do the whole car, which now looked a mess at this point. I got through about 3 sanding disks; it was a very dusty job though so goggles were worn to prevent having very sore eyes.
Then came the most time consuming
project as we had to rub the whole car down with sheets of sandpaper to roughen
up the smooth parts to allow the next coat of paint to stick to the bodywork. A
task that certainly builds up those arm muscles. I found the best time to do
this was actually at night when I had to rely on the security lights and several
torches as a light source. This way you could easily see the smooth parts that
we had missed if you weren’t blocking the light with your own shadow. Some
smooth edges would also squeak slightly as I rubbed them down so that helped me
identify which parts I had missed also. Whilst rubbing the bodywork down I
noticed some patches on one of the panels where some plastic filler has started
to split and peel off leaving a crater so rather than leave them I decided to
knock the loose bits out using a screwdriver as a chisel and re-fill the
patches. This was the first time I had used plastic filler and what a messy job,
I was using an old credit card to mix it all up and used a sturdy piece of
cardboard to mix it on. By the time I had filled in the patches that needed
doing my hands were plastered in this stuff. Even after I washed then thoroughly
it still looked like I had some bad fungal infection. I left the filler to
harden overnight and then came back the next evening and sanded it down to level
it all off outside in sub zero temperatures. When I couldn’t feel my fingers
anymore I decided it was time to call it a night and go inside!
One weekend was spent in the garage getting used to the new MIG welder Dad had just bought. We decided that it was probably best to practice on scrap pieces of metal that we had before we tried doing anything drastic on the car. Good job too. It was so difficult to get to grips with it in the first instance, trying to see where your going with the welding mask on is extremely tricky, just when you think you are welding along in a nice neat line, you look at what you have just done and find its gone diagonal and also burnt a hole in the metal. When it was plugged into the mains it kept tripping out all the power in the house, which became very frustrating and annoyed mum quite a lot especially when she was trying to cook the Sunday dinner. After many hours of practice though Dad had got to grips with the welder and decided to weld some metal plates at the front and rear to fill the headlight space. This then needed grinding down with the angle grinder and some more filler spread over it to even out all the rough edges.
There are still a number of things to be done on the car before we go racing and we have only recently sprayed the whole car with a coat of primer, that was tricky because you have got be careful not to spray too much on or go over the bits too much that have already been done otherwise the paint will run. We used 4 cans and still a bit of touching up may need to be done here and there but the cans aren’t too expensive so that’s not too bad. The car though been improved over the last couple of months. Hours and hours have already been spent working on it but we have enjoyed every minute of it.
Our car looked totally different with its new coat of primer, all that needed was to go over a few bits that had been missed. In the end I think we used 5 cans of grey primer!
After finishing that little task it was time to paint the bumpers. I chose to paint them white which probably will turn out to be a bad decision as it will show up any rubs, scratches or dirt more than any other colour. However white would really work well with our paint scheme. I just bought a tin of dulux non-drip gloss from a local DIY store and used about half of that. It was quite therapeutic out there painting in the garage one night with the radio on, very chilly though.
I hung the bumpers up to dry for a few days and in the meantime I started investigating places where we could get the car sprayed. I obtained a few quotes from places nearby thanks to Steve Wright (rookie rod #200) but ideally I wanted to find somewhere in Uckfield which is only about 5 miles down the road from where I live. I contacted Andy Owen (stock rod #77) who gave me the number of one of his sponsors ‘SPR Coachworks’. After getting a quote from them we decided this was most convenient place, so one Monday morning in gale force winds and torrential rain Dad and I had the job of taking the car into town. We picked it up the next day with the conditions being just as bad, we secured a cover back over the seat and loaded the car up onto the trailer and headed home before unloading the car and wheeling it back into the garage. At this point we were soaked and were glad to get in and dry off.
The next chance to get the car out of the garage came at the weekend; the new ‘tahiti blue’ paint looked fantastic and the car had a fresh new look about it as it glistened in the sunshine. We used the spare time that we had to clean the spark plugs, check the oil, radiator fluid and make note of tyre pressures so we were fully prepared for our upcoming test session. Once all the checks were done it was time to refit the bumpers and fin plates, we were now all set for testing.
After booking in advance we took the car up to Arena Essex to ‘stretch its legs’. The idea of this test was just to get the hang of driving the car around a ¼ mile oval and to arrive back home without any dents or scratches. I got myself strapped into the car with all my gear on for the first time and was ready and raring to get out there. Dad told me to go out for a cautious 10 lap run just to bed the brakes in and to get used to driving the car as previously the furthest I had driven the car was about 10 yards up the drive. What an awesome feeling. On lap 3 I was going full throttle and getting a good idea on where to get on the brakes and where I should apex the corner. My lines still needed improving though as I was not letting the car drift out towards the wall on the exit of the corner so I found myself in the middle of the track going down the straights on the first few laps. I knew it would all come with experience though.
Dad signalled for me to come in. He checked the tyre pressures and filled the car up with fuel. Soon after I was strapped back in and I went back out on track for a second run. This time I was on track for a longer period of time. I even got to do some practice starts, bit too much wheelspin off the start line for the first one as the smoke flooded the cockpit but after a few more I think I improved.
I was soon perfecting my lines in the corners, drifting nicely out to the wall on the exit and picking up the throttle earlier off the corner each lap and braking later going in. I was really starting to have a blast out there. I was feeling more at home every lap. It was hard trying to get used to not driving it like a road car, going round the track I was having to hold my right hand at about 1 o clock and my left hand at about 7 o clock on the steering wheel to make it easier when cornering, this felt extremely weird and took a while to get used to. The car was feeling tight (as the Americans say) or experiencing a bit of under steer coming off the turns so for the final 2 runs we made some slight tyre pressure adjustments. The changes actually made the car feel better and that reflected in the lap times as I seemed to be getting quicker and quicker. The last run felt like the best run, the laps felt more consistent and a bit faster so after 4 successful runs we decided to call it a day. I came away very pleased at what I had achieved, the aim of the day was to learn more each run and bring the car home it one piece, I did both!
After we brought the car back home it was time to sort out the livery.
I made a mock up design on the computer of what stickers I wanted and where they would go on the car and sent this to Dave Baldwin, (Graphics by Dave) who has made a great job of many other cars on the short oval scene. In less than 2 weeks the stickers had been made up and Dave delivered them to my doorstep. Dad and I were keen to try and make a half-decent job of putting the stickers on the car and we proceeded to do that one Saturday afternoon. Everything had been done to fit perfectly and it was a relatively pain free task, I think we made quite a good job of it too, the ‘Mike Hill Architectural Services’ Rookie Rod looks very nice now, especially with the day glow numbers on the side.
So now all that is left to do is to look forward to my debut at Bovingdon on 21st March. I have to say a big thanks to my Dad for all the time, money and effort he has invested in me so far. Without his help and knowledge I most certainly would not be here.
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