Kevin -- Thank YOU for hosting the evening.. your 10th year in business and the 1st Annual open house -- isn't that what you referred it as? Your shop is awesome and 1st class -- very impressive! The group of people who attended were all friendly, and the movies and food was most appreciated.

Jimi's presentation on the USCA (Ultimate Street Car Association) racing series was excellent!!! I hope to attend a couple events (Road America, Michigan Int'l and Gateway/StLouis are possibilities, even if its just to watch the wknd's events).

AND... your Valient is on its way to be one of THE fastest USCA cars in the country... best that its a MOPAR .. or no car!

Thanks for your advice on potential future work on my Challenger - I know you're an expert is such chassis work. I'll see you again, soon!

http://bangshift.com/blog/project-violen...-installed.html

looks awesome! would love to hear it fire up!

Hey guys. Sorry I haven't been on here in a while. Running a business, trying to keep up with all the sites, I have a new son, and slaving away to get the Valiant done for the Summer, etc. You guys get the picture. I'm posting a link to all the updates on Bangshift.com, and I'll try to get some unique photos up on here this week.

http://bangshift.com/category/general-news/project-cars/mopar-projects/

Just a question, looking over your partially installed cage, I noticed over the past few years SCCA? rules now state the main roll bar diagonal should be a one piece tube, and the horizontal harness tube is OK as two pieces, I have done it in the past like you did, any comments, and why would it really matter much anyway?

I wasn't aware of that. As an engineer, I'm not sure what difference it would make. SCCA requires that diagonal. NHRA doesn't. The idea that the main hoop would skew laterally in a crash with the back bar and #7 & 8 bars in place is pretty amazing. NHRA uses SFI for testing. I'm not sure who SCCA uses, but I trust SFI to put our blueprints for cages that would survive almost anything, per speed spec.

SCCA I believe makes provisions to protect a driver in the event of being run into by another car. There are a lot of different situations that can come up in a road race that are no issue in drags.