Rusty Hood Racing is in LeMons South Fall!....and rollcage prep tonight

Team Rusty Hood Racing is officially in the LeMons South Fall race at Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, South Carolina. Our team consists of three of my co-workers from Honda and my Dad. The five of us are campaigning a 1985 Ford Ranger that is fashioned after the Big Rigs that race in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. We bought the car in February and have slowly worked on it for the past few months waiting to spend too much money before we got official word that our entry has been accepted. Here are a few pics of the car so far and our "team concept" that we submitted with our entry. Please note that at the time I wrote this my Dad was his own team that folded so he decided to join up with us.

Rusty Hood Racing Team Concept

"We are four recently gradumacated college students looking to get our LeMon popped. Unfazed by low salaries and lots of overtime, we are looking to get our automotive jollies off in the most fun of ways. All four team members are ex-FSAE/Baja SAE engineers with combined 7 total cars built, currently work for Honda R&D, and are equally obsessed with all automotive and racing debauchery. Our entry is to be a pick-up truck styled after the Pikes Peak hill climb big rigs. LeMons Pikes Peak Replica Essentials: 1) No truck bed 2) Big ass wing fashioned out of street signs (also cockpit adjustable)3) Smoke stacks 4) Rollcage extending from cabin to wing 5) Flat black paint 6) Rusty hood. Upon reading this entry, you may be wondering why 4 Ohioans would not choose to run The Lamest Day event at Nelson Ledges. Simple, Ohio is cold and South Carolina aint. To make this even more fun, team captain Dave Ogburn will (hopefully) get to race his old man in South Carolina. The chance to put your Dad into the wall does not come around often when your name isn’t Andretti (just kidding, we will play nice). Also, we promise to bring attractive women and lots of booze. Hope to see you guys in September."

LeMons Danger Ranger on the day we drove it home

LeMons Ranger after hood rustification and bed removal
LeMons Ranger after Wing Building

Currently, we are prepping the car to the rollcage fabrication. We spent about 4 hours tonight removing the doors, seat, instrument panel, dash, and heater ducting. Next step is to clean the cab and begin laying out the rollcage members. We purchased a "weld-it-yourself" cage from JEGS to make our lives easier. Here are few pictures from today's work (we keep the wing inside to keep it fresh).

Wanna buy a nice bench seat?

We still eat like college kids