Suspect Racing

Suspect Racing Suspect Racing. Sports cars from the past and present, repairs, racing and driving. Car maintenance, set up, tuning. repairs. Oval track prep.

Over 40 years experience on British cars. Engine and transmission building. Roll cages and other fab work.

03/18/2026

The racing team led by Bill Jenkins became one of the most respected and technically advanced operations in early NHRA Pro Stock racing. Known as the “Grumpy’s Toys” team, Jenkins and his crew focused heavily on precision engine development, data-driven tuning, and careful chassis preparation. Their race cars—often based on platforms like the Chevrolet Camaro and the Chevrolet Vega—were meticulously prepared to maximize traction, reliability, and horsepower on the drag strip.

The Jenkins team worked closely with major performance manufacturers, including Edelbrock and Holley, helping develop advanced intake manifolds and carburetor setups that improved airflow and engine efficiency. Through constant testing and innovation, the team created some of the fastest naturally aspirated Pro Stock engines of the era. Their success on the track and influence on engine technology helped establish Bill Jenkins and his crew as pioneers of modern Pro Stock drag racing.

03/18/2026

Spring 1917. The American war machine is hungry for metal, and the War Industries Board has its eyes on an unlikely source: the steel boning inside millions of women's corsets.

These weren't the dainty undergarments of today. We're talking about rigid cages of whalebone and steel that cinched waists, compressed organs, and made breathing difficult. Women laced themselves into these instruments of torture every morning as religiously as brushing their teeth.

Then came the public service announcements. Your country needs metal for battleships and bullets. Stop buying new corsets with steel boning. It was framed as patriotic duty, wrapped in red, white, and blue.

And American women responded. They stopped purchasing, and manufacturers changed their designs. The campaign reportedly saved enough steel to build two battleships—28,000 tons, according to the War Industries Board's own estimates.

But here's what nobody in Washington anticipated: once women felt what it was like to move freely, to breathe deeply, to bend at the waist without permission from whale bones and steel rods, they refused to go back.

The fashion industry scrambled to catch up. Suddenly, designers were creating loose-fitting dresses that didn't require a corseted waist. The flapper silhouette of the 1920s, that straight up-and-down look that scandalized grandmothers everywhere, wasn't just a fashion choice. It was a revolution accelerated by wartime practicality.

Women who'd spent their entire adult lives strapped into restrictive armor discovered they could play tennis, dance the Charleston, even take full breaths without fainting. They'd been told their whole lives that corsets were necessary for health, for posture, for respectability. The war proved that was a lie.

The corset drive of 1917 was supposed to be a temporary sacrifice. Instead, it accidentally accelerated a quiet rebellion that reshaped women's bodies, fashion, and autonomy for generations. The government asked for steel. Women gave them that and reclaimed something far more valuable: their own comfort and freedom of movement.

Sometimes the most profound changes come disguised as patriotic duty.

Just another day at the track
03/11/2026

Just another day at the track

03/03/2026

In 2008, Canadian musician Dave Carroll found himself at the center of an unforgettable incident involving United Airlines when baggage handlers at Chicago O'Hare airport damaged his $3,500 Taylor guitar. After witnessing the mishandling, Carroll attempted to seek compensation, but his claim was rejected by the airline due to a missed 24-hour filing window. Frustrated with United's lack of accountability, Carroll turned to a new platform for redress: social media.

In July 2009, Carroll released the song "United Breaks Guitars" on YouTube, where it quickly went viral. The catchy tune and humorous lyrics about the airline’s poor customer service resonated with millions of viewers, and as of late 2025, the video had garnered an astonishing 29 million views. The viral sensation not only brought public attention to Carroll's experience but also forced United Airlines to respond swiftly. Within days, the company adjusted its stance and offered Carroll a settlement of $1,200 in cash and $1,200 in flight vouchers.

However, Carroll turned down the personal payout, instead requesting that the airline donate the money to charity. In response, United agreed to donate $3,000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, which Carroll had chosen as the recipient. The incident, which is now a widely studied case at Harvard Business School, had far-reaching consequences for United Airlines. The airline's stock dropped by 10%, approximately $180 million in market cap, although it recovered within a month. Carroll's clever use of social media not only drew attention to corporate accountability but also reshaped the way companies handle public relations crises in the digital age.

The job today was to install a brand new set of SU HS6 carbs on a 65 Morgan. Had to fabricate the heat shields a linkage...
03/03/2026

The job today was to install a brand new set of SU HS6 carbs on a 65 Morgan. Had to fabricate the heat shields a linkage. Looking pretty good.

02/18/2026

Victoria Bruno is rejecting museum-grade car culture by daily-driving her 1987 Ferrari Testarossa.

After a full DIY mechanical restoration, she is pushing this flat-12 icon toward a 112,000-mile goal.

02/18/2026

Arnie Beswick built his reputation on relentless Pontiac development, and the Funny Tiger was one of the loudest expressions of that effort. At its heart was a ferocious 421-cubic-inch Pontiac V8 tuned to survive sustained high-rpm drag racing punishment. Beswick focused on airflow, fuel delivery, and bottom-end durability, refining the combination until it delivered explosive launches and a hard pull through the lights. The engine’s thunderous exhaust note and aggressive tune made it instantly recognizable in the staging lanes, a mechanical signature that matched Beswick’s fearless driving style.

The Funny Tiger program demonstrated how far a determined privateer could push factory-based hardware. While many competitors leaned on more common big-inch Hemi combinations, Beswick kept advancing Pontiac power, extracting every ounce of performance from the 421 platform. The result was a car that didn’t just run strong—it carried brand pride, engineering experimentation, and showmanship in equal measure. Crowds came to hear the roar as much as to see the elapsed time, and the Funny Tiger cemented Beswick’s status as one of drag racing’s most dedicated Pontiac champions.

02/17/2026

This 1964 Bill Thomas Cheetah stands as one of the most radical and aggressive American sports cars ever conceived, designed specifically as a Chevrolet-powered answer to the dominant Shelby Cobra. Engineered by renowned Chevrolet performance tuner Bill Thomas, the Cheetah was a masterclass in extreme packaging and weight distribution, featuring a lightweight fiberglass body wrapped tightly around a minimalist chromoly steel chassis. Its striking, curvaceous silhouette was dictated by the mechanical components within, resulting in a car that looked like nothing else on the track or the street.

Technically, the Cheetah utilized a front-mid-mounted Chevrolet 327 cubic inch V8 engine. To achieve a near-perfect weight balance, the engine was pushed so far back in the chassis that the output shaft of the transmission was connected directly to the differential by a universal joint, completely eliminating the need for a traditional driveshaft. This layout placed the engine heat directly against the driver's legs, but it provided incredible traction and agility. In high-performance trim, these 327 powerplants—similar to the one displayed on the trolley in the image—pushed the Cheetah to terrifying speeds.

The performance of the Cheetah was nothing short of legendary, if somewhat unpredictable due to its short wheelbase. During testing at Daytona in 1964, a prototype was recorded reaching speeds between 187 and 215 mph, figures that were almost unheard of for a front-engine car of that displacement. While it possessed the raw speed to challenge the best in the world, the project was hampered by cooling issues and a fire at the production facility, which contributed to its extremely limited production run between 1963 and 1966.

Today, an original Bill Thomas Cheetah is one of the rarest and most sought-after prizes in the automotive world, with only a small handful of the original cars known to survive. It remains a monument to the "wild west" era of American road racing, where a single tuner could challenge corporate giants with a fiberglass body and a well-tuned Chevy small-block. The Cheetah stands as a brutal, beautiful reminder of Bill Thomas's vision for the ultimate American racer.

02/17/2026

Lew Arrington’s famous Brutus funny car was powered by a heavily modified Pontiac combination built around a stroked 421 that grew to roughly 450 cubic inches. The standout feature was a rare set of Mickey Thompson aluminum Hemi-style cylinder heads, an exotic upgrade that pushed airflow far beyond conventional Pontiac architecture of the period. The engine blended brute displacement with experimental head design, making Brutus one of the most technically interesting funny cars of its day and a serious contender on the match-race circuit.

Jungle Jim Liberman helped cement the car’s legend during his stint behind the wheel of the Pontiac GTO-bodied machine. Driving with his trademark showmanship, Liberman turned the already wild Brutus into a crowd favorite, pairing aggressive performance with entertainment that defined 1960s funny car culture. His time in the GTO helped launch the persona that later made him one of drag racing’s biggest stars, while the Arrington-built engine program proved Pontiac power could run with the best in an era dominated by Chrysler Hemis.

Ok this car belongs to a good friend and fellow racer. Like so many time nos days he went to the storage lot to get his ...
02/17/2026

Ok this car belongs to a good friend and fellow racer. Like so many time nos days he went to the storage lot to get his race trailer and car and found them gone. If you spot a car or bits of a car this color of a battleship grey car trailer let me know

If you want a proper full on performance head for you A-series engine this is the correct one to purchase. Ask me how I ...
01/27/2026

If you want a proper full on performance head for you A-series engine this is the correct one to purchase. Ask me how I know. This is the best you can get.

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18546 County Road 270
East Bernard, TX
77435

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+17132549276

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