Dave Sano’s Certifiably Crazy Challenger

Several months ago I received an email from the wife of a racer suggesting I check out her husband’s Nostalgia Funny Car. I get such emails on a fairly regular basis, and usually I discover a nice race car, but due to space limitations, they don’t make it to print. Dave Sano’s Challenger is an exception.

Dave’s here not just because of the high quality of his racer, but also Dave himself. He operates Sano’s Auto Body and Custom Paint in Dayton, New Jersey, specializing in race cars and hot rods. It’s one of few such emporiums in the Garden State, especially since the fabled Bob Gerdes of Circus Custom Paints folded his tent. Dave began painting cars at 17 in his parents’ garage. In  1988, at age 20, he opened his own shop, which has turned into a highly successful business. He’s definitely become the go-to guy for East Coast racers, having shot all of that area’s Nostalgia Flopper heavy-hitters.

Dave was one of those kids who was “eat up with drag racing,” and the illness, thankfully, was never cured. Not only did he want to paint race cars, he wanted to drive. In 1987, he ventured to a local swap meet and came upon an ancient front-motor dragster chassis and dragged it home. Dave explained, “For all I knew it could have been made of PVC pipe! It was a race car, and I wanted to go racing.” He yanked the engine out of his ’72 Mustang Mach 1, which served as his daily transportation (now that’s dedication!) and went bracket racing. He later discovered his aged chassis was one of Woody Gilmore’s ’60s era Flexi-Fliers.

In 1988, after opening his first shop, Dave took a $3,000 deposit, earned from his first paint job, and purchased one of the East Coast’s legendary Funny Cars, the Fireball Monza campaigned in the ’70s by Phillips and Shores, driven by Harlan Thompson. He installed an LS7 big-block and bracket raced it for the next four years. The Monza proved to be an excellent investment. His meticulous bodywork and paint job served as a rolling business card, establishing him as a serious player, and helped launch his business.

In 1993, Dave sold the Monza, upgraded his business and got married. After a year off from racing, he built and campaigned a Super Comp Dragster, but open air racing wasn’t his style. In 1998, he saw an ad for a ’78 Plymouth Arrow Flopper, which turned out to be Jim “The Wombat” Wemett’s former ride. The dated, squared-off Arrow body was quickly replaced by a much swoopier Corvette body, which in an earlier life was John Force’s ’78 Wendy’s Hamburger racer. Dave installed an injected big-block, and once again, went bracket racing. This ride went down the road in exchange for a blown alcohol Hemi engine.

In 2001, Dave acquired Alcohol Funny Car hero and multi-year world champ Bob Newberry’s 1988 S&W chassis and mounted an ultra-rare 1973 Pontiac Grand-Am body on it. One of six bodies built by Fiberglass Limited, it was run by the late Mickey Thompson, and Dave had one of two still in existence. Featuring the newly acquired alky Hemi backed by an automatic transmission, Dave was a regular competitor at tracks along the East Coast, especially his home track, Englishtown Raceway, and Atco. In 2005, a catastrophic transmission explosion severely wounded the Grand-Am body, but fortunately Dave’s body went unscathed. His bodyworking skills were put to the test in order to heal his rare piece. The end results were top-notch, but anyone who’s been around fiberglass Flopper bodies knows repair work adds weight, and major repairs add serious weight, and weight saps performance.

When Dave’s good friend, Funny Car fabricator Bob Rosetti of Funny Car Farm fame, offered up one of his 1970 Challenger bodies in 2012, he quickly shelved the portly Pontiac. After Dave laid on the luscious purple paint job, Steve Bell of Bell Signs in Edison, New Jersey masterfully did the airbrush work and lettering. The name “Screamin’ Insanity,” you ask? Well, Dave and wife Elizabeth’s lovely daughter Lia had just been born, and as any new parents will tell you, at times home life can be pretty chaotic!

The alcohol-burning Hemi powering the Challenger came from East Coaster Vinny Cirillo’s Scarlet Fever Funny Car driven by Dennis Bedrosian. Dave is fortunate to have Ray Noonan and Wayne Celko, two legendary NHRA Division 1 Alcohol Dragster heavy-hitters involved with wrenching and tuning the engine. When they roll into the pits for one of the area’s notorious nostalgia match races, their competition know trouble is afoot. Last season, the boys ran a stout 6.39 at 218 mph, and you can expect more, way more, for 2015 since they’re just starting to get a handle on it.

Dave is one of those rare individuals who has been able to live out his passions, painting race cars and drag racing. He’d like to thank all those who have helped to make his dreams come true, especially his wife Elizabeth, sons Michael and Christopher, and daughter Lia.