The Hot Rod Balancing Act

I’ve been building hot rods all my life—I should be able to say “adult life” but at 72 I’m not an adult just yet. At any rate, as with everything in life, especially hot rods, you have to have balance and my years of experience have taught me that overkill (like “1000hp street cars”) is never as much fun as it is cracked up to be. Good balance means carefree motoring, therefore fun, and I definitely came for the fun, not the break down. “High maintenance hot rods suck!” You heard that first from my pal Jim “Jake” Jacobs and me over 40 years ago!

Of course the main part of the formula is finding the right people to pull it off. Like someone who understands, and can perform the balancing act of the components and the way they interact is extremely rare. The other parts of the balance formula are good taste, establishing the right look—and with excellent horsepower-to-weight ratio to round out the equation.

Years ago we were experiencing difficulty with the front end of one of our hot rods. No matter what we tried, it just wasn’t working. A friend suggested we talk to a legendary New Zealand drag racer/car builder by the name of Robin “Silky” Silk. My friend was surprised that we hadn’t used Silky before, especially when he found out Silky lived just a few miles away from the Pomona SO-CAL Speed Shop. Silky made short work of the problem and showed a genius for the formula of balance. He got hired on the spot. That was 14 years ago.

Silky arrived on the SO-CAL scene just about the time we teamed up with GM Performance and were getting back to our roots of Bonneville racing. Basically he is our “go-to guy” for the entire crew. No matter what the issue—roll cages, chassis, engines, transmissions, electrical—this guy has the answer. He is the man and no shop can survive without a resident automotive magician like “Silky”!

Several years ago I wrote an article praising the young hot rodders and the crew we are assembling in our car shop. I want our young counterparts to better understand their hot rod roots, the skills of the trade and most importantly the role balance plays in a successful car project. With guys like Silky to learn from, I’m confident our heritage and tradition will live on.

Hot rodders are pretty much straight-line kind of guys, but that philosophy has changed a great deal as our clientele has moved somewhat from the old guard. Today, a well-balanced hot rod is at the forefront with coast to coast trips the norm, thus bringing the demand for faster, safer, more road-worthy cars. They’re not just  for looks and brute horsepower—but in my book, they never were.

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