While the Lola waits for a post-Christmas pick-up for the next phase of its preparation, I decided to get a head start on the next cage at Izzy's.

The next car is an Improved Touring “B” car owned by Thomas Laird, a racer who's been away for some time and is returning to wheel to wheel racing with the St. Louis Region SCCA. Thomas is a retired NYC Policeman who used to run Formula Fords, and raced in the IMSA series. For his return to wheel to wheel racing, Thomas decided to campaign a 74 Ford Pinto with the 2.0L engine in IT (a class that was first forming when he was racing the first time around). Apparently the 74 2.0L is a fairly rare breed as most cars in 74 came with the larger 2.3L engine.

The car will be showing up at the shop on January 1st. In the mean time, the design for the main hoop, front downbars and doorbars has already been laid out along with the angles and lengths required. Once the car is here, the measurements will be double checked and we'll be ready to bend some tubing!

The cage will be a fairly simple 8 point cage, in front of the dash, no NASCAR style doorbars, and a rear diagonal from the hoop to the rear brace pad.

Believe it or not, in doing research for this project, I've come across quite a few, very dedicated Pinto racers. Take a look at some pics:

http://georgecallender.tripod.com/pinto/pintowarmuplap2.jpg
http://georgecallender.tripod.com/laborday2001/pns6.jpg
http://georgecallender.tripod.com/pinto/groupofpinto2.jpg

Pics and progress soon!

Scott
www.izzyscustomcages.com

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