News & Events Archive

May 5, 2021

2021 DeBoss Garage InterNETional Car Show Update: Da Winnas!

The voters have voted and the winners have (finally) officially won the 2021 Deboss Garage InterNETional Car Show. It was another smash hit with over 1,200 entries from around the globe, including boats, farm equipment, and even a couple of airplanes. It was such a smash, in fact, DeBoss had to create InterNetional Cars, a new YouTube channel that will soon be filled with many of the build videos that were submitted.

The InterNETional Car Show featured 14 categories judged by some of the interweb’s most awesome car people. You, the general public, got to vote on the Top 25 entries in each category. The judges then chose their favorites and sent them to the finale to compete for fabulous Summit Racing Gift Cards.

Mar 31, 2021

See How a Motorcycle Guy Builds a 500 Horsepower LS Turbo Engine

Matthew Bochnak runs the How To Motorcycle Repair website and MatthewMCRepair channel on YouTube. If something is ailing your street or motocross bike, chances are Matt has a post or video that will help you diagnose and fix the problem.

But Matt has a little secret: he likes horsepower, and lots of it. His power platform of choice is a 1970 Chevy Chevelle he’s owned for 15 years.

During that time, he replaced the four-wheel manual drums with C5 Corvette disc brakes, rebuilt the front suspension and added tubular upper control arms, and converted to a quick-ratio power steering box. Under the hood was a small block 350 with a Holley four-barrel carburetor, headers, and other minor upgrades.

Feb 12, 2021

Currie Explains: Selecting the Right Differential for Your Ford 9 Inch Axle

Positraction. Sure-Grip. Safe-T-Track. Traction-Lok. Anti-Spin. Twin Traction. There’s a bunch of names for it, but regardless of what you like to call it, a limited-slip differential is what you want to get both rear tires of your hot rod or muscle car to grip the pavement. Unlike Joe Dirt’s dad who thinks a posi-trac rear-end in a Plymouth works because “it just does,” choosing the right limited-slip differential for your Ford 9 inch rear axle can be confusing.

Fortunately, Jon Henson of Currie Enterprises made this video that shows you the most popular diffs available for Ford’s popular axle—the Detroit Locker, the Traction Lock, and the Detroit Truetrac—and which one is best for the type of driving you do. Enjoy and learn something!

Jan 25, 2021

Make Your Fox Handle with this QA1 Suspension Upgrade Guide

If there is truly a jack-of-all-trades car, the Ford Fox body Mustang may just be it. It’s just so darn easy to build a street machine, drag racer, autocrosser, or road racer out of a Fox. And talk about popular—Ford produced over 2.6 million of the cars between 1979 and 1993, meaning that every fourth Mustang ever made was a Fox body. The cars are still easy to find and you won’t have to mortgage yourself to the hilt to buy one.

Keep in mind, however, that the Fox body is an old car now. While it was considered a decent handler in its day, a modern minivan probably corners better than a stock Fox. Add in age and use and you better believe that the factory bushings, ball joints, shocks, and springs on most Fox Body Mustangs are long past their prime.

You could settle for an OE-spec rebuild using parts designed when This is Spinal Tap played at the local drive-in. Or you can crank the fun meter up to eleven with road- and track-proven QA1 performance suspension components. Why QA1? Because the products are built to exacting specifications from high-quality materials and bolt into the factory locations without any fuss.

Moreover, QA1 parts can be installed all at once or in stages. For instance, if you find that every part of your suspension is toast, you can replace the whole shebang in one fell swoop like PowerNation TV’s Detroit Muscle did with the Sydewinder 1981 Mustang Cobra. You can also build your car in stages as your budget allows. What’s great about this method is that you can keep driving your car as you make upgrades since QA1 products work seamlessly with the factory parts.

Follow along as we show you how QA1 can help you get the most bang for your buck from your Fox body.

Jan 15, 2021

Maintain Your Fleet with These AutoMeter Garage Essentials

Lead Image Courtesy of Lateral-G.net

It wasn’t too long ago that two-car households were a big deal. Today, having several daily drivers, a project vehicle or race car, an ATV/UTV or a bike, and lots of lawn equipment doesn’t even raise an eyebrow.

Whether you’re the commander of an internal combustion-powered fleet or just a couple of vehicles, three essential tools you should have in your shop are a battery charger/maintainer, good tire pressure gauges, and a jumpstart pack. AutoMeter makes very good versions of each that are worth a look.

Sep 23, 2020

So You Want to Go iRacing: A Primer

What’s a racer with an itchy accelerator foot to do when they can’t be at the track? Do what thousands of your fellow competitors do and go iRacing. it's not a game--iRacing is an online racing simulation where you can virtually compete in many types of racing including NASCAR, Formula 1, World of Outlaws, Australian SuperCar, and Rallycross. The tracks and cars are modeled after their real-world counterparts, and many racers use iRacing to improve their driving skills when they can’t get to a real-world track.

Ian Giebeler, who works in Summit Racing’s IT department, is a longtime autocrosser who has been an iRacer since 2011. He got into iRacing when he worked for a Grand-Am race team out of North Canton, Ohio. We tapped his brain to get some pointers for drivers new to the iRacing thing.

Sep 12, 2020

See How a Movie Stuntman Uses Legos to Plan his Stunts

See that man in the Summit Racing drivers suit? It looks like he's reverting back to childhood and playing with toy race cars, but veteran movie and TV stuntman Richard Fike is doing anything but.

Fike is the owner of Stunt Predators USA, and has been performing and coordinating vehicle stunt driving and chase scenes, explosions, shootouts, and other mayhem for over 38 years. Chances are good you've seen a Stunt Predators-choreographed stunt in movies like A Better Way to Die and The Avengers. Fike has also done stunts for many TV shows, music videos, and commercials.

In this video on the Great Big Story YouTube channel, you'll see how Fike uses realistic LEGO Technic models to plan vehicle stunts like high skiing, reverse J-turns, and ramp jumps. He sketches a small-scale layout of the stunt scene on concrete with a piece of chalk, then roll the LEGO cars through the layout to see if there will be any obstacles or other potential problems.

It all looks like fun, but it's serious business for Fike and his team.

"The biggest thing about stunt performers is that we are not daredevils," he says. "Daredevils take unnecessary risks. We take calculated risks."

Aug 11, 2020

Learn About All Things LS with Coverman 66 on YouTube

Terry Wilson, a.k.a Coverman66, is just like us--someone whose love of hot rods and horsepower knows no bounds. At age 10 he was driving his uncle’s muscle cars on the back roads of South Carolina, and started building his own junk in high school. But it was when Terry test-drove a 1998 Camaro with the then-new LS1 V8 that everything clicked.

Fast-forward to now. Terry has a home shop where he builds classic muscle cars with nothing but LS series engines under the hood. In one of life's happy accidents, he posted a video of one of his builds on YouTube by mistake and it became an instant hit. Now Terry is spreading the LS gospel on his Coverman66 YouTube channel with videos covering everything from LSA installs to tricks and tips on getting your LS build to run perfectly.

Aug 10, 2020

Team Summit Logs Double Semifinals Finish

Sunday at the Dodge NHRA Indy Nationals was prosperous for Team Summit drivers Greg Anderson and Jason Line as they both reached the semifinals on opposite sides of the ladder.

Line qualified Number One and had the dominant car going into eliminations. He clocked low elapsed time of eliminations with a 6.607-second pass at 208.01 MPH to defeat Robert River in Round One. In the second round, Line’s 6.632/208.01 put Chris McGaha on the trailer.

In the semis, an abrupt tail-wag of his car's rear end and massive rattle of the tires halted Line’s progress, and the numbers on the board amounted to an achingly unsatisfying 19.242. Rookie Troy Coughlin Jr. moved ahead to his first final round.

"It was just an unfortunate ending to what was a very promising day," said Line. "You don't expect to have days like today, but sometimes, it happens. It wasn't all bad – we got both of the Summit Racing Chevy Camaros to the semifinals. The good news is that it really makes you look forward to the next race and getting another chance to win the trophy for Ken Black and Summit Racing."

Aug 10, 2020

Buy Your Dream Vehicle at Hemmings Auctions, Get Discounts on Stuff at Summit Racing!

Back in the 1950s, finding a classic or special interest vehicle involved scouring newspaper classifieds, riding around and nosing in people’s yards and garages, or getting leads by word of mouth. But that changed in 1954 with the first edition of Hemmings Motor News.

What started as a four-page listing of mostly prewar Ford cars and parts is the bible of collector car classifieds with hundreds of pages of cars, trucks, motorcycles--even boats--plus the parts and services you need to restore and maintain your motorized friends. If you don’t like flipping pages, you can browse Hemmings classifieds online.

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