Uneven Speed - Kenny Reece's 1979 "3-to-1" Supermodified

Kenny Reece, born in Johnson City, Tennessee, was involved with motorsport from a very young age. Shortly after moving to Ohio in his teenage years, he started driving "midgets" thanks to a contact from a friend of his. After this, he began enjoying his newfound interest in being a mechanic, and while besting himself at it, he also got involved in CART and Indy.

Starting to think having his own team for racing would be a good idea, Reece set out to finding a way of supporting this project. The answer? A potting bussiness, selling your run of the mill plant pots to fund a more expensive business. This new project was a bit different to pottery, it was building a car that could race in the Supermodified class.

This class was meant purely for specialized machinery on short ovals of up to one mile of length, and the rulebook was quite lax when it came to what could and could not be done to a car, going to the extent of allowing the engine to be mounted to the right of the car, in views of aiding weight distribution.

Although it looked like a wheeled death trap, testing showed otherwise.

Although it looked like a wheeled death trap, testing showed otherwise.

Now in charge of enough money, Reece started work on his brainchild racer, a car that was within the regulations... just not in the expected way. The Supermodified rulebook mandated that whatever engineering feat was entered had to have four wheels, but never mentioned where the wheels should be, thinking it was a given fact that there is a wheel per corner of the car.

Reece simpy did not care and decided to stick three wheels on the right of the car, leaving the left side with a nest-like structure to fit the engine, and the remaining wheel that'd sit nicely next to the driver. Taking a page out of Colin Chapman's book, he had his focus set on being as light as possible, leading to extensive usage of aluminum and air-grade tubing. Drilled disc brakes, and a solid steering column that turned the front and rear tires helped the car steer.

Because of the unusual wheel layout, there was no hint of front or rear wheel drive here, instead, all of the 850 brake horsepower produced by the ZL-1 427 Chevrolet V8 were let loose through the right wheel and the middle left wheel, helping the 596kg (1315lb) concoction of metal go at speeds not thought about by Reece.

View gallery image

The Supermodified's first test runs took place in Honda's TRC facility, allowing Tim Richmond, the man in charge of driving the super, to let the car loose in all of the 7.5mi goodness of the track, although they opted for a more sensible choice and tested it first on the half-mile circle. The circle allowed the car to comply with Reece's first idea, having a car that could run on the upper groove of the track, breaking with the linear racing often seen in this class.

When re-geared for the longer track, Richmond got the lightweight beast up to a top speed of 200mph (321kph), reporting good stability at speed, but that the only unnerving thing was not seeing a tire on the right side of the vehicle, and even passed the idea on to Reece, who had never made any kind of blueprints for the car, and instead made modifications on the go as issues showed up.

Eager to continue testing, the odd-looking car was taken to the Sandusky Speedway, in Ohio, where it once again showed its potential, breaking the lap record (that still stands to this day) before it was pushed to the limits.

Richmond testing at Sandusky

Richmond testing at Sandusky

Having almost finished the car's testing, it was now ready for its first official race run, scheduled for the 1980 race at Oswego Speedway. Reliable engines, high speeds and a brave driver, all boxes were ticked for Reece and his team, except one. News about the car spread like wildfire, and when those news reached the organisers of the race, they realized something had to be done.

A last-minute alteration to the rulebook in Oswego mandated that the car had to have two wheels on each side, making Reece's creation obsolete. Frustrated that the 50.000 dollars thrown into the project were obsolete, he was not going to just sit and let it pass, instead, he cut up the car and salvaged all of the pieces possible, and then threw them into a new sprint car for his son. The remainder of the car was crushed, a decision that Reece still regrets to this day.

Led by weight-saving measures and exploiting rulebooks (together with racing lines) could have gotten this creation really far, had it not been severed by people complaining, saying it was too fast, as it simply blew past everyone on testing. But what's worse, the alteration also rendered 2 other cars on the grid obsolete, and after Oswego's decision, all of the other tracks in the calendar followed suit, leading to the drastic decision made by Kenny.

This was Drivetriber Agus Garcia, and until then, peace out.