Funny car restoration finished, just in time

Drag racing is all about timing. Leaving the starting line on time, traveling to the finish line in less time than the guy in the other lane, and hitting the chutes on time before you run out of pavement.

It turns out that restoring famous drag cars is also all about timing. Thanks to Oklahoma mega-farmer Brent Hajek and Wichita race car builder Rob Holzman, a key piece of drag racing history will be reunited with its original driver, the legendary Gas Ronda, at this year’s opening NHRA race, the Winternationals, in Pomona, Calif.

The two long-time friends teamed up to restore Ronda’s famous 1969 Russ Davis Ford-sponsored Mustang Mach 1 funny car just in time for NHRA’s 50th anniversary celebration of the funny car class.

“When I was 9 years old, I built a model of this car,” said Holzman. “Who’d have thought that someday, I’d have the actual car sitting right here.”

Hajek had located the remains of Gas Ronda’s last Mustang in Florida and spent 15 years trying to convince the owner to sell it to him. To say that Hajek is a big fan of Ronda’s is a real understatement. He owns two of Ronda’s earlier Mustang funny cars, both restored by Holzman Race Cars in Wichita.

“They’ve done a great job of restoring that machine. It had led a pretty rough life,” Hajek said.

The car’s nitro-powered racing engine had blown up on its final run with Ronda in the seat, starting an oil and fuel fire that badly burned Ronda.

“They didn’t have onboard fire extinguishers back then,” Holzman said, and the fire suits that drivers wore weren’t as effective in protecting them.

Ronda never returned to the driver’s seat of a funny car after he recovered from the accident.

Holzman said when Hajek was finally able to buy the old funny car, it was in sad shape, missing the engine and wheels.

“The body was pretty lumpy and cracked. It was one of the last funny cars that had a suspension in it,” he said. “We had to get another Logghe chassis that we found in Springfield, Mo., and modified it to the original. This stuff turns up in the strangest places. Brent came up with the motor.”

The engine is the legendary Ford 427 SOHC (single overhead cam) racing engine that dominated drag racing for much of the late 1960s.

“Those overhead cam Ford engines are extremely rare and hard to find parts for,” Hajek said.

But he was able to come up with all the parts and pieces, including the correct supercharger, ignition system and Hilborn 4-port fuel injector.

The front axle and the rear end are original pieces, with the narrowed rear end being a piece out of a 1957 Oldsmobile fitted with 3.90 gears. Surprisingly, the car was built with a heavy duty automatic transmission. So Wichitan Flip Williams built the correct C6 Ford transmission for the restoration.

“He actually shifted it going down the track,” Holzman noted.

The fiberglass Mustang body on the car was basically a clone of a production Mustang, just stretched to fit the longer 115-inch wheelbase, he said. The body work was handled by Leon and Derrick Blagg of Blagg Body Shop in Derby. Hajek said all of Gas Ronda’s race cars were painted Ford Poppy Red, so that was the color sprayed on the rejuvenated racer.

“Doing these old cars is really an adventure,” Holzman said. “The challenge is to get the car right.” He said he was most worried about recreating the vintage lace-painted panels on the car.

But by using old photos and a model car kit of the Mustang, the Blaggs were able to magnify the images of the lace and have it reproduced locally. They then laid it over the body and used it as a mask to reproduce the original look.

Steve Freisen recreated the engine-turned sponsor lettering on the sides of the car. The Lorac Co. in Wichita powder-coated the interior sheet metal and applied the same technique to produce a stunning candy apple red finish on the chassis.

“With the wheels, we got lucky because American Racing had begun making the Torq Thrust spindle-mount (front) wheels again, and Rocket had reproduced the rear wheels, too,” said Holzman.

With the car nearing completion, Hajek had contacted NHRA officials about bringing the Mustang and Gas Ronda together at the Winternationals. He was unaware of the kickoff of the sanctioning body’s 50th anniversary celebration of funny cars at the Feb. 11-14 Pomona race.

It was perfect timing.

“Gas is real excited about it,” said Hajek, noting that Ronda hasn’t seen the Mustang since it was restored.

He describes Ronda as a well-dressed, mannered gentleman who helped elevate the image of drag racers back in the ’60s. Ronda had piloted a landing craft in the South Pacific during WWII, before coming home to become an Arthur Murray dance instructor and then starting his racing career behind the wheel of a Hudson Hornet, Hajek said.

“He was one of my heroes as a kid, and now he’s one of my best friends,” he said.

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 3:46 PM with the headline "Funny car restoration finished, just in time."