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It was a rainy Friday ,when your Pit Guide reporter, accompanied by his two dogs ,made the long drive from the Irish Hills to visit Windpusher Racing & Fabrication. After a nice detour to Pontiac for lunch with friend Joy Fair, I finally arrived in Mt. Morris and met up with the team at Windpusher including Bobby Murany, A. J. Thompson, and Jim Stewart Sr.& Jr. to get a better understanding about what services and expertise they can provide to the racers. Unfortunately, owner Chad Faur was not available as he was out of state at the time, but I learned a lot about the business, and had a lot of fun with the rest of the guys. Based on their stellar reputation with the Modifieds that have been winning races throughout the Great Lakes,  I wrongly assumed they were concentrated on that one single niche, but as I soon discovered, they had much more ingenuity and variety than I expected.

Windpusher has been very busy so this season trying to get all their oval track customers ready for the opening of the 2009 racing season, but they also had a lot of other great projects currently in process. They were working on a couple of very interesting road racing cars, including a vintage 1980's Penske IROC Camaro, and also a new Corvette for perennial Waterford Hills champion and front runner Danny Kellermeyer. The famed Penske Camaro, which was once driven in the IROC series by star drivers such as Bobby Allison, Foyt, Petty, Pearson, Al & Bobby Unser along with many others, was actually found racing as a Street Stock on the dirt at Butler Speedway. The current owner found it,took it to Windpusher to be brought back to its former glory, and is planning on competing with it on road courses throughout the Midwest. The Kellermeyer 2009 Corvette was originally received as a basic stripped down bare shell, and is being fabricated from the ground up by Bobby Murany and the rest of the gang for the challenging 1.5 mile road course in Waterford. Bobby has a real passion for welding and fabrication, and there is nothing he enjoys more than bending metal and making sparks fly. For the straight line crowd, they are also working on an 80's Chevy Malibu wagon drag car with a brutish big block built by engine wizard Jim Stewart Jr., for competition on the TV show Pinks at US131 in Martin. This is one draggin' wagon that looks quick just standing still!

I was then introduced to A.J. Thompson who is the expert behind one of their latest services which is the Outlaw Shock Dyno. A.J. is able to offer the short track racer technology that until just recently could only be found in the NASCAR and Indy Car garages. They have the ability to test virtually any kind of shock absorber including supplying a technical data sheet at an amazingly affordable price and frankly I can't imagine any racer not wanting to take full advantage of this service. Many racers buy shocks from some of the major suppliers like Afco or Carrera and usually never give them another thought. I was told that due to manufacturing variations and wear, it is not uncommon for many shocks to perform significantly different than the original specifications, and unless you get them tested it is nearly impossible to know exactly what you are running.

The last area I visited was the Advantage Driver Development group headed up by Jim Stewart Sr. Jim is virtually a walking encyclopedia of racing knowledge, with a wealth of experience in engines as a key member of Buick during the development of the V6 racing programs, and also spent many years working in the General Motors Performance Division.  Jim ,who thrives on passing along his vast knowledge to others, and has probably forgotten more than most have ever known, is also an expert with race car suspension dynamics,instrumentation & data aquisition. Jim Sr. and his son Jim Jr., along with young driver Dan Leeck, were in the process of completing a beautiful new Super Late Model for Dan to compete in the Superpro and ASA Late Model Series.

With their fabrication abilities, suspension & shock knowledge, and engine expertise, Windpusher is virtually a "one stop shop" for oval, drag, and road racers at wwww.windpusher.com. I really enjoyed my visit, and be on the lookout for some upcoming technical articles throughout the season from the team at Windpusher.