Travis Berryhill Chili Bowl Spike Midget

[Art Laski]

There's a bit of a story behind it, but a couple of years ago, my dad essentially inherited a current midget race car from a friend with whom he built the car. Racing is expensive, so he doesn't run it much, but last year an opportunity presented itself to collaborate with long-time open wheel driver Travis Berryhill to run a couple of races. They started off with an indoor race in Du Quoin, IL last year, coming close to winning until some bad luck struck. Then last January, they went to the Chili Bowl, one of the biggest races of the year anywhere, with over 350 entries vying for about 24 starting positions on A Main Saturday. They race all week long, and each competitor gets one night to attempt to transfer to the big show. If they don't make it, they get to go through what they call the "alphabet soup", where they race up though mains from O through to the A main, with two each or more transferring up from each race. No one has ever gotten from the O to the A main, but sometimes they do make a good climb. Because of that, it's important to do well on your opening night, and the first step is transferring into that night's main event. Last year, Travis transferred into the Wednesday night main, setting himself up for a decent shot at making the main. Unfortunately, a flip in the main, and a flip in the Saturday E main meant they didn't make the big show. But it was a good effort.

Not long after the race, Travis contacted me about doing a couple of models- one he wanted to give to his sponsor, Vanilla Cycles, and the other he wanted to give to my dad for letting them run his car. I wasn't sure how I was going to go about it, because I already have a midget WIP in progress going on about 7 years now! I couldn't do that with a project like this one. But I found out that a Kyle Larson die cast midget was issued recently, and it was the same chassis make as my dad's car, which is a Spike chassis. So I thought I would get some decals made up (I was given the original artwork) and paint it up a little and be on my way, right? Yeah, it never works that way for me...

The die cast is a good start, but it has a Toyota engine in it, versus the Ford in dad's car, and all the body panels are slightly different, and, actually, way too thick. So I went to work, one thing has led to another, and here we are... 

While it's still going to have some obvious die cast traits, I have gone about adding a little more accuracy, and I think when it's done, it will be a pretty cool replica.

Here are a few shots of the actual car:

 

[Art Laski]

Here's the die cast(s):

 

[OldNYJim]

Great start, and awesome back story behind it!

What scale is the die cast?  

I’ll be watching!

[Art Laski]

I started out stripping down all the paint. The chasses cage tubes are halves, so they needed some smoothing and putty.

Same with the tail.

[Art Laski]

1 hour ago, CabDriver said:

Great start, and awesome back story behind it!

What scale is the die cast?  

I’ll be watching!

Hey Jim, it's 1/18. Thanks for watching!

[John Teresi]

Hey Art….this  is going to be Awesome to watch you put your Magic on this ……I’ll be watching ??

[Art Laski]

7 hours ago, John Teresi said:

Hey Art….this  is going to be Awesome to watch you put your Magic on this ……I’ll be watching ??

Thanks, Brother!

[Chris Smith]

Great back story Art, should be a awesome adventure. Looking forward to seeing you do some magic on these!

[Art Laski]

On 12/22/2023 at 6:47 PM, Chris Smith said:

Great back story Art, should be a awesome adventure. Looking forward to seeing you do some magic on these!

Thanks for looking, Chris!

[Art Laski]

I replaced all the original panels with Styrene, Not only were the original panels too thick, but they were different than what's on the car in a lot of ways. I also made new nerf bars and bumpers out of brass. This required that making spuds on the chassis for them to mount to as well, as the Die Cast did not do that.

This one has the decal proof on it.

 

[Art Laski]

 

[oldr-n-drt]

art...yall can get a 3-d file of the mini sprint car..any scale yall want.....3dmodelspecialties.com     oldr-n-drt

[Art Laski]

6 hours ago, oldr-n-drt said:

art...yall can get a 3-d file of the mini sprint car..any scale yall want.....3dmodelspecialties.com     oldr-n-drt

Yes, I’ve seen it! It’s really cool. I just might build one someday.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Art Laski

[Phildaupho]

Great project Art. I have always enjoyed building models of peoples' favorite cars to give to them.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Great backstory, great model emerging.

Funny how those "this should be pretty easy, really..." projects seem to expand into more and more and more effort, isn't it?  

[IanH]

Love the story, and the work so far! 

[Art Laski]

On 12/31/2023 at 5:47 PM, Phildaupho said:

Great project Art. I have always enjoyed building models of peoples' favorite cars to give to them.

Thanks for looking, Phil! I generally don’t like parting with my builds, but sometimes it’s worth it.
 

On 1/1/2024 at 11:22 AM, Ace-Garageguy said:

Great backstory, great model emerging.

Funny how those "this should be pretty easy, really..." projects seem to expand into more and more and more effort, isn't it?  

So true, Bill! 
 

22 hours ago, IanH said:

Love the story, and the work so far! 

Thanks, Ian!

[Art Laski]

Next step was to turn the Toyota engine into something that resembles the Ford engine this car had. I had my good friend Dutch @dog3models draw up and print a new valve cover for me. He also drew up a front cover gear drive and water pump, that I printed myself.

 

I decided to go old school on the injectors, and scratch built them. I made one intake tube from styrene, then molded four good ones. Then I finished making the whole injector body, then cast a few of those. I also made some mods to the block mand cast a few of those instead of modifying both blocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2024 by Art Laski

[Art Laski]

I started my own 3D design journey by designing the air cleaner myself. I made copies of each to use for mock up so I could finish the hood before painting. I’ll need to print a new filter later that’s just a little shorter.

 

 

 

[OldNYJim]

This is coming along nicely - and you did a GREAT job designing that air filter!  Looks awesome!  

What did you use to design it?

[IanH]

I don't know how you are going to part with these when done, they're going to look amazing! 

[Randy D]

This is a great project Art!!!!   Cool to see you getting into printing your own parts.

 

Randy