CLICK HERE to Return to Flat Out ..........................................................Story and Photos by Becky White
Anyone who knows Barry White knows he loves drag racing. He started out when he was around 8 years old helping his Dad and uncles work on their race cars in the garage, and playing in the pits at Lions Drag Strip. By the time he got his driver's license, he had spent more time at the drag strip than anywhere else! He and his brother Denny partnered on various cars throughout the years, with Barry wrenching and Denny driving. In the early 80's Denny moved to Washington, the local drag strip was closed and work and family life dictated a change to other pursuits. But that love of racing was always there. After years of building a successful business in the hot rod/muscle car industry, Barry was given the opportunity to go racing again. One of his customers owned a nice little ’36 So he brought it to Barry's Speed Shop for the re-do and by the time it was finished had a bad ass hot rod.
	The unfortunate part was he had just picked it up and had barely 700 miles on it when he was rear ended and the car was totaled. That was a sad day when that car came back to the shop on a rollback, so soon after doing a burn out down the street when it left! The customer retained the car after the total, but couldn't really do anything with it, so he offered it to Barry to do 'what ever' with it. Ding..light bulb went of..let’s make a race car! Chevy 2 door sedan that he wanted "freshened up".
So it became a shop project with the guys working on it when they could, straightening the frame, doing body work, adding a roll cage, and using parts from around the shop to put it together. When Barry's Speed Shop got the opportunity to do a TV show, the little race car got a chance to run down the drag strip with a '64 Nova gasser! After that, the car was raced a couple of times, then parked while business continued on. But the bug bit again, and this time Barry and his shop foreman, Adam, decided to do it right.
	They had attended a PSCA race at Fontana (California Speedway) and thought it would be a great family thing to be able to go to the races and just have fun. So at first it was small changes, pull the motor and trans, clean everything, make sure it was safe, etc. But it turned into completely changing the front end, taking the body off, grinding and painting the chassis, removing and replacing the roll cage, re-doing the interior and replacing the trans, front suspension, and converter. It's now ready for it's 3rd incarnation as a really bad ass, Barry's Speed Shop worthy drag race car!