Brock's Bonneville Buick
Fine Art at High Speed!
Brock spent a good part of his early adult life building and racing custom and vintage motorcycles. He moved to Santa Fe in 1999 to pursue his artistic inclinations and entered the Santa Fe Art scene by taking an apprentice position enlarging the sculpture of other artists. Through that profession, he met and eventually married the bronze sculptor, Star Liana York.
Brock's interest in fast wheels was again rekindled in January 2009, when he went to the "World's Greatest Roadster Show" in Pomona, California. Brock was most enamored with the cars that were built for speed.
During that show, new seed was planted. While standing over a sleek, sculpturally beautiful, hand built, Land Speed Race car, a vision flooded Brock's mind. The new seed would sprout in the form of a vintage Buick rocket.
Having previously studied and searched for the "ultimate American Lead Sled" Brock had, the year before, purchased a 1952 Buick from an abandoned lumber mill near Phoenix, Arizona. He saw in this car the sculptural form he favored for creating a fast, furious work of art.
Upon returning home, Brock plunged into his vision ... nurturing the seed, setting his sights on the August 8th, 61st annual Bonneville Land Speed Week, 7-day world event.
In record time, he would resurrect his used and abused 1952 Buick Super Riviera into a performance built, chopped, dropped, wedged, stretched and streamlined Land Speed Race car. Just in the nick of time, he would load the new creation onto a trailer, head to the Bonneville Salt Flat Speedway and put it to the test.
Resurrection Racing
Taking on such a challenge would require assistance. At the project onset, Brock and York had an idea that would give the mission more breadth by adding the component of a community outreach. Since Jeff needed help with the build and race track pit crew, he decided to search for and enlist the aid of two local young men. He saw the opportunity to share a lifetime of technical skills acquired, with young men from the community who had expressed interest in Hot Rod car building.
York and Brock named the quest "Resurrection Racing" with multiple, conceptual values and meaning for both man and car.
It would be a "win-win" and the success and thrill of accomplishment could change the path of the young men's challenged lives ... if they got it done in time.
In early June, with the project well underway, Brock found 22-year old Sergio Juarez from Espanola and 23-year old Lupe Nino from Medanales and hired them to apprentice. Juarez and Nino agreed to dedicate themselves to the short time-line challenge. Brock warned them that he would be merciless and tough, but if they both stuck with it, they would share in the success of a dream and a world record. As the weeks ticked by, Brock was tough and merciless, but the young men stuck with it.
Each day, while training the young men as they puzzled together the build, Brock began to realize it would be a miracle for it all to come together. The stringent rules and safety requirements necessitated careful documentation, and the strictly defined guidelines for his racing class were daunting enough without a truncated deadline looming. Still they labored on, putting in long 12 - 16 hour days, 7 days a week with Brock always keeping an eye and priority on the aesthetics of the build.
After some research, the Resurrection Racing team was fortunate to find veteran Drag Race Machinist, Doug Anderson, owner of Automotive Machine Services of Albuquerque to tackle the huge challenge of designing and machining the high performance modifications to the 50's Buick, big block 320 straight eight engine. Doug needed to apply his 50+ years of Hot Rod engine building, to a motor he had never tackled, in a time frame that was impossible. Anderson and his crew rose to the occasion.
Hitting the Road
Four weeks later, Brock received the highly modified, performance built short block motor from Anderson, with a whopping 3 weeks to finish assembly, connect the drag race clutch, bell housing, and Super T-10 4-speed transmission, and make necessary frame and driveline modifications. Most safety and body modifications were made while the motor was being built, utilizing all available time.
Pushing hard to the end, on Friday August 7th, the Resurrection Racing crew finished one of the last aesthetic touches, installing their home-built, hand-crafted Lexan windshield at 2:00 in the afternoon. Never having time to even test-drive the car, Brock, Juarez and Nino loaded the car on a trailer with a few complex, loose ends still looming.
Brock and Juarez headed to Bonneville . (Nino had school registration commitments.) The pair drove all night to make the mandatory, Saturday 9:00 am Rookie Drivers and Crew meeting.
World Record Breaker
Upon arriving at the Bonneville International Speedway, with 3 hours of sleep in the truck, Brock and Juarez made the Rookie crew meeting, went back to the pits only to find their car surrounded by at least 20 people, with a steady flow of picture takers. The rookie, 2- man team of Resurrection Racing was instantly and completely overwhelmed.
They were deluged by the positive, excited responses and questions by race officials, fellow racers, and spectators, regarding the car's unorthodox, artistic built. They were also overwhelmed by the short list of "big" loose end issues they were required to work on in the pits to pass the brutal technical inspection the next day. No strangers to hard work, the two drove in to prepare the car for Sunday's Tech inspection.
Sunday... after half a day in Tech inspection the two men emerged to be congratulated by fellow racers for already setting a world record: the longest tech inspection in the history of Bonneville Speed Week. The unorthodox build was a challenge for all.
Brock and Juarez had to spend the rest of Sunday and Monday morning modifying and satisfying the subjective build / safety issues.
Tuesday morning they passed and got their hard earned, proud SCTA - BNI 2009 inspected sticker.
The rest is history for Resurrection Racing. On August 12th and 13th, after a day and a half of never-driven-before bugs were resolved, Jeff Brock piloted the car down the salty, slippery, bumpy, 3-mile speedway race course, for a new Bonneville World record, for inline engine Competition Coupes, with a top speed of 133 MPH, breaking the previous record of 127.
The Resurrection Race team is in the Land Speed Racing history books and the team Leader / Teacher / Pilot has 3 wishes for their future:
1. That the young men involved will use this experience to guide them "up" brighter paths in life;
2. That they will continue to grow as a team adding new members;
3. That they will sell the historic car ... and build a faster one!
