I'm Tallguy, a manufacturing/mechanical engineer in Northern California,
not far from San Jose (home of the Ack Attack motorcycle streamliner).
I haven't done any landspeed racing, but have been a fan for decades,
and have been to Bonneville 3 times. I have done a small bit of
drag racing, years ago (two motorcycles, one car).
I'm 63 years old. My background is in metal fab. Since 1975 I have
worked for more than 12 companies, all manufacturers of metal products.
My knowledge of welding, machining, general metal fab and metallurgy is
(ahem) pretty substantial.
I have recently had some business with a machine shop in Redwood City,
California (in the San Francisco Bay area). They specialize in challenging
machining projects that require very tight tolerances. In fact, they
aren't competitive, price-wise, for more common machining that most
machine shops can do. If you need something machined that has to be
done extremely precisely, I highly recommend this shop. Yes, it costs
money for these results. But they don't ship junk. Ever. The name
of the company is Robertson Precision, Inc.