In 1979, Ed and I went to Speed Week to look at how things worked, get ideas, and all the stuff that newbies do. We went to tech at the airport, spent 5 days and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I'm not sure but I think it was Jack that spotted us (recognizable by our wide eyes and open mouths) and came over and started talking to us, answering questions, and ended up giving us a rule book (having a rule book is the first step on the road to perdition). Anyway we ended up with way more questions than answers but spent the next year scheeming and dreaming about what we should build. We bought a fire suit, and a motor home, we figured they were both essential for any type of race car. In 1980 Ed bought several magazines to read on the trip down and back and one of them was a Popular Mechanics or a Popular Science and in there was an article about the Vector bicycle that had just set the Human Powered Land Speed record. They upped it by a whopping 10 mph from 50-60. Ed took one look and said 'There's our car". The next thing I know, we're on a plane to Anaheim and have signed an agreement with Alan Voight and Dan Fernandez for them to scale up their design and build us a body. The original shape had no canopy hump and we looked out through the nose from a long way back. We made all the rookie mistakes in the world, one of which was thinking that visibilty was not that important because you're "just going in a straight line". Anyway we finally gave up on that original shape and modified it slightly but still keeping essentially the same profile but with a canopy. It added about 10% to the total cd but the tradeoff was worth it. When Rick Vesco saw the new body style he immediately proclaimed "you're whale got pregnant" Anyway, that 's essentially the story.
