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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
| Larry
Brown And TCR Performance by Norm Bogan |
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Born
and raised in Taft, Larry Brown became familiar with the open spaces of the oil
patch. As he grew up, many traveled the various dirt roads in the oilfields by
motorcycle. When several
motorcycles ran together, these rides became a competition, thus the early
stages of desert racing bloomed. As a young man, Larry learned a trade as a pipeline welder
and spent twenty years honing his skills. He
also honed his skills as a desert motorcycle racer.
His heroes were the Unsers, Foyt and Parnelli. Larry
now resides in Bakersfield with his wife Lynn and their three children.
After many years as a welder, he formed his own construction company in
1985. He also made the move from
two wheeled to four wheeled racers, starting with a Mini-Sprint. Soon he was fielding a Midget and counts among his drivers,
some pretty impressive names. Tony
Stewart wheeled his car, with Larry Howard handling the wrenches, for some ESPN
"Thunder" shows. Others
who have taken a ride in Mr. Brown's midget are;
Jimmy Sills, Mike Bliss, Danny Lasoski, Jason Leffler, Jay Drake and
Richard Griffin. For the
last several years, Larry has competed in the midget and recently claimed
victory in a BCRA race at Antioch. In
1990, Larry decided to liquidate his construction company and start his own
racing fabrication shop. He has built midgets for about forty competitors, mostly on
the west coast, but as far as Colorado and Texas.
His cars have been competitive, performing well at Belleville, Turkey
Night and Chili Bowl, plus the Western States USAC and BCRA circuits.
With
his success in fabrication of midgets, Larry decided to step up to sprint cars
in 1996. His first chassis went to
Marc Hart, who is campaigning it on the tough SCRA non-wing schedule.
Tom Tarlton won the track championship at Tulare running a wing version
of the chassis. This year the
Jordan Bros. team has outfitted their sensational rookie, Troy Rutherford with a
very competitive TCR chassis. Many
more orders have come in for both coil-over and four bar configuration chassis
to run in both wing and non-wing competition. In
July, TCR Performance moved to new larger quarters, adjacent to Meadows Field
(Bakersfield Airport). They just recently completed the transaction to take over the
inventory of a stock car supply firm in town.
They are now the West Coast distributor of the Hamke stock car chassis,
which they build in their shop, plus many products for the racers.
As
you enter through the front door, you first spot a pavement midget, which is for
sale. In this retail store, you can
buy items from racers tape to roll bar padding, from brake rotors to mufflers
and oil tanks, plus various hardware items necessary to any race team.
Moving
through the door into the stock room, you find everything from a complete sprint
car chassis on the shelf to pallets of nerf bars to a maze of bins that contain
pieces of tubing all notched and ready to be incorporated into a race car
chassis. In the racecar preparation
area, are two midgets, being meticulously assembled for this weekend's race at
Las Vegas. Beyond the prep area, is
a sprint car chassis being finalized on a jig fixture and in the back
corner, a stock car chassis is under construction. As
you move into the spacious machine shop and fabrication facility, you are
impressed with the area's cleanliness and brightness.
Along the eastern wall are three large CNC machines, where parts are made
such as, birdcages, torque tubes, torsion arms and motor plates.
There is also a row of manual milling machines and drill presses.
Next, lined up in strict military style are about eight sprint car
chassis, which have been assembled, tacked and are waiting to be welded.
Beyond this lineup is a rack supporting the side frames for several more
chassis, in line for the jig. Moving
over, we come to several jigs for both midget and sprint chassis assembly. Next
are two hydraulic tubing benders, one of which is programmable.
You just put in the recipe and feed the tubing and the machine does the
rest. In the back corner, are two
used sprint chassis, which have been repaired. To
the front of the machine shop is a nice lunchroom area. Next to that is the
engineering and design area. Here
sets the computer with the CAD programs for designing the components to be
fabricated. Also in this area is
digital camera equipment to help in the preparation of the TCR Performance
Catalog. Adjacent to this area are
the reception area and business offices. Another
quality of the TCR chassis is its flexibility.
Ricky Shelton is campaigning a midget on the Western States USAC circuit
and won races both on pavement and dirt, using the same car. Larry
intends to put together a "house" sprint car for 1998, to emphasize
this chassis. The car will also serve as laboratory for development.
He currently has a nice backlog of orders for the coming year in midget
and sprint chassis, plus the stock car business is growing. TCR
Performance has about twelve employees and a very nice work facility.
It appears to be a quality operation and good things can be expected from
there in the future. |
