If you haven’t seen this season of Car Warriors on the Speed Channel, set your DVR Now!
Please read my post from episode 1 to understand the teams and these builds!
Once again the coin toss sent me over to the blue side with the East Coast Team. The second I walked out, met the teams and saw that I was going to be working with a handful of guys old enough to be my father, I knew this build was was either going to be hell because of their age and how slow I thought they would work or I was going to luck out and be handed a bunch of guys that had some tricks up their sleeves, knowing the ins & outs of car building….I didn’t however think it would be a combination of both!
The funniest part in the beginning for me was the fact that they thought they couldn’t share their ideas with me because I was there to sabotage the build and create drama. That couldn’t be further from the truth, Brad and I are both after the win just as much as the teams are! (Btw…after this win its Ray-6 & Brad-4 haha) After we got past that and the build started, I quickly realized these guys were hard core Mopar fans. I was never a big fan of Mopars unless it was between the years 1967-1970 and I wasn’t really excited about doing this build but I can tell you both teams built cars that I wouldn’t mind sporting at a couple car shows.
As the build progressed, I was able to build some friendships that would last a lifetime. That is the part I like most about these builds, people from all over the country with different building styles and personalities coming together with one common goal…build the baddest ride you can in 48 hours!
After losing the engine challenge, Plum Crazy knew real quick they had to step up their game if they were going to achieve that “old school muscle look” they were going after and they did just that until they hit somewhere around the 30 hour mark and fatigue started setting in. I was actually worried that if they didn’t pull together there would be no way we could finish. I had many talks with different team members trying to pull them together but although they were looking at me it seemed as if they didn’t hear me.
Most teams will listen and take little breaks throughout so they never get to the point of hearing but not listening. Jack was determined to stay up the whole time because he felt he owed it to the guys as team leader and this caused a problem especially when it came to paint, because it took way too long to mask off the car and get color on it. Actually we have had teams mask and paint a car faster than these guys just masked! I thought we were doomed but then Jack rallied the guys and got everyone to step up the pace and you got to see the result of that by the end of the show.
Billy Bob Customs went the route of a pro touring “Chip Foose” look on their build and did one hell of a job pulling it off. Since I was working with Plum Crazy I didn’t get to see all the ins and outs of their build, other than from the other side of the shop. It’s always easier to be on the sidelines and give advice after the fact and I am not sure the reasoning on why they made a few of their decisions but I think if they would have left the aftermarket pinion snubber in place that was on their car it would have stopped the rearend from coming high enough to cause the driveshaft to hit the floor, if they would have not tried to cover the plastic interior panels with vinyl, and eliminated the overspray from the grille area I think it would have been much harder to judge! All in all, they built a car that most thought was impossible in that amount of time and my hats off to them!
Take a few minutes to checkout the links to these two teams and see what kind of work they do off the set of Car Warriors!
Ray McClelland 
What a TUFF lookin bunch of guys and babyface
Nice cars too.. Really like
I own the red Challenger built by Billy Bob Customs. I’d love to get a legal copy of this episode!
You can contact Base Productions in Burbank, CA and get a legal copy from them I assume. They are the ones that filmed the show.