"When people see the car, they want to know who did the fabrication so they can have them work on their cars," he says. "People are really impressed with it and can't believe I did it all myself with no prior experience." After taking a peek at the back half of the tube frame, we are among those who are impressed with the quality of this 'amateur's' work.
All said, the conversion from a class-illegal tube/unibody hybrid into a legal full-tube-chassis car took Kiesel about four months, and he finished just in time to prep the car for the 2006 season.
A championship-winning race car is a lot more than a powerful engine with a light body and frame. It takes a finely tuned suspension, sticky tires and a lot of tuning, just to start. No fool, Kiesel spent a lot of time sorting everything out.
The suspension is obviously a huge part of the equation, and again, Kiesel decided to do it himself. He used Penske triple-adjustable dampers re-valved by Guy Ankeny of ARE in the front and back. The springs rates are 600 lb/in up front and 800 in the rear, while anti-roll bars from Tri Point help keep the car level though the corners.
Kiesel took care to keep the car as light as possible and it has paid off. The minimum racing weight for the RX-7 is 2650, but the car weighs 1950 pounds without ballast. This means that Kiesel has to add about 700 pounds to make the car legal for racing. The ability to move around the extra weight to help balance the car is a big plus. Another benefit of the light weight is that the car can get by using the stock brakes. Plus, the relatively low speeds of the SCCA events helps.
Race rubber is allowed in the SCCA BP class and Kiesel's ride sports some serious shoes. Wrapped around a set of Bogart RT 16x12-inch wheels front and rear are a set of Hoosier racing slicks. Measuring 25.5x12.5 in the front and 27x13 in the rear, he's got lots o' grip.
With the car legal and improved for the 2006 season, Kiesel went into battle with confidence and a more than competent car. Not everything would go his way, though, and for a time it seemed the BP championship might slip between his fingers again when he blew his new 2-rotor up one week before the 2006 Nationals. But as we can clearly see, Kiesel is a hardcore racer and wouldn't be stopped by a little thing like a blown engine-hey, the guy fabricated his own chassis in his garage... you think an engine would stop him?
With a new engine installed days before the Nationals, Kiesel finally had a fast and legal RX-7 to race in... and he didn't disappoint. He took home the 2006 SCCA BP National Championship... and this time it couldn't be snatched away by a sore loser.
Our hero learned the hard way that unless you build something yourself, it might come back to haunt you. We could all learn a little from Kiesel and have the balls to take on a project as huge as fabricating a chassis in your own garage with no prior experience. As we can see from his results, you might end up with a championship winning race car.