Information for each car and the following excerpt were written by, Brian Ballard. Printed with permission.

I have been searching all over the web for years, for any site about the larger scale cars. I can't believe that it took so long to find this place. Arthur Fairce (known as Artie) has been building 1/4 scale cars since 1995. Artie is the help I have been looking for and he now has my car in his workshop. Artie does incredible work and will be instrumental in this project and the ones to follow.

My name is Brian Ballard, I live in Houston, Texas and I am a professional mechanic with over 21 years of experience. I first became involved in Radio Control in 1979 while in the U.S. Air Force. I bought a Piper Cub kit with a 36" wingspan and spent many an hour cutting all the balsa parts one by one. The balsa sheets were not die cut, just ink stamped and you had to be real careful to stay on the lines! After several weeks of work it was ready to be covered. In an effort to make sure no one bumped into the plane while I was not in the dorm, I would put it on my bed, right in plain site. But my roommate tied on a drunk one night and I came home to find him passed out, face up, with my airplane sticking out from under him!!! Scratch one aircraft. I continued to dabble with Radio Control over the years when I could afford it and just two years ago I bought my first Nitro vehicle. That did it, I'm hooked for good now! I spend the majority of my money at M&M Hobbies and every time I was there, I stopped and admired a 1/4 scale Top Fuel Dragster that was displayed on the same table with the Miss Budwieser hydro plane boat. After admiring this car for over a year, I finally asked an employee if the car was for sale. He said it was and pointed me towards the owner. Not much at all was known about the car except that it was old, the engine had been started, but the car had never been driven. Apparently the previous owner was a farmer or rancher as the car was stored in a barn for several years. But it must have had some protection because although the fuel lines were dry rotted, mice did not chew the wiring. I was given a price of $1200.00 and I headed home to re-do my budget! Ten weeks later I was the proud owner of a 1/4 scale Top Fuel Dragster! Several weeks before bringing the car home I took several pictures of the car and mailed ten of these to one of the members of the Radio Controlled Monster Truck Network. He scanned and posted the pictures for me in the Monster Pirate forum and I started sending these pictures to anyone I could find, who was in any way, involved with these 1/4 scale cars. (Many thanks to the folks at RCMT.)

A short time later I received an e-mail from Jerry and he offered to host these pictures for me on his website. I eagerly accepted his offer hoping someone, somewhere would recognize this car. It took 3 months of searching until Frank at New Era Models said, "It looks like a Jimmy Parker car from Buffalo, Texas with a Quadra 45". I thanked Frank and in just a few minutes I had Jimmy's phone number. He was not home when I called but returned my call a few hours later. I started describing the car and in just a few seconds, Jimmy identified it as one of his. My search was over. Many, many thanks to those who aided me in my efforts. Jimmy owned and operated Performance Drag Products and produced about 40 cars in a period of 1-1/2 years. Two of the cars went to Canada, 2 went to Puerto Rico, 2 went to Belgium and the rest were sold here in the U.S.A. The cars were shipped with either a Quadra 45 or Quadra 75, front and rear wings, RACO differential, plastic floorpans and body, drivetrain components and a whole bunch of zip ties! These cars sold for $3000.00!!! But Jimmy said they were not selling fast enough to keep the doors open and was forced to close the business. He built one more car for himself that was going to be a show piece for the mantle above his fireplace. The car was stolen from him by who he believes to be an ex-employee and he has been unable to find it. He thinks the car is in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. He said the chassis was painted yellow at the time of it's disappearance. Jimmy built these cars one at a time in a jig. This ensures that the chassis remains straight during the entire welding process. Each chassis would take him two days or better to complete. Then the rest of the car was made from parts Jimmy found at the time and some custom machined parts as well.
So now I had to find the manufacturer of each and every part I intended to use, just in case I needed a spare and to give full credit to anyone who helped build this car. This has proven to be quite challenging and it's not over yet! The differential is a RACO unit with a 5:1 gear ratio. These diffs are used in 1/4 scale NASCAR race cars and are not designed for a dragster. In fact, the diff is actually mounted in the dragster, upside down! In the picture on the right, you can see the brake system hanging down under the car. I took the differential completely apart and it is indeed "brand new", thirteen years old now and the gears have never had power applied to them. The axle is not the stock shaft as it is only 7/16" in diameter, the diff came stock with a 1/2"axle. The housing on the front of the diff encloses the clutch assembly and is a custom made part. I don't know yet if Jimmy Parker made it or had it made. All of the aluminum parts that came with the car appear to be made of 6061 T-6 and all of the aluminum parts that I am making or having made, are also 6061 T-6 aluminum. Attached to the crankshaft is another custom part machined from aluminum that mates with the driveshaft. The driveshaft is a flex coupling made by Boston Gear. I contacted them about this car and they sent me a brand new coupler for free, and this one is stainless steel. Thanks Boston Gear! This is the driveshaft safety housing that came with the car. As you can see in the picture, it almost completely encloses all moving parts. Although a good idea, it is difficult to attach to the car and hides some of the details that I want folks to see on the car. I will be using two custom made driveshaft safety loops instead.
The rear tires are 9"x4" foam slicks and these are what everyone used to run and some still do. But now we have the option of running go-kart slicks and that is what I will be using. The upright for the rear wing is a real work of art. It is very well constructed, fully adjustable and has a nice chrome finish. This upright is another example of Jimmy Parker's welding skills. And here is the wing that it supports. The wing is constructed of very light weight aluminum sheeting with silicone holding it all together. The wing is a little worse for wear because of the years and I will be having a new one made.

The engine is a Quadra Aerrow Q75B with a displacement of 4.4 cu.in. or 72 cc. Electronic CD Ignition, reed induction with 6 transfer ports, chromed cylinder, hi-silicon piston with 2 rings and a double web, three piece, forged crankshaft. Horsepower is rated at 8 hp @ 11,000 rpm or 9 hp with modified exhaust. In order to find out exactly what engine this was, I contacted Quadra Aerrow via telephone. I am at a loss for words when I try to describe the customer service at Quadra Aerrow. Even to this day I grin from ear to ear as I recall our conversation... A few days prior to my phone call I had sent via e-mail a couple of pictures of the engine to Quadra Aerrow because I was still trying to identify it. I only waited about three days before my inevitable impaitience got the best of me, and I called them on my lunch hour. A lady answered the phone and I mentioned the e-mail and the pictures of the dragster. She said that she had viewed my message and started looking for it again. She was joined by a man and they reviewed the message and pictures together. Then they put me on speaker phone as their search begain to find the serial number you can see in the photo above. As the search continued our converstion became quite comical and the folks at Quadra Aerrow struck me as being a "Mom and Pop" operation. They are in Canada and I am in Texas, so of course we discussed the distance and the climate. Meanwhile they are looking and squabbling at the same time and I begain to think that they are either married, or have been working together way too long! They were able to determine that the serial number was from 1989 because that was the last year they used an eight digit number, they now use six. So I am assuming that my car was manufactured around 1989, this is nice to know because you know people are going to ask! They offered to send me "feeding and care" instructions for a whole $4.00 and said I ought to tip them an additional $5.00 for all the work they just went through! I laughed and agreed and then did the same thing any American would do... I sent them $4.00 for the info and tipped them a buck!!! But to be quite serious I cannot say enough good about Quadra Aerrow and they put it best when they say, "We Love Engines", it is quite evident in their products. Thanks Quadra Aerrow!
One of my favorite pieces of the dragster is this custom aluminum header, but unfortunately the oily exhaust gases are being directed right at the rear tires. I plan to have a new header made that looks like this one, but with the tubes pointed a few degrees up and out. This should keep the tires clean. The seat was black molded plastic that had to be cut and sanded to shape. It has been painted with several coats of primer, wet sanding between coats. Then it was shot with "chrome" paint to help it blend in with all the other shiny parts on the car. The seat is not finished. As you can see there are smudges in the paint because the seat is still being handled from time to time. It will receive a few more coats of paint before the final assembly. The steering wheel is another cool little item made from aluminum with plastic simulated wood grips. I am still trying to find the manufacturer of this wheel and some other parts as well. Such as the header, seat and ignition system. Any information on these parts or the entire car for that matter, would be greatly appreciated. More custom parts can be seen in this series of pictures of the front end. Also you will see the stainless steel belly pans that run the length of the dragster. These pans came stock as black plastic and were attached to the chassis with zip ties, just like you see in the photos. Upon the completion of this project, there will not be even "one" zip tie on the whole car. The stainless steel is very dusty in the photos and hasn't been polished yet. The front wing assembly is also fully adjustable and a little worse for wear just like the rear wing and I will have a new wing assembly made. There are many more parts not pictured in this section, but these will be covered in Part III, "The Re-build".
So now you can see how the car came stock, a very nice car but with some room for improvement. So please read on as we begin the rebuilding of, "The Unknown Dragster". After finding out through diligent searching that Raco was no longer in business and there where no spare parts available for the Raco diffs, I knew I would have to have one custom made. The Raco diff has a plastic housing and my gear ratio was 5.00:1. It would only be a matter of time before the nine horsepower Quadra would blow the differential. It just so happens that Artie has a diff that he designed after the Raco, as it pertains to the square shape of the Raco. But this diff is machined from aluminum and is fitted with bullet proof gears with a 4.20:1 gear ratio. The first thing that Artie had to do was make an adapter to fit his differential to my clutch bell. My car is set up different than most. Most cars have the cltuch bell attached to the engine instead of the differential. Then he was faced with the problem of how to mount this assembly into the chassis. Here you go, one custom differential mount from Pure Art 1/4 Scale. Great job Artie!

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