Brucebilt-Weiss to Support Team Zero Chassis Owners

[foxfire2dirtracing]

MasterSbuilt

you are 100% correct. It doesn’t say they are going to be building them: just offering parts/services.

[LucasOilTraveler]

Weiss and Bruce can offer service to anyone they want. It's up to the customer to decide, if multiple options wind up existing.

I never said that they couldn't. There just hasn't been any kind of release from the McDowell's and I figured they would be moving forward with updates and offering frames especially if they bought everything and since they are running their cars.

[foxfire2dirtracing]

Where did you get the info that McDowells bought everything??
The jigs are currently not in Mooresburg for a reason.

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

I never said that they couldn't. There just hasn't been any kind of release from the McDowell's and I figured they would be moving forward with updates and offering frames especially if they bought everything and since they are running their cars.

Right now there was only silence, until this. A lot of cars went up for sale the week Bloomer died. I'll speculate the reason why.

[blncfn57]

I heard the jigs were at Barry Wright's... I still doubt the suicide angle and that Scott had made a similar deal with Barry like he had with Randy Sweet, to have his cars produced for him, but to his own specs. I imagine the McDowells are gonna do what they have to, to survive. As to Sniper deal, perhaps they couldn't resist doing some tweaks to the recipe and the cookies just didn't come out as well. Or Weiss without Bloomer input just isn't up to doing his own thinking... Perhaps some of the "magic" in Scott's cars aren't readily visible, he always preached how finding speed was done in small increments collectively, not in one major swing. If you look at his front clips he has so much more bracing and support brackets than you see in most "store bought" cars. I've never seen a Sniper stripped down to compare, but I could see from a manufacturing stand point some of Scott's details being left off and not understanding why he had put them in. Here are some 2014 Sweet/Bloomquist pics. to see my point. Bloomer didn't use aluminum j-bar frame sliders, he made his car more like a Rayburn with spuds welded into the tubing, just as an example. To me the Zero chassis is the antithesis of what GRT use to be... JMO

From what I understood Scotts cars were being produced as a kit (pre bent and notched tubing) and Ricky was having to jig/weld the ones he bought from Scott together himself at Scotts shop. If this is true (idk if it is) I could see where it would be tempting to just do it yourself from the beginning. What is missing is Scotts input and direction, I assume.

[Henry Every]

What the plan was: https://youtu.be/rIyJE-wMwsk?si=ZTwgV4yr9R8LzhNH

Randy Sweet setup a manufacturing line at his company to build and was building the "Sweet/Bloomquist" cars, but then he died, 11/08/2019. Scott brought production back in house back in Mooresburg and did for a while, but the hits just kept on coming. He was still dealing with his leg injury from the previous March and then early 2020 was Covid. I can't say if Ricky was having to weld his cars, but there was ample issues around that could've made that true. My best guess on the McDowells was that they were gonna be doing more R&D, probably as some kind of partners going forward toward sudo-retirement as they all I'm sure wanted to scale back from so much time on the road. There had been a plan, despite some peoples beliefs that Scott was incapable of growing old.

2014-2019
Randy Sweet and Scott Bloomquist team up to form "Sweet - Bloomquit Race Cars". Cars were built in special facility by Randy in Michigan.

03/14/2019
Scott Injured in Motorcycle incident. https://www.dirtondirt.com/dirtwire.php?id=5437

03/28/2019
Cody Sommer comes on board to assist after injury. https://www.scottbloomquist.com/2019/03/28/pr/

07/05/2019
Chris Madden rejoins Team Zero, many big wins but lasted just under a year. https://www.scottbloomquist.com/2019...ist-race-cars/

08/20/2019
Chris gets injured early on in off track incident. https://www.scottbloomquist.com/2019/08/20/madden/

11/08/2019
Randy Sweet passes. https://obits.mlive.com/us/obituaries/kalamazoo/name/randall-sweet-obituary?id=8838714

06/30/2020
Madden moves on. https://www.scottbloomquist.com/2020...den-part-ways/

09/30/2021
Cody Sommer and Bloomquist part ways. https://www.scottbloomquist.com/2021...ist-part-ways/

2023
Prostate Cancer and postponed needed back surgery.

[84wedge]

Any word if BQ chassis are being made?

[Henry Every]

Any word if BQ chassis are being made?

I'm sure Foxfire will be the first to know. Can't believe its almost been a year...

[foxfire2dirtracing]

Not that i am aware of.
shane McDowell had a stable full of them after Brandon Kinser quit late models.
Older models - but they are so rigid that you can’t wear them out. Just update the components and race on.

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

Older models - but they are so rigid that you can’t wear them out. Just update the components and race on.

Just the way a race car should be

[KTMLew]

Just the way a race car should be

When I was last involved with this stuff, had at least three different versions/options of tubing choice. Do you want fast for 6 races or 25? Can you weld to do your own repairs? Do you push the rules or not need to make weight?

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

When I was last involved with this stuff, had at least three different versions/options of tubing choice. Do you want fast for 6 races or 25? Can you weld to do your own repairs? Do you push the rules or not need to make weight?

That used to be the thought and probably still is to some people. If your chassis is the spring, there's only so much tuning you can do. You can't make it better or worse. I want a car that responds to change and continue to do so at race 150

The tubing changes are maddening to me as well. It's all steel, so the stiffness is always the same. It just comes down to yield strength. A chassis doesn't operate anywhere near yield. So, if you remove cheap tubing and install thinner moly, you just built a more flexible chassis. It may be safer in a wreck, but it's more flexible on the race track.

We've stiffened our old cars up a lot. I've temporarily removed a bar or two and some of them really made the car slow down significantly.