Carlisle '99

1999 Carlisle Nationals

The Carlisle show is the best place to meet with manufacturers and builder’s involved in the design and manufacture of component cars. This year the show was held one week later than normal and it made all the difference. Instead of being held on Mother’s day weekend and in 50 degree rain and slop, this year the skies were clear and daytime temperatures stayed in the low to mid 70's. The weather and the weekend combined to make it a record breaking show for attendance. Crowds were heaviest Saturday, but people still filled the halls on Friday as well as Sunday. Every major manufacturer was present with a few conspicuous absences, namely Johnex, RU and Contemporary. Factory Five Racing had the largest booth. We had 13 spaces filled with every sample of our

FFR's Twin Turbo


FFR's new big block rolling chassis, the ALL NEW Factory Five T-Bird/Lincoln Mark VIII based IRS

product from rolling chassis to kits to race cars and street cars.

The Factory Five crew consisted of engineers Jesper Ingerslev, Jim Schenck, and Mark Weber along with owners Mark and David Smith. The FFR team was joined by East Coast builder Mike Mack and his team from Tristate Motorsports.

The FFR crew left early Thursday morning from

Massachusetts and arrived in Carlisle Pennsylvania by about four PM. We spent the next six hours getting our booth ready for the show the next morning.

This year was special for us as we were unveiling our new and improved roadster kit. The new kit has an improved vinylester body, dropped foot box, and inner door liners. We also introduced our brand new IRS (independent rear suspension) set-up to show off and we were taking the wraps off our new 460 big block option.

The show began officially at 10 am the next morning but people began walking through the booth by as early as 8 am. All day Friday the crowds got bigger and bigger with the most people coming in around 4:00 PM. Friday night



		Shell Valley's hardtop roadster, ERA's world class GT40, and Bill Karns retro 5.0.



The ghostly Aldino, engine detail by Tri-State Motorsports, the newest of ERA's fleet, their Grandsport.

we left the show around 8:00 PM and barely managed to eat before collapsing from exhaustion.

Saturday morning we were at it again and this time the crowds were even thicker. Jesper wanted to try the twin turbo car on a rear wheel dyno which was available at the show outside. He figured the closest car would be a Viper powered car from Classic Roadsters. FFR customer Steve Dunkel stopped by. Other FFR customers arrived with their cars. Barry Nealis, Bill Karns and Dennis Tiernan were all grouped with their cars on the main fairgrounds next to the NJ Kit Car Club. FFR customer Bob Lennon brought his flawless FFR car as well and was parked in the vendor area. Also FFR customer Roy Coleman brought his Red FFR

roadster to the show for all to see.

This year the biggest news was not component cars but the explosion of the import “Tuner” cars. Out in the main fairgrounds were an astonishing number of these pocket rocket cars. The old standard British parts guys and suppliers were present as well, but against the sea of import cars, the old guard looked to be slipping a little.



		Jesper going over the kit in detail, the New Jersey Kit Car Club always in force, Roy Coleman and FFR owner Mark Smith.



The Lotus-like Birkins, the GT40 is always a crowd magnet, imorts were all the rage as you can see from this MR2.

At the end of the day on Saturday, Enzo Alibrandi, parts supplier extraordinaire, came by and asked if we would be interested in racing go carts with the good guys from ERA replicas. We shut down the booth and made a bee line for the go-cart track, get out my way kid… I gotta get car #16.

Enzo sprang for the rental fees as the FFR guys and the ERA guys squared off in head-to-head good-spirited three minute races with small gas powered go-carts. FFR’s Dave Smith knew that this was serious racing as he was driven off course three times in the first two laps. FFR’s Jesper Ingerslev was seen on two wheels only minutes into the first heat. Everyone had a great time and the small token of goodwill was not lost on anyone. What industry we could forge if all manufacturers enjoyed the respect and fellowship

that the ERA and FFR teams have for each other. Goodwill in our industry though means that half way through the racing the track manager warned both teams that he would have to kick us off if we continued to drive in a “reckless” fashion. Can’t a guy have any fun?…

After the car racing, Sunday was relaxed and kind of a wrap-up day. Jesper did run the twin turbo car on the dyno promising not to let “some four cylinder lawnmower beat our car!” (don’t laugh, some of those import cars produce unbelievable horsepower!). The shoot-out came down to our 5.0 powered car against the much vaunted Viper powered V-10 snake built by Classic Roadsters. John Ciacchis’ (Builder of fine Contemporary brand) big block component car was in the hunt as well. In the end though the FFR car had won the contest (don’t we always


A few non-FFR cars. There were many new features in the FFR rolling chassis, John McMahon and customer Bill Karns.



Tri-State's Melissa, Stan & Linda Brown showed up with their FFR built by Tri-State, Jesper introduced the 436 hp Twin-Turbo to the Dyno-Jet.

seem to squeak out ahead?). The results were as follows… These are actual numbers not corrected for altitude or temperature.

The Factory Five Racing car produced 436 hp at the rear wheel with 488 ft lbs. torque! The Viper motored replica ran just under 400 hp and the big block Contemporary made 381 hp at the rear wheels. All three of these cars will be at the 1999 Run and Gun Shoot-out in Missouri so hold onto your hats and we’ll see who can actually use all this juice. We packed up around 4 PM and barely made it to the Massachusetts line by midnight. All told we had spoken to over 500 component car fans, we had seen customers and friends that hadn’t been seen since last year, and we had clearly proven our leadership in the industry market.

Special note of thanks to Enzo Alibrandi for his work and to ERA’s Peter Portante and crew for the great competition that night. Also thanks goes out to Eric, John and all the staff at Carlisle Productions who make the show successful every year. See you next year!