Mike Pearson's Adventures on a Pale Blue Dot

  The Sucker car Chaparrel race cars was founded in 1962 by oil man/race driver, Jim Hall and Hap Sharp. The name "Chaparrel" was kind of/sort of.... the blending of the two names. In the 60's the aerodynamic ideas that we all take for granted now in auto design had not been totally scienced out. There was a lot of horsepower to be had in everything from aluminum big-block Detroit motors to high-revving European twelve cylinder powerplants. It was easy to go fast down the straights, but turning corners without spinning off the track was a problem. Jim Hall took the issue of cornering grip very seriously, so seriously in fact...that his solution turned the racing world on it's ear. Jim decided to use a magic combination of brute force and finesse to get his race car to stick in high speed corners. He turned his race car, the 2-J into a giant vacuum cleaner. Equipped with an auxiliary 45 horsepower, 2stroke snowmobile engine that turned two 17 inch fans, th...