Factory Five-Ridetech ’33 Hot Rod Huge National Autocross Win!

Hot Rod Magazine editor Rob Kinnan wrote in 2009, “The Factory Five Hot Rod handles like an Indy Car.” We like to tell people that our ’33 looks period-correct, but drives like a proper sports car… and the boys at Ridetech just proved this in a HUGE way.

Big congratulations are in order as Bret Voelkel and his team from Ridetech accomplished a major national win with his Factory Five ’33 Hot Rod! Bret clinched the 2012 GoodGuys National Autocross Series title in the pro class. The Ridetech car also won the street class, something that has never been done in the history of GoodGuys autocross competition.

“Ridetech founder Bret Voelkel has won the 2012 Goodguys AutoCross PRO class points title behind the wheel of his wicked ’33 Ford hot rod. Voelkel sealed the victory at last weekend’s Goodguys 2nd Fall Del Mar Nationals presented by Meguiar’s by taking the PRO class event win in the ’33 Ford, giving him enough points to take the season-long championship over rival Kyle Tucker of Detroit Speed. Driving a variety of entries throughout the season, Voelkel competed at 11 Goodguys AutoCross events across the country, winning the PRO class 4 times. He also won the year-end Street Rod Class title, making him the first multi-class Goodguys AutoCross Champion.” – GoodGuys News you can read more on the Good-Guys website

The Ridetech car was a common sight at GoodGuys autocrosses all year finishing on the podium frequently.

Ridetech President Bret Voelkel did all of the driving himself all season long..

Above and Below: Bret driving at Del Mar on his way to his national title

The Ridetech crew built a fairly stock ’33, but added Billet control arms (same exact FFR geometry) and powered the car with a 460 HP Ford small block.

Here’s a car with street tires and a license plate that you DON’T want to meet on a Saturday night at your neighborhood stop light. Congratulations again to everyone at Ridetech and thanks to the GoodGuys Organization for hosting a fantastic autocross season. Courtesy of our friends at Factory 5 

Ridetech President, Bret Voelkel, Reflects on the 33 Ford’s successes this year after becoming the 2012 GoodGuys Autocross Champion:

“As with any story, there is a “short version” and then the rest of the story. Here is the short version of how we did with the RideTech 33 Ford this year:

• Battle at the Banks – didn’t run the car…steering not done
• Nashville Goodguys – ran the car with old hard tires, no swaybars, & frontend chatter – finished 4th in Pro
• Midwest Musclecar Challenge – car ran great, then broke camshaft on the fourth lap
• Optima Qualifier Texas – ran great, top 5 finish overall
• Optima Qualifier Road America – ran great, top 5 finish overall, wore out clutch
• Columbus Goodguys – 106 degrees outside, posi problems, more frontend chatter – poor finish,10th overall
• Motorstate Challenge – spun car twice, still finished 5th on road course, but would not run for autocross
• Run Through the Hills – broke power steering, coil died, but still finished 8th overall
• Goodguys Indy – everybody was really close…5th overall
• Goodguys Texas – got it all together…1st place!
• Day at the Strip – tight racing…2nd overall
• Optima Vegas event – Autocross – 5th, Road course – 12th, Speed Stop – 1st!, Design Challenge 18th…tied for 3rd overall!
• Scottsdale Goodguys – very close racing…3rd overall
• Del Mar Goodguys – the 33 worked great on this track…1st by a lot!
• OVERALL GOODGUYS PRO CLASS and STREET ROD CLASS 2012 Champion!

And here is the rest of the story for those who can stand even more of my relentless drivelings…

At RideTech we use “suspension research and development” as a great excuse to build hotrods. A couple of years ago we decided to do something that was a bit more “traditional” looking…something light…something that would show hotrodders that you didn’t have to necessarily build a Camaro, Mustang, or Corvette to be cool and go fast.

Enter the RideTech 33 Ford. Starting with a Factory Five chassis and body, the project migrated from a simple “throw it together and go fast” deal, to a full on 3000 hour racecar/street car/fabrication exercise. [any of this sound familiar?] The 33 actually uses a lot of used, fabricated, or otherwise pre-existing components. The 427W engine used to be in my 69 Mustang [before an oiling problem left the crank laying on the track at Road Atlanta a few years ago], and the Rankin clutchless 4 speed transmission was a remnant from the Jasper Engines NASCAR program a few years ago. The Winters quickchange rearend was bought new. The 6 piston 14″ rotor Baer Brakes were left over from another project, as was the Holley Dominator EFI system, the MSD distributor and Digital 6A box, as well as the Racepak dash. We then spent from November 2011 to May of 2012 fitting the body, fabricating the double paneled insulated sheetmetal interior, building the seats, making the stainless headers and oval exhaust system, fitting the Tilton pedals and IDIDIT tilt steering column, creating a full stainless rollcage, installing a Fuelsafe fuelcell and fire system, and making all the little hinges, handles, brackets, and riveted sheetmetal trim pieces that appear all over the car.

Ford being built back this spring

Greg Schneider working his magic

The 33 incorporates some suspension stuff that I had been wanting to try for awhile. The rear suspension is a “wishbone” design…2 bottom links and a single “A” arm on the top to control both lateral and axial rotation. While on paper the rear roll center seems a bit high, in practice the car is stable, predictable and fast. I intend to use this design more often!

The front suspension retains the original Factory Five control arm pivot points, but we built new control arms that were just a little prettier, with delrin bushings and replaceable balljoints. The biggest thing we did to the frontend was to change the steering system completely. The car comes with a manual rear steer rack that is, in my opinion, just a bit small to get the job done with a 315mm tire on the racetrack. We installed a Woodward front steer power steering system. Because it was a complete custom installation we had the latitude to work with rack location and steering arm design to reduce the bumpsteer to under .050″ through 6″ of suspension travel. It is beautiful to drive on the street…or at 150mph on a rough racetrack!

Woodward rack works great to control the 315mm Falken Azenis and Forgeline Wheels

Another major variation from the FFR design was to cut the recommended spring rate in half and build front and rear swaybars. The result is that the car not only performs well on the track, it rides comfortably and is very tunable to a variety of track conditions via shock, swaybar, and tire pressure adjustments. (more information about the build is on the online, click here)

We debuted the car [at least visually] at the Battle at the Banks event in Salem, In. on May 5th. We didn’t run it there because the steering was not completed yet. The first driving event was the Nashville Goodguys autocross in May. With some old, hard tires and no swaybars, the car did well, but we knew there was so much more potential.

By the next week at the Midwest Musclecar Challenge we had swaybars built. We made 4 autocross laps and the car was just getting fast when the distributor gear on the camshaft died.

State of the car before heading off on the HotRod Powertour

After that was fixed we took the car on the Hotrod Power Tour and the first Optima Qualifier in Dallas Texas. This was also the debut of the new Falken 615k tires. What a dramatic difference! The 33 ran top 10 in all the segments and nothing broke! Later in June we went to the 2nd Optima qualifier at Road America. We did very well there too but wasted the clutch in the process. Back home to get ready for Columbus Goodguys.

I spent most of the ridiculously hot summer tuning and learning how to drive this thing! It was fast, but not as fast or smooth as I needed it to be. The biggest problems were the explosive acceleration [light car, lots o horsepower, and a really light carbon clutch], a front end chatter that I could not seem to locate, and an obstinate EFI system [or so I thought]. At the Run Through the Hills event in September we resolved 2 of the problems: the EFI problem turnout to be a bad coil…it finally died, we changed it, and it has ran perfect ever since!. The other problem resolved was the front end chatter. It was bad enough that the power steering slave cylinder rod broke off. Bad news…BUT the frontend chatter went away! Now instead of chasing an illusional mechanical flex problem, I started looking at the hydraulic system. A quick call to Woodward steering [why didn't I think of THAT before?] got the answers: the pump was cavitating. Move the reservoir up, increase the return line size and make sure it flows evenly downhill to the pump with no dips or humps. Problem completely fixed!

Centerforce clutch is the 33′s best friend

We felt really good about the Optima race in Vegas. The car was good and we were ready. I felt we could run top 10…maybe even top 5.

The crowds at the SEMA show loved the car! The drive to Pahrump was uneventful [if a bit noisy from all the trans and rearend gear whine!] The first event was the autocross…we placed 5th! Next up was the road course…all was going well until the in car camera fell of the windshield and got tangled up in my feet. The race director very graciously allowed me to make another attempt. 1:52…3 seconds quicker than the 48 Hour Camaro last year, and good enough for 12th. On to the speed stop. I knew this was traditionally my weakest event and that the competition from the 1200hp all wheel drive, ABS equipped Nissan GTR [and several other cars] would be nearly insurmountable. Well, I have no idea how, but I won the speed stop! Now we were in good position to do well overall, assuming the design challenge portion went ok.

It must have…we tied for 3rd place overall!

The morning before the race

Fast times on the road course

So what’s next for the RideTech 33? Well, now that it’s respectably fast, we’re likely going to put some pretty paint on it. The original plan of wrapping that car at the Hotrod Trade Show last March was waylaid by the dumbasses at the Mutoh Corporation and the Fellers Corporation who, one week before the show, decided that the project was too hard for them to do. Nice.

Other refinements will be cleaning up some mounting bracketry and wiring routing, building a hood and hood sides…and changing to air suspension. Now it’ll get REAL fast!

We had a LOT of support throughout the year on the 33 Ford. Centerforce built us a great clutch. The Falken Tires are unbeatable, as are the Baer Brakes. Forgeline built us a really cool [and light] set of wheels. Holley went out of their way to get this thing to run [even with a bad coil], Tony Woodward is a steering system genius, and Sunset Racecraft builds one badass Ford engine. …and the engineers at Fox Shox made us all look like heros on the track. The triple adjustment capabilities of our new shocks has really proven its worth this year! Greg Schneider, Kurt Blackgrove and Dennis Neihaus at our RideTech shop built a fast reliable, cool looking 33 Ford. It was my privilege to get to drive it every week!

- Written by Bret Voelkel

Bret Pictured with the 33 Ford after winning the Del Mar autocross

33 Ford Autocross Run on Local News Channel


More information on the car and the build, click here

Taken straight from GoodGuys.com:
“Ridetech founder Bret Voelkel has won the 2012 Goodguys AutoCross PRO class points title behind the wheel of his wicked ’33 Ford hot rod. Voelkel sealed the victory at last weekend’s Goodguys 2nd Fall Del Mar Nationals presented by Meguiar’s by taking the PRO class event win in the ’33 Ford, giving him enough points to take the season-long championship over rival Kyle Tucker of Detroit Speed. Driving a variety of entries throughout the season, Voelkel competed at 11 Goodguys AutoCross events across the country, winning the PRO class 4 times. He also won the year-end Street Rod Class title, making him the first multi-class Goodguys AutoCross Champion.

“It was a lot of fun running the Goodguys autocross events this year” said an enthusiastic Voelkel. “Our new ’33 Ford performed great with the help of Baer Brakes, Falken Tires, Forgeline Wheels, Centerforce Clutches and the engineers at Fox Shocks. Greg Schneider, Kurt Blackgrove, and Dennis Neihaus at our RideTech shop did a great job of building a fast reliable car. Its a real honor to get to drive it every week…and to give so many RideTech customers rides in it! For next year were planning on adding some pretty paint and a few other changes to make it even faster. Can’t wait!”… Read the rest online….

Our Response:
It has been a victorious year for Ridetech, our cars are getting faster and our drivers more experienced. The 33 Ford is a perfect example, just after May when the 33 Ford launched at GoodGuys Nashville, Bret realized he needed to have more confidence in the car. So our car building team stepped up, switched tires/wheels (Falken/Forgeline), beefed up the steering rack(Woodward), and changed out the clutch (Centerforce). Then Bret went out and thrashed on the car, dialed in the Ridetech Coilovers, and picked up faster times over and over again. This lead Bret to take home some decisive victories to become the GoodGuys autocross champion. Now with the 2012 racing season behind us, 2013 is shaping up to be a killer year for team Ridetech with two already primed autocross vehicles (33 Ford and 48HourCamaro).

Key victories this year:

Bret pictured at Del Mar’s winner’s circle.

Ridetech took the big autocross win this weekend at the GoodGuys Del Mar all thanks to a well tuned 33 Ford and a focused driver. Everything clicked for Bret Voekel, president of Ridetech, who won the pro class on Saturday. This put a nice finishing touch to the end of the GoodGuys show season. Many other customers were there putting down some nice times as well like; Rob MacGregor in is 69 C10, Jeff Schwartz with his 1965 Pontiac Tempest, Cheryl Herrick with her 1967 Nova, and Scott Call in his 67 F100. Beyond putting down fast times, many drivers donated their time to give rides to the Wounded Warrior Project which raised over $23,000 in donations between OUSCI, Goodguys Scottsdale, Pleasanton, and Del Mar.

Autocross Results

*Denotes Ridetech Equipped Vehicle

Pro Class

Street Machine Class

Truck Class

Streetrod Class

Super Sunday Class

Pictures from the show

1234567►

It all started Thursday night when longtime friend, Rob MacGregor, won an OUSCI invite for his “Hellboy” C10. This being a huge goal for him all year, Rob knew he had to make it count. When he went up to accept his invite, he proposed that he would donate $100 to the Wounded Warrior Project for each vehicle he beat in the race. This showing of passion captured everyone’s attention. So much so that Bret Voelkel, president of Ridetech, decided he also would donate $100 to every car he beat with the Ridetech 33 Ford. Leading Bret to announce “You know this could get expensive, and I hope it does…”

When the racing was all done Saturday, the final results pushed the charitable giving well past expectations. With our 3rd place finish, over $5,000 was donated to the project, not including the cash from Rob’s 15th place finish. This made our fastest finish yet even more rewarding. In addition to the race results, several others also contributed by making donations inside a hat that was passed around during the event and at the drivers meeting. All this lead to a heartfelt conclusion to the race that will support wounded troops in the years to come.

This is not the end of the line though. Since OUSCI, Rob and others have been giving autocross rides for $20 donations at shows like GoodGuys Pleasanton and will continue to do so at GoodGuys Scottsdale and DelMar in the coming weeks. We will also continue to support this program by giving rides in our 33 Ford on the autocross. If you see Bret and the car, by all means come out, show your support, and ask for a $20 charity ride.

The Wounded Warrior Program provides services to severely injured service members during the time between active duty and transition to civilian life. More information on the project and instructions on how to donate.

To read about the events leading up to the charity, visit pro-touring.com

Rob McGreagor finished 15th out of 60 cars

Bret finished 3rd overall

Rob giving $20 donation rides at Pleasanton

We joined Rob with our West Coast Camaro

After refining our 33 Ford all summer we felt ready to go fast at the 5th annual Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational in Pahrump last weekend. OUSCI is a collection of 55 of the fastest [and best looking] street cars in the world. The participants range from a 1933 Ford [ours] to a 900hp 67 Camaro to a Lamborghini that ran 236mph in the standing mile. Rarely can you find a more interesting mix of hotrods…it would be a major challenge for the RideTech 33 to compete with these cars!

The most recent revisions were some power steering tweaks to fix a frontend chatter, a new Centerforce DYAD clutch to calm the car down, and a new wing for the rear to give the car some rear downforce at speed. These changes were all successful as the 33 Ford placed 5th in the autocross segment, 12th in the road course segment, and WON the speed stop challenge segment to finish tied for 3rd overall!

RideTech President Bret Voelkel commented: “Not only has the RideTech crew worked hard on this car all summer, but we’ve had a tremendous amount of support from Fox Shocks, Falken Tires, Centerforce clutches, Baer Brakes, Forgeline Wheels, Woodward Steering, and Holley EFI to get this thing going fast. It is truly fun to drive on the street and on the track!”

In addition to the RideTech 33, there were several customers who were successful in the Optima Challenge:

Rob McGreagor – C10 truck – 15th

Summers and son – C10 truck – 24th

Chris Smith – C10 truck – 16th

Pedro Gonzales – 79 Trans Am – 34th (tie)

Ron Schwarz – 65 Mustang – 30th

Albert Melchior – 70 Trans Am – 34th (tie)

Dan Howe – 84 Monte Carlo – 35th

Mark Bowler – 70 Torino – 32nd

Josh Barnett – 09 Mustang GT500 – 34th (tie)

Jeff Cleary – 67 Corvette – 18th

Event Photos

12345►

Press Release

2012 OPTIMA® Ultimate Street Car Invitational Captivates Sold Out Crowd

Nov. 8, 2012 (MILWAUKEE) – The fifth annual OPTIMA® Ultimate Street Car Invitational, presented by K&N Filters and Royal Purple, brought in massive crowds with a sold out event, more thrilling moments and record times, ultimately crowning Mark Stielow and his custom 1967 Chevrolet Camaro as the 2012 OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car. It was a year for close competition with the top two participants separated by a single point and a tie for third place overall. Additionally, there was a more diverse showing of vehicles this year with nearly 20 percent of the field falling under the import category.

The OPTIMA Invitational packed the grandstands with non-stop activity, something for everyone in the manufacturer midway, on-the-ground excitement of television personalities (Amanda Salas and Bill Goldberg) filming the miniseries finale of the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational broadcast series.

The main race events of the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational took place Saturday, November 3, with the BFGoodrich Hot Lap Challenge, Ridetech Autocross Challenge, Wilwood Disc Brakes Speed Stop Challenge, and the Lingenfelter Performance Engineering Performance and Design Challenge. The Detroit Speed and Engineering/JRI Shocks Road Rally occurred following the close of the SEMA Show Friday, November 2.

Final Results

The 2012 OPTIMA Invitational top 25 ranking participants are listed below and additional final results can be found online at optimainvitational.com.

1. Mark Stielow (1967 Chevrolet Camaro)
2. Brian Hobaugh (1973 Chevrolet Camaro)
3. Todd Earsley* (2003 Mitsubishi Lance Evolution 8 GSR)
3. Bret Voelkel* (1933 Ford Coupe)
5. Travis Hill (2013 Nissan GT-R)
6. Steven Rupp (1968 Chevrolet Camaro)
7. Danny Popp (2010 Chevrolet Camaro L28)
7. Kyle Tucker (1970 Chevrolet Camaro)
7. Karl Dunn (2007 Ford Saleen Parnelli Jones Mustang)
10. Brian Finch (1972 Chevrolet Camaro)
10. Jim Holloway (2013 Ford Mustang RTR)
12. Phil Gerber (1970 Chevrolet C10 Pickup)
12. Ryan Mathews (1966 Ford Mustang)
14. Bob Bertelsen (1971 Chevrolet Camaro)
15. Rob McGregor (1970 Chevy C10 Pickup)
16. Chris Smith (1967 Chevrolet C10)
17. Joey Seely (1986 Porsche Carrera)
18. Dale Akuszewski (1964 Sunbeam Tiger)
18. Jeff Cleary (1967 Chevrolet Corvette)
20. David Brandt (1969 Chevrolet Camaro)
20. Todd Foust (1965 Ford Mustang Convertible)
22. Todd Rumpke (2010 Chevrolet Camaro)
23. Curt Hill (1972 Chevrolet C5 Blazer)
24. Brad Coomer (1970 Chevrolet C10)
25. Stacy Tucker (1969 Chevrolet Camaro)