Fixing Snot Rocket: Back at MRC After the FL2K Crash

Snot Rocket is back at the shop. Not the way any of us wanted.

If you follow small-tire racing, you already know the weekend Brett LaSala had at FL2K. On Friday at Bradenton Motorsports Park, he opened the event with a 6.458 at 233.44 mph, a new stick-shift world record. Two days later in eliminations, racing Josh Manning's Corvette, the left rear 275 radial came apart at about 228 mph. The tire took the quarter panel, the door skin and the rear bumper with it.

Brett kept the car in the lane, still trapped over 212 mph, and climbed out on his own. That is the part that matters most. Everything else is metal, and metal is what we do.

Watch the rebuild

We documented the whole repair on our YouTube channel. Here is the full series, start to finish.

Part 1: Snot Rocket 3.0 Rebuild Before World Cup

Part 2: Putting It Back Together

Part 3: One Step Closer to the Track

Part 4: The Final

The damage report

It looked bad in the photos. It was a lot of work, but it was not as bad as it looked.

The left side took the worst of it. The quarter was wrinkled all the way forward into the rocker, and the bottom was the worst part, because when the tire peeled the quarter it ripped it off from underneath. There was tire rubber all the way up to the front of the rocker on the inside. The carbon work in the back of the car was torn apart.

The wheel tub held up better than anyone expected. Where it had the foam reinforcement, nothing went through it. The tin panel behind the driver at the number one bar got mangled, but it stopped a lot of what was coming.

The right side quarter came off too. It went into the wall, which pushed in the wheel arch, and when the wing ripped off it pulled that whole area with it. That quarter had also been hit and repaired at some point before we ever had the car, so a whole new quarter made more sense than chasing body work.

Up front, the turbo pushed into one of the front tubes, broke it at the bottom and dented it at the top. That meant new intercooler mounts and a new radiator mount. One control arm looked fine at first glance, but on closer inspection it had a slight bend, so it got replaced.

The rear of the chassis was fine. No structural damage back there. The body on this car is a skin over the chassis, so replacing it does not mean replacing the inner structure. It just means getting new skin on it, and getting it on straight.

New quarters, factory dimensions

Brett's teammate Jim donated the rear quarters off his own car. That was a big help, and we owe him for it.

The goal was to keep everything as close to factory dimension as possible. The easiest way to do that is to drill holes for Clecos in the areas you are going to cut before you cut anything. Then cut the spot welds and split it apart. When the new panel goes on, the Clecos put it right back where the old one was.

We reused the old tail panel and located it off the bumper mount holes, with one Cleco hole to confirm it was in the right spot. It was. Our original body mount on that side was not bent, so it hooked right back up.

Panels like this have to go on from the inside out, the same way we do every car. Do it in the wrong order and you end up with holes where you don't want them. Two to three of us worked on it almost nonstop for about 12 hours just to get it torn apart.

A change we are making standard

With a carbon seat and carbon tubs, there is not much between the driver and the tire. Two layers of carbon and the tubing. So we added tin panels to the driver structure on both sides. No more tire getting in there. That will probably be standard on our cars from now on. A car with an aluminum seat has more material in that spot, but with carbon, we want the extra layer.

Closing out the body

• Rockers closed out and seam sealed.
• New striker plates for the doors.
• New panel at the front of the tub, which carries a scallop strip that mounts the front of the tub. Normally we build that panel with just the body on the table, before the chassis and seats are in. Doing it backward, with everything in the way, took a lot more measuring and fitting.
• Tub refit and remounted on the damaged side.
• New body mounts on the roof.
• Rear bumper refit, with the scallop strip structure built behind it.
• Brett drilled the holes for the window, installed the window lip trim and got the window supports in.
• Fillers for the antenna and marker light holes. Brett blows the marker lights out just about every pass, so he quit running them.

New doors

The car got new Ultracarbon paint-grade doors, and they fit really well. We did not have to touch the back body line at all, which saves a lot of hours. They open, close and latch on both sides.

The hinges did have to move. The front door structure on these doors is a little different from the Jeffers doors that were on the car, and Brett wanted to keep his 14-1/4" door spacing so the door hangers riveted into his trailer still work. Keeping that spacing meant moving the hinges down.

Up front

For everyone who asked in the comments: the engine you saw in the car during the rebuild was a mockup. A bare block, timing cover and bare heads. Nothing from it was used except the intake, which was taped off and washed out. Brett is very thorough about keeping things clean.

We made the intercooler piping modular. The intercooler stayed, but the piping coming off it may need to come off later, so the more modular the better.

Brett and Jim built side-exit headers out of Inconel, matching the style of the old ones.

The car also got a new one-piece front end. For the back, Tim McAmis set us up with a flat Ultracarbon deck lid. These deck lids come with a small ducktail lip, which the old one had removed to run Brett's wing. Brett took the new one over to McAmis and they took the lip off so it was ready to mount.

Done, and headed to World Cup

Wing, deck lid, carbon work, front end, turbo mount and headlight mounts were the last pieces, and Part 4 wraps it all up. Snot Rocket 3.0 is back together and headed to World Cup Finals at Maryland International Raceway, where qualifying starts in early November.

Last year at World Cup, this car went 5.979 at 241.37 mph, its first pass in the fives. In April it won LDR in Steele with a record 3.76 at 204. Thanks to Brett, Jim and everyone who pitched in to turn this one around in time. We will be pulling for them.

Watch more

See more from the shop on the Moore Race Chassis YouTube channel. If you missed the original build, the full Snot Rocket 3.0 build series is there too.

Need chassis work after a hit, or want your car built so the next repair is easier? Call the shop at 636-791-1541, or look at our welded chassis and cage kits.