Still Building America—Taking it to the limit and then some

Shane Whalley's drift racing GTO.

I’ve known Shane Whalley for a few years now. He’s actually done a bunch of fab work on my ’70 Buick Electra project over at Ice Nine Group while I’ve been laid up on medical leave.

Shane’s a young guy who was first pushed to wrench and fabrication out of necessity—he wanted to race cars. Anyone who has been into racing at any level of any type, whether it’s bracket racing your ’73 Nova at the drag strip; piloting a spec Miata on the weekends; or participating in drifting events, like Shane does in his GTO, knows that to play you gotta pay. And if you don’t have money, the currency is blood, sweat, and tears.

Shane said, “I picked up a welding machine and started teaching myself what I needed to know to perform the tasks I needed to do. I started out doing a roll cage and chassis bracing. Then, when it came time to get into serious suspension setup, no one really made the parts I needed. So I picked up some books on suspension design, geometry, and physics and started designing my own parts. Control arms, steering knuckles, tie rods, camber plates, toe arms, and more. Understanding how everything works before you build it can save tons of time and material.”

What Shane digs most about his work is testing it: building one-off parts and then beating the heck out of them during practice sessions and race days, seeing his pieces perform as he designed them to.

“There is something very satisfying about taking something you personally designed, because no one else in the world makes it, and having it work exactly as intended,” said Shane.

And he would like to expand on both the racing and the fabrication in the future.

“One of my future goals is to one day expand the performance aspect of what I do into my own building, a place where I can really focus on the type of work that I love to do and have the proper equipment to do it with.

“My other goal is to continue driving. Not saying I want to become a top level, pro driver (if it happens, that would be awesome), but I just want to keep driving on track, having fun, and building the great relationships I have made over the years with so many great people.”

I can appreciate the passion. It’s not about the fame, it’s about the love of the game.

When I asked him what kind of advice he’d give to the generation coming up now, one he’s actually part of, this was his response:

Shane Whalley welding.
Image courtesy of Brown Dog Welding.

“Nothing comes easy. No one ever becomes successful without having plenty of failures along the way. So when something goes wrong or you get held back, just remember that it's only temporary.

“The only person that can keep you from doing what you want to do is you. No excuses. I didn't learn how to drive the way I do without a few crashes along the way. You'll never know what your limit is if you don't push it. And when you mess up, figure out where your mistakes were, learn from them, and push it again. Just keep pushing until your idols become your rivals. That's when you'll know you made it.”

Shane encountered some of those limits last weekend when he hit a wall in fourth gear after an unknown gremlin popped up and he lost power. But the bash bar he built, a piece designed to take the punishment, limited the damage to the chassis and drivetrain. Like he said in a text to me:

“Build it, race it, wreck it, build it again.”

You can follow Shane and check out his fabrication and his GTO drifting hijinks at:

• Instagram: @ShaneWhalley
• Facebook: Shane Whalley (you can hyper link: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shane-Whalley/299135250132157?fref=ts)
• Twitter: @WallEdrift

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