Грузовик Geo Tracker превратился в легенду Drag Week благодаря безумной конструкции и 454-кубовому мотору

The Dumbest Drag Week Build Ever Might Also Be the Most Brilliant How a 150-mph Geo Tracker became Drag Week’s most beloved underdog. Most people would see a Geo Tracker and write it off as little more than the low-cost, disposable econobox it was designed to be. The Tracker disappeared from American roads years ago with little ceremony, and they’re rarely seen today. But Vinnie Barbone is a different breed of enthusiast. He saw the possibility to build not only something quick, because plenty of racers can do that, but something nobody else would have, something capable of making people laugh, point, ask questions, and eventually become emotionally invested in whether the thing actually survived another day. That curiosity, mixed with equal parts creativity, fabrication skill, humor, and an appreciation for doing things differently, is what transformed Vinnie’s Geo Tracker from an internet oddity into one of drag-and-drive racing’s most recognizable machines. “I just happened to get online and think, you know, I want to build a Geo,” Barbone says, matter of factly. “I thought, ‘What’s the dumbest thing I could make actually work?’ Once I started thinking about it, I couldn’t stop. I always thought a Geo would be something cool. I really have never seen it that much.” From Dumb Idea to Drag Week Build That thought turned into a project in late 2014, shortly before Vinnie left Ohio for his first trip to SEMA. At the time, he had already spent years around drag racing and motorsports, racing anything he could get involved with. He had drag raced since he got his license, drifted, dirt-track raced, even driven monster trucks, and had built multiple race cars over the years. The Geo was another opportunity to try something different. Vinnie started digging through old Geo forums online looking for basic information about rearend swaps and chassis dimensions. Instead, he ended up hearing from Chris Wilson, owner of a black Tracker Vinnie had seen years earlier on streetfire.net. Wilson had wrecked the vehicle and parked it behind his body shop. It already had a Fox-body-style rear suspension and 9-inch rearend underneath it. Vinnie changed his travel plans almost immediately and went to Florida with a friend to buy the Tracker before hauling it back to Ohio. The Geo sits on its original factory frame, though nearly every inch underneath it has been modified for abuse beyond its production intent. The rear of the frame was C-notched to lower it around the 9-inch housing. Dennis Chumita at Chassis Fab Performance handled much of the chassis fabrication, including adapting the triangulated four-link Fox-body rear suspension under the stubby Tracker chassis. The front suspension required even more creativity. Vinnie and Dennis developed a 2-inch-narrowed custom setup inspired by Mustang II geometry but built specifically around the Geo’s dimensions. The Tracker originally came to Vinnie configured for small-block Ford power, though that lasted only briefly. Around the same time, he had completed work connected to Discovery Channel’s Fat N’ Furious automotive program and kept a Blueprint 454 small-block Chevy from another project. That engine became the starting point for the Geo project.