The Kansas Tornado

Fuel runs down the Weiand intake and into the combustion chamber where an explosion is sparked by an H&C Magneto up against a set of Weiand heads. The resulting turbulence is enough to rapidly turn the stroked crank which, in turn, tortures an Isky camshaft into slamming the valves against a fully relieved block. All of this mayhem goes towards putting power to the Sheifer clutch and pressure plate, through a ’39 trans with Zephyr gears, and into a fully locked ’48 Lincoln banjo rear.

It’s a formula for power that Bud Susank created in the winter of 1956 – that’s when he built this monster with an eye on taking on all comers. He was successful too. The little roadster kicked asses from all over the midwest at any and every opportunity.

In 1962, however, Bud hung it up and parked the car resigning himself to being the “old guy” that knew a lot about Ford flatheads. That’s how Seth Schroer heard about him anyway… One day while bench racing at the local machine shop, Seth heard the lore.

“You are into those old flatheads, huh? Well, you need to pay your respects to Bud son.”

And so Seth did… He visited Bud every chance he got and filled up on stories about racing in the 1950’s and secrets about flatheads and speed. If this were a movie, this is where the musical montage would kick in. It was a happy time for both Bud and Seth.

In 2009, the music and the stories stopped. Bud passed on after a long battle with cancer. The family did what they thought was right with the car – they passed it on to the only punk ass kid that would sit around and talk about hot rods with Bud. They passed the car on to Seth.

Now, I’m not sure just how old Seth is… But I can tell ya he’s way too young to be owning a car as special as this one. Take a gander at the photos provided here. See the guy in the white t-shirt? That’s Seth… What do you think? 26 or so? Maybe 30 with good skin?

Take a minute to think about that…

Yep. Too young, right? Nope.

See, Seth is the perfect caretaker for this car and not just because he earned the right by entertaining Bud in his later years. Seth is the perfect owner because he is doing with this car what Bud built it to do. He is racing the shit out of it. At the H.A.M.B. Drags this year, he made pass after pass working on his 1-2 shift and learning the ways of early racing while on the job. And he did so with seemingly no regard for the original paint on the car or the OG King George striping or those fragile Zephyr gears or the high dollar flathead or…

This, my friends, is what vintage racing is all about. And Seth has it figured out – 14.2 seconds at a time.

A couple of editor notes:

1. See that image of the old helmet with the letter from the NHRA stashed away inside? That’s actually a personal note from Wally Parks to Bud. In it, Wally gives Bud permission to run his previously channeled roadster (a car Bud campaigned before the Kansas Tornado) in a stock bodied class despite the modification. Seth brought it to the H.A.M.B. Drags just in case Carl gave him any shit in the tech line. Good planning…

2. For the camera geeks out there… These photos were shot using a Leica M2 with a 35mm Summilux lens and CineStill film. No post processing was done here… The look comes from CineStill.