Denver Hot Rods ep5 CDR, Kool Kustom Kar Show, Mike Wanas, Cody Riedel, Bombs Over Lakewood

Today on Denver Hot Rods, we visit two forgotten Colorado drag strips, Continental Divide Raceways, and Dragway Denver. Then we head out to the cool custom car show in Pueblo. Next, we check out Mike Wanus' cool 1932 Ford Roadster. And on Hot Rod Builds, Cody Rydell shows us how to heat and bend early Ford spindle arms. Then it's off to Lakewood or CDR as it was nicknamed, was started in 1959 and was in use until the early 1980s. CDR featured a road course, oval track, and a drag strip. The drag strip featured hot rods, dragsters, gassers, and hosted big-name racers like Don Garlitz and TV Tommy Ivo. Dragway Denver was located in Commerce City at 96th Street and Buckley Road, and also closed in the 1980s. The track featured many hot rods, dragsters, and gassers. And local heroes Kenz and Leslie raced at Dragway Denver too. In Pueblo, we checked out the cool custom car show at the Colorado State Fair Events Center. We talked to Lynn Shrewsbury about his 1927 Model T Roadster pickup. My name is Lynn Shrewsbury. I'm from Colorado Springs, Colorado. I'm here at the Nick Donovan show. I brought my 27. It's all custom. It's an all-steel car, and it's really fun to drive. It's got a 306R Camaro multi-port fuel injection. Transmission is a 700R4, and a nine-inch rear end. They're knockoffs. They're a Rocket from Holley, and then the big Michelin tires. Blackwall's out, so it makes it look period correct. Mike Wanus has been hot rodding in Denver for years. His 1932 Ford Roadster is a pre-World War II period correct hot rod. My name is Mike Wanus, aka Big Mike. I have a 1932 Ford Roadster. It is a traditional 1940s style hot rod, or what is known as a gow job, which is a term from back in the 40s many of you may be aware of. It has a 1936 Ford flathead engine, 1932 Ford rear end, 1932 Ford front end, 36 Ford transmission, has original firewall, has a chrome steering box steering column of an old 1950s hot rod that was built in Denver back in the day. The interior is 1940s dead stock red naugahyde that came out of an estate sale. Luckily it was preserved back east in someone's basement, so it didn't get any dry cracking. The windshield is a 32 windshield that is chopped two inches, slightly laid back. I have 1940s guide headlights on it. Right now I'm running 1935 Ford wire wheels. I have 1939 Ford tail lights, which are original units that I sourced out. I have a 1930s crisscraft gauge cluster that was put in crisscraft boats, but I found this one in a junkyard in Pennsylvania. The gauges are original style gauges that fit that cluster. I made these headers out of flex tubing. The side pipes are made to look like torque tubes. What I did is I just used tubes out of an exhaust shop. I did not actually use original torque tubes like on the 36 Ford, but they resemble that. It's gone just about everywhere. I don't like sitting in parking lots for car shows, but I built it to be driven. Bar hopping happened to be one of my favorite pastimes with this car. Sometimes when you drop a front axle on an early Ford, it becomes necessary to heat and bend the spindle arms for the tie rod to clear the wishbones or the radius rods, or in this case for the spindle arms to clear the dropped axle itself. Cody Rydell shows us how to heat and bend spindle arms with a big torch and a big wrench. Cody Rydell, we're working on my 31 Model A Roadster today. We're going to heat up and bend the spindles so they clear the dropped front axle. Hitting the axle here, so we're going to heat it up here and twist it down to make it clear. Then we'll heat it up over here somewhere to get this mounting spot back to where we need to be. We're going to measure off the face of the brake drum and see where we're at for a good point to land. It's like an inch and a half to the center of the hole. All right, now we'll do the other side. Those cool down. Now that it's cooled down, we're going to heat it up again and bend it back. All right, that's an inch and a half still. Raise it up a little. It clears. In Lakewood at the Front Range Inn, the Savages Car Club put on their Bombs Over Lakewood show. We spoke to Travis Braun about his 1934 Ford Roadster. I'm Travis Braun. It's a 1934 Roadster. Just has a small block Chevy in it with a little T5 tranny. Tried to just give it a simple four-inch job. Tried to make it just old school, honestly. It's hot rod flats is what I ended up doing, so hot rod flats, just a single-stage paint, and then went over it with actually back-to-black, the stuff you use on all your trim and whatnot to kind of just make it just simple. Louvers, there's like about 412 in it, decklid and whatnot, some hood inside of the floor. Just try to make it simple. 15-inch Kelsies on it, did a radial tire on it, just so it goes down the highway well. The plan is to drive this thing. That was the whole point of this car. Everything, literally everything on it besides interior is done by us. That's our show for today. Be sure to find us on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. We leave you now with more vintage racing from Continental Divide Raceways and Dragway Denver. Thanks for watching Denver Hot Rods.