I spend more time and money on R & D than any other derby engine builder. But I always love the folks who argue that Nascar, NHRA, INDY, or other “professional” builders, know more than we do at G.A.S. The problem is that derby engines are a unique beast. I’ve worked in many forms of motorsports over my career, and have had national-championship level success in several of them. But I started out driving in demolition derbies, and that is where my passion rests. So I test everything. I test camshafts, heads, rocker combinations, compression ratios, water pumps, intake configurations, and on and on and on. I’ll buy 5 different types of water pumps and test them. I test them based on the needs of the DERBY environment. We are always searching to get the most out of a derby engine. I regularly use info from tests performed by others in various motorsports, including NASCAR, if I can glean something from it that will further my own development. NASCAR conducts many, many tests that the regular person simply can’t afford to do in their shop - but only some of that info applies to our sport, and you have to know how to process the raw data when it is available (which isn’t that often). So while NASCAR, NHRA, INDY or similar comparisons are not reasonable to our sport, some of the data they acquire is invaluable to our product development. And using it properly separates those who think they know what they are doing from those who do - which is evident by the number of wins a builder has.

I do a small amount machine work at my shop. All final assembly and inspection of the work completed by my machinist or my balance professional is 100% handled by me. Several things with regard to machine work are done in-house, but most are not. From a business standpoint, it makes little sense not to out-source. I order parts built to my specs. If I want to open a bore up by a few thousandths, or change the hatch pattern on my bores, it would cost me loads of money to have all of the tools necessary in my shop to do that. If I had to spend all of that money, and justify having these machines just for derby work, there would be no way I could lose the money I do on continued research. If the machine work is up to spec, and ordered by me, who cares who does it? Specializing in derby engines is not a lucrative business if that is all you do - if it was, there would have been machine shops who specialized in derby engines long before I came along and dominated with wins from my products. Outsourcing allows me to focus on the success of the final product, and not doing the boring in my shop means nothing. I don’t cast my own pistons, either. Nor do I cast my own blocks, grind my own camshafts, or make my own gaskets. Does that mean the product is any less successful? Nope. Many shops brag that they have in-house machine shops - the problem is they have little or no proof of any derby success on their own. They can copy, sure, but so what? Some of them do things that sound cool to an engine because they do it for other forms of motorsports, but really, they stuff they are doing that sounds cool is detrimental to a championship level derby engine. The skill of the artist is not on the canvass or in the brush.