All In — Again!

For aspiring Eastern Canadian Pro Mod racer Derek Hawker — necessity is breeding opportunity….

Derek Hawker’s ’68 Firebird Pro Mod

Derek Hawker

Earlier this season during the Victoria Day weekend event at Cayuga, the PMRA circuit regular had some misfortune.  During a qualifying lap for that event Hawker experienced some issues during an ill fated run and ultimately collected the guard wall at high speed severely damaging the popular ’63 Corvette he has raced for about five years.

For the independent and self-funded racer that was a serious setback for sure — but instead of crying in his coffee Hawker decided to pick his program back up quickly and in fact attended the very next PMRA event driving a new car — a ’68 Firebird.

“I got talking with Jim Geese at R2B2 Race Cars and he let me know about a good car that was available,” Hawker explained.  “It was a car that was originally built by Vanishing Point for Scotty Cannon Sr about 2008.  The car actually went to Qatar one winter where it was raced before coming back to North America where it sat for quite a while.  So we went to Illinois and picked it up from Jerry Bickel’s shop — all of that happened in only a few days.”

Derek and his team then went to work transferring their drivetrain which includes a 526 CID engine program by Atchison Machine into the frame rails of the new Firebird, and were back on the PMRA circuit much sooner then some  people expected.

“The new car drives really nice,” he added.  “The vision from it is taking a little getting used to because of the drivers position and the windows are down about 10% compared to my Corvette.  We’ve still got a few bugs to work out but we are making some good progress.”

Hawker also confirmed that his Corvette is repairable and he is making plans to complete that project this coming off season.

“It’s very fixable — all it really needs is a new front end,” he confirmed.  “We’ll get all that done this winter and then the plan will be to see which car is the better car for going forward in 2014.”

Despite the rather rough road so far in 2013, Derek does sit 4th in PMRA championship points going into this weekend’s event at Grand Bend Motorplex — a testament to his determination.

Posting and Photos by:  Bruce Biegler