SEMA 2015: Craftsman’s Model K-Style Racer Shows True Craftsmanship

Like most of performance community, we’re all tired of the commercialized racing that takes place every weekend on TV. When it comes to the spec type IndyCar, NASCAR, and F1 racing, we’re longing for the days when more than one type of chassis and engine combination showed up at the track.

Craftsman K-Type racer, built for the 2015 Race of Gentlemen.

If that sounds like a different era to you, then welcome to The Race Of Gentlemen (TROG). Racing the way that it used to be and should still be. Racers that build their machines with their own hands and pit them against others that have done the same. May the best craftsman and driver win!

TROG is racing the way that our father’s grandfather enjoyed. Racing that was as much man and machine against the elements, other teams and endurance. Just finishing the races were an accomplishment.

Craftsman tools decided to embrace the TROG warrior spirit and enter a car in the fourth annual event of handcrafted vintage racecars battling each other on the beach. Hosted by the Oilers Car Club, the race has a simple set of rules. Cars must have bodies that are American-made from 1934 or earlier. Engines must be 4-bangers or Flathead V8s. Running gear must be 1953 or earlier.

The cars that have shown up in the previous events have not been street legal and pampered vintage racers. They are stripped-down beasts designed to run all-out in a beach race for bragging rights. There is no prize except the right to declare victory over all others.

Craftsman tools decided to field a Model K-style racer with Jessi Combs set to wheel the primal beast down the beach track. This handcrafted machine was designed to represent the by-gone racers of another era with twin T-seriesT-series engines and handcrafted chassis.

The event is a series of races, of which the Craftsman Tools car and Jessi Combs won one of the early races before the two engine system got out of sync with each other and was hampered by loss of horsepower. Despite the lack of ability to keep up with the other cars, the Craftsman Tools car represented itself well in a grueling week of racing.