Randle Chupp and driver Skip Arp
A new car made an appearance last Saturday for the Turkey Throwdown Southern Nationals Bonus Series event at the Boyd’s Speedway in Ringgold, GA. But the Longhorn Chassis prepared in the Cleveland, Tenn. area by longtime racing guru Randle Chupp was piloted by the capable hands of National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame member Skip Arp.
Chupp operates Wolfpack Racing, which serves as a an equipment distributor and consulting organization for teams throughout the region and around the country. The new machine serves as the company’s house car and Arp was enlisted to put it through its paces in its first time on the track in a competitive situation.
“They talked about it for a long time, about putting a car together, and wanted to know if I’d drive it,” Arp explained in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “I told them I would because I wanted to see what one of them feels like. We thought we’d try it for a couple of races and see what happens.”
After failing to make the feature at Boyd’s last Saturday, Wolfpack and Arp intend to try again this weekend in ‘The Gobbler’ at Cleveland Speedway.
For the past several seasons, Arp has driven GRT Race Cars. But the veteran campaigner insisted that a switch to a different chassis brand was not so difficult.
“It’s not really that hard,” the Georgetown, Tenn. native declared. “We’ve drove everything. I’ve been in a GRT forever and I’m still going to be in them. They’re all the same. I’m telling you that I’ve jigged a lot of these cars and they’re all real close to the same. There’s just a lot of technology and I think there are things these guys are doing right now that we’re behind on. But as far as driving, I feel like it drives good, but our car drives good too. When they’re fast they’re fast, and when they ain’t they ain’t. That’s just the way it is with them.”
Arp tributes Chupp with helping to improve his own car’s performance throughout this past season. The extra eyes and ears along with an experienced mind offer benefits for a race team that cannot be easily quantified.
“It’s big,” Arp said. “I mean I don’t get to test and work on these cars like I used to and it’s my fault that we haven’t been running as good. And Randle, he’s come on and helped with our car too, the GRT, and I feel like he’s made it way better. There’s a lot of knowledge there and you can’t beat that anymore. You’ve still got to drive these cars, but gosh, the technology is such a big part of how fast these cars go. It just amazes me.”
The Wolfpack Longhorn
While Longhorns have had a great deal of success this past season, particularly with driver Jonathan Davenport, Arp contends that the primary reason for their victories is largely due to something apart from the chassis.
“I think Longhorn is on top of everybody right now,” he pointed out. “I mean Davenport has kind of proved that all year and then there’s a lot of guys around here that’s got their cars who have been really good. I think they’re a little bit ahead of us on their shock technology. They’ve got something that really works good with their cars on the shocks and springs and I just think that’s where they’re better. Like I said, I’ve looked at these cars a lot now and they’re just a frame and they look like any other frame. But there again, they’re just ahead of everybody on the technology part.”
If things go well in this end-of-season pairing might Arp wind up in the Wolfpack car at some point in the future?
“Nah,” the driver joked. “Heck, I might retire after next weekend. I’m getting old. I don’t want to quit racing but I don’t know how much more I can race. I’d like to run good and if we can run good for a couple of races we might run a few more races in our car.”
