LUTZ 1
On July 26, 2019 Jeff Lutz sent us this photo of “The 57”. The 57 was wrecked while doing some testing for the upcoming season of Street Outlaws, and Jeff needed to have The 57 rebuilt in 10 days! Danchuk went into action immediately to do everything possible to facilitate the project.
The first hurdle was to get a quarter panel and rocker panel shipped nearly 2,500 miles east from California to Pennsylvania. Danchuk got the body parts and a bunch of beautiful, high quality Made in the USA parts on their way while Jeff’s crew began the teardown of The 57.
The freight company was delayed a day in transit across the USA and was not going to be able to get the quarter panel to Jeff’s shop until Monday, August 5th, three days too late if The 57 had any chance of racing at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, IL the following weekend.
After many phone calls with the freight company, we were able to arrange an early Saturday morning pickup of the quarter panel at their regional shipping facility…which is normally closed on Saturdays. Jeff and his crew picked up the quarter panel and worked non stop for the next several days.
They installed the new sheet metal, did the bodywork, primed the worked areas, and The 57 was ready for paint by Monday morning!
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By Tuesday morning, The 57 was painted and being reassembled.
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As with most restoration projects, Jeff’s crew realized there were some additional parts that were going to be needed to get The 57 show and race ready. This posed another hurdle, as Jeff was leaving the next day to head towards Route 66 Raceway.
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We sent this photo to Jeff from our 2019 catalog so we could identify, part by part, what was still going to be needed to finish The 57.
We determined what all the necessary remaining parts were, and made arrangements to deliver those parts directly to Route 66 Raceway.
On Wednesday Jeff sent us this video of The 57 doing a test run on a track in Ohio, a stop they made on their way to Joliet.
On Thursday we received this photo from Jeff of The 57 and all of the Danchuk parts still to be installed on Thursday, August 8th.
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On Friday, August 9th The 57 was looking beautiful and ready to race in again!
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Click on the photos below to see full sized versions.
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Before they even had all the car put together Jeff and he guys at Lutz Racing were on the track dialing THE ’57 back in for an appearance in Chicago with No Prep Kings at Route 66 Raceway.