The chassis and drivetrain components of a modern Top Fuel dragster are in many ways a work-of-art. The attention to detail and level of craftsmanship on these cars is truly amazing. The chassis of these nitro-fueled rockets cars are typically fabricated by two welders that must weld each side of the frame at the same time to minimize twisting and deformation. These welders typically work with trick materials such as titanium, 4130 chromoly, and aluminum.
The welders of Top Fuel cars are the best in the business at what they do and every weld that they put down is extremely critical since it could mean the difference between winning and losing a race. One of the most well-known and dominant drag racing teams is Don Schumacher Racing based out of Indianapolis, Indiana, and Thomas Patsis works in their fabrication shop as a welder and fabricator for all of the seven Top Fuel and Funny Car teams at DSR. Patsis works on all aspect of the race car from chassis, drivetrain, and auxiliary systems including fabrication panels out of carbon fiber.
When Tom isn’t building 10,000 HP race cars, he has turned his passion of fabrication into an art form. In 2008 Tom started Cold Hard Art as a side business after multiple people expressed interest in his work. Initially the business started out as hobby, but turned serious once Tom started to use social media to promote his work. Cold Hard Art currently has a one year waiting list to have a custom, high detail scale models fabricated.
Fabricating highly detailed scale models takes serious time and talent since a typical model takes around 25-35 hours to fabricate. Tom is taking the knowledge that he has gained from building full size race cars and applying it to his scale model replicas.
Tom’s favorite tools for creating his highly detailed works of art are his Miller Syncrowave 250 TIG welder and Dynabrade Dynafile. Shown here are just a few of the masterpieces that Patsis has meticulously crafted for himself and for others. Truly unbelievable work!