building a NHRA legal cage

A guy brought me a VW beetle that he wants to drag race. I have to build him a NHRA legal cage. He also wants a fuel cell, a seat installed and a laundry list of other things done. I have never built a drag racing cage before, so I spent a little time on the computer gathering info. My wife walked by and asked me "Why do you keep shaking your head and saying are you kidding me?". If any of you die hard SCCA and Vintage racers want a good laugh, spend a little time looking at what constitutes a drag racing cage. They have the same cage specs for every car regardless of the weight. They also encourage different tubing sizes for different bars. So I had to order up 100 feet(minimum order size) of 1.75X.120 tubing to install in Herbie the love bug. The last time I used tubing that big was on a GT1 car. At least it won't be me in the car going 140MPH, next to another guy doing 140MPH, in between two concrete walls!

Yeah, but they just go in a straight line for only 1/4 mile!

And someone told me they still allow ERW tubing (as opposed to the DOM that we have been using for some time now).

I have been looking at the $2007 Grassroots Challenge rules (because we are building a sub-$2000 car anyway and we're *thinking* about running it in this event). Grassroots lists the NHRA cage specs as a requirement. Our club racing cage is probably better, but doesn't use the "drain pipe" sizes of the NHRA specs. I'm sure GR would still let us run, but I did notice the tube sizes.

They will allow ERW, but I won't use it. Strictly DOM here. That is why I had the minimum 100 foot order. DOM comes in random lengths as long as 24 feet. I may end up with 110 feet or so. At least I got a great deal on it. $3.66 a foot. I am building an addition on a house for a guy who owns a steel company. I don't even have to pay for the pipe. He'll just deduct the price off of what he owes me.

Don't be so sure about knocking IHRA or NHRA cages, they are built to much higher specs than most road racing/circle track cages, you have to certified by IHRA or NHRA to even build a cage for thier racing, and they are much more expensive. A good IHRA or NHRA cage starts at $5000.

~These Guys~ say their roll cages meet NHRA specs. 12 point kit is $330.
One point: NHRA has different specs for faster vs slower cars. For example, cars that'll do a sub 7 second 1/4 mile have different cage spec than the slower amateurs.
I think we're talking about the regular, amateur drag racer here.

Here we are six weekends away from the time the VW was delivered, and I can finally start welding in the cage. They brought me a car with an interior. Once the interior was removed, we saw how bad the body was. There were fiberglass patches covering rust. The owner worked on it at my shop under my guidance for the last six weekends. I fabbed up some 2 inch square stock outer frame rails that go where the rusted heater boxes were. They run from the axle tube in the back up to the front bulkhead. New floor pans were installed as well as a ton of new sheetmetal. Everything is finally solid enough to start the cage. The next hurdle to clear is his request to make sure the body can still be removed after the cage is completed. Gotta finish this one up as another guy is dropping off a 914/6 and a 944 to get SCCA cages done. I all ready ordered the pipe for them.