Don Ross's recreation of Scorpion I

and the
The Drag Racing Heritage Foundation
Present
They Live Again............
Restored & Recreated Cars from the History of Drag Racing

Bobby Langley's "Scorpion I" by Don Ross

Don Ross would like to “Thank” Bill Collins And Paul Adams for all their help with this project. Bill was a great help to Bobby with scorpion 1 and 2 . Bobby says that he would not have known about many places that he went to without Bill . Also Bill towed Bobby to many races with his 50 Olds. coupe.
Paul Adams is a very close friend and is a collector of old photos and history of local Texas drag racing.
The idea to recreate the Scorpion 1 came about on our way to 2002 CHRR . Some where in Arizona around 3:00 in the morning. The three of us , Bill, Paul and myself hatched the idea and it was a topic of conversation and kept us awake all the way to California and beyond. We talked it up at the race and met with Bobby and Ruth in the big tent over lunch and told him about the plan. The Andersons were at our table and were cheering us on and saying to go for it. Later at a local Christmas luncheon we borrowed Bobby's photo album and got Bobby to sketch the chassis for me . I had printed list of the parts we needed and handed them out to all at the luncheon. We got several pledges for help and parts, most came through with parts as promised. As material and parts were purchased and collected I was working on scaling and drawing the frame from a good side shot that was in Bobby's album. In January 2003 Bill and myself went over to meet with Bobby to discuss problems and unknown things about the chassis. we also had two other interested parties with us ,Charles Faulkner was there to record on video tape and we got about two hours of tape which will be edited down as we add to our history and put together a tape to help fund the Scorpion project and the showing of same. The other man on hand was Karl Knecht, he recorded a separate audio tape and took still shots to document our meeting. After that fabrication and parts chasing began in earnest. We have some sponsors like Lucky's Speed shop in Garland TX. who is helping on chrome and moon disk and tires. We have an engine sponsor in Tinkers Machine Shop . He found a 392 at the end of June that we think will go standard bore and standard crank . It has been a barn half torn down for 40 years. we have only spent about $2000.00 cash so far but put in some labor time almost every day since January 2003. The results were on display at Beech Bend Park this past June 2003 at NHRR #1. the plans now are to get the car in my shop and start on the body. At NHRR we were able to pick up the correct fuel tank and got a lead on an old wing tank like the original bottom of the Scorpion body was made from.
We were asked by Steve Gibbs if we would have it back next year for Bobby to crank in the cacklefest and we said we would try hard to make it.

The Original Scorpion “Needle-Nose” started life with a caddy for power and after blowing it was changed to a flathead that belonged to another partner. It too was destroyed and in both instances it meant the loss of a partner.