Vic Hill shared a video update addressing Gateway Dirt Nationals and Race DRT owner Cody Sommer’s attempt at building a 1,000 horsepower engine with Gibbons Motorsports and Engine Shop.
Sommer announced that he had partnered with Gibbons Motorsports to build the engine for this year’s World 100 to put in his Race DRT car that Tyler Carpenter will pilot. In a video showing the results of the engine build after testing it on the dyno, it was compared to a Vic Hill engine.
Hill initially responded simply writing on Facebook, “Wow Cody Summers is a class act.”
Sommer then retorted, “Wow alright, at least spell my damn name right next time you wanna put me on blast… I mean I am after all a customer of yours.”
” So I dyno my 480 Vic Hill engine, simply to compare for the average fan/racer to have a general idea on where my latest “BIG ONE” engine project sits and you get all salty about it and throw personal jabs at me?! Just to be clear, I am only comparing the engines in the first place to show how good the NEW engine is because people already know how good Vic Hill engines are… they don’t know a lot about Gibbons,” he continued. “Vic Hill is taking this way too personal. I never said one bad thing about Vic, his work or his engines. The name of this is not “Build better than Vic Hill” lmao. Simply comparing dyno graphs of engines is not at all a personal jab or putting anyone on blast either. It’s simply educating the average fan/racer to give them an idea on where the Race DRT ‘BIG ONE’ engine project currently sits.”
“However, if we are going to throw personal jabs and speak about being a class act I would suggest looking in a mirror,” Sommer added. “Hell maybe make a post sometime without mocking 1,000 horsepower and do something unique for yourself instead of being so bent up on what I am up to… it has clearly been on your mind lately. What makes this all stupid, is I literally praise Vic Hill Engines in part 3 of the summary of this project but ole Vic didn’t stick around for that part I guess. I never said one bad thing about Vic, so it is pretty unfortunate to see him rashly post on social media calling me a class act… but it is noted.”
In a subsequent post, Sommer shared a screenshot stating that he had earned $8,123.23 on the post and stated, “Everyone has been asking me if I’m pissed off… nope.”
As Sommer noted, in the third video update on the Race DRT page, he did praise Hill’s engine, “We have a 480 ROX Vic Hill, which by the way, we absolutely love this motor. The 480 Vic Hill has been outstanding for us. Every single driver that has been in our car has said this thing is an animal. And it sounds like it. And it runs like it.”
“I mean we’ve qualified in the top 10 a couple of different times at Eldora with that motor,” he continued. “We’ve been extremely happy with that motor. So I don’t want anybody to think that us doing this project is necessarily like a jab at Vic or any other engine builder. This was just a cool project to do something a little bit different and Gibbons is close to our DRT shop so its kind of a nice fit.”
He concluded the video stating, “So it’s going to be interesting to see on the track how that correlates because we already loved how the ROX performed. So, again, it’s going to be interesting to see how the Big One does at the World 100.”
Hill responded in his own video from the engine shop, “The first thing I do want to say is that we all know this guy does a helluva job, but Cody Sommer is a promoter. First and foremost, he is a promoter. And he’s very successful at, which is good. He’s not an engine builder. He’s not a race car driver. He’s built a car after he worked for Scott [Bloomquist] and them and now he’s got another car builder in his car that he may get some information from. We don’t really know.”
“But as far as the 1,000 horsepower deal, it’s fun. We’ve had a big time with it. You know, you’ve heard me say comments and so on and so forth. And one of the reasons I did is Cody and I both, we’re pretty vocal. It’s not bad to come out and try to make 1,000 horsepower or whatever. But, in reality, of these engines-. I’ve built these things for 30 some years and I do race these things and I have raced them numerous times and I have put my heart and soul into these for 30 years. Now, with that being said I’ve got a lot of talented people that race these cars and know what they want to feel, know the torque curve, the power curve. It’s not just making 1,000 horsepower.”
“Our 480 is actually a 472 and the bore stroke combination on it is unlike what they just built. What they just built, they better hope it’s muddy all the time, for one. And then as the transition goes on through the night, you’ve got to be able to qualify fast, heat race fast, and race fast. Well, the tracks change tremendously through the night and so when you build a 4 and 1/4 stroke and a 4.250 bore, they’re pretty volatile, for sure.”
“But, anyway, that being said, I disagree a little bit with what Cody did,” Hill said. “You can go into our sport and look at ourselves here at Vic Hill Race Engines, Andy Durham, Tony and Glenn Clements, Jack Cornett, Bill Schlieper. We’ve done it a long time and we’ve all had a lot of success. And right now I think the reason he keyed on me is that he bought that engine three years ago by the way. It’s not the newest. latest, greatest stuff. And it runs great. Everybody bragged on it. But just understanding what we need in this sport is a key thing to making a package that makes enough power, enough torque to get the job done all night ’cause you don’t get paid until you win the race.”
After sharing an anecdote from the World 100 last year regarding an intake that did 20 more horsepower on the dyno, Hill shared his thoughts on the Big One project, “With the combination he has there — I hope it’s successful for him — but it’s really hard to manage the crank to rod ratio in a 4.250 stroke in one of these blocks to make them drive really well. Power? Hell yea, it will have power. But to do the complete job? No.”
Hill went on to reiterate how the designs of his ROX engines are “its own entity” and how they were designed to be manageable when track conditions are slick or when its muddy. Finally, he concluded, “I actually called Cody. … We’re not mad at each other. He’s done a good job. He’s made a ton of money on social media. And I love social media too. I usually don’t do this long of a deal, but we’ll see what happens at Eldora. We’re going to go up there. I’ll be there. Cody’ll be there. I got a lot of customers that will be there. And see how it goes.”
0 Comments