Veteran racer Dennis Prunty won the season opener at Slinger Speedway in Wisconsin. No surprise there — he holds the 2012 late model championship and many feature victories at the storied ¼-mile. However, just as Prunty has been a staple at the track, so has the car he won with — a 1996 Lefthander chassis owned by Pete Wiedmeyer.
“If I ever try to sell this car, I will sell it as ‘back when the steel was good,’” said Prunty, 47, of Allenton, Wisconsin. “Is there any truth to that? I don’t know. There’s something different about this car.”
To put things in perspective, 1996 is 25 years ago. Back then, the TV show “ER” and the song “Macarena” by Los del Rio topped the charts. Bill Clinton served as the U.S. President and NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee Terry Labonte won his final NASCAR Cup Series championship. Looking back, those times may seem simpler — and that certainly holds true with this ride.
“That’s a conventional setup in this car,” Prunty said of the car he last updated in 2012. “There’s no room for bump stops and bump springs. Every time I drive this car, I think the same thing — it’s fast enough that I don’t know what to change to make it faster. So, I leave it as it is and then I win.”
Dennis Prunty plans to try to make it two-for-two this upcoming Sunday at Slinger. He’ll also bring his 2016 Pathfinder chassis for practice. Within the next few weeks he hopes to gauge which car he likes better to make an attempt to win his second Slinger Nationals in July.
“When I practice, my Pathfinder practices faster, but I won a lot of races with this car [the Lefthander chassis],” said Prunty. “It definitely frustrates the competition. There’s not a lot money in this car. It doesn’t have the best of the best, but it still works.”
The Outside Groove Executive Editor has covered motorsports since 2000. His many awards include the 2019 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Jim Hunter Writer of the Year and the 2013 Russ Catlin Award for Excellence in Motorsports Journalism.
