You know a rollcage is strong when it takes not one, but two mammoth bucket loaders to smash in the top. After seven years of existence and a complete metamorphosis, Adam Householder decided that the best thing to do with his truck was to watch it get shredded into bite-size chunks of steel.
That's right. The truck on these pages no longer exists - at least not in recognizable form. Since scrap steel lives many lives, metal molecules from Adam's truck might very well be flying down the rails as part of a commuter train, holding a building together as part of a girder, or pedaling down a trail in the form of a bicycle.
Before you get all misty-eyed, keep in mind that Adam's truck, aka The Blue Whale, led a great life. The Chevy Extended Cab began life as Adam's daily-driven transportation while he was still in high school. Primarily a pavement pounder, the Bow Tie was treated to a lift kit and some oversize tires and wheels. At the time, Adam was heavily involved in Sprint Car racing. He needed a truck to haul stuff around; off-road capability was far from the "must-have" list. One trip to Glamis changed everything. After experiencing the dunes, Adam decided that Sprint Car racing's combination of horsepower and dirt would be that much tastier with a bit of air in the mix. Goodbye circle tracks, hello desert.
Glamis started it all. You...
Glamis started it all. You can see more of the Blue Whale in the newest Bonzen Productions film, Ignition. The film is available at 4 Wheel Parts, Off-Road Warehouse, Kartek Off-Road, and PCI Race Radios, and can be purchased directly from www.bonzenproductions.com.
The Chevy began to evolve. The lift kit came off. Eventually, Adam retired his truck from daily driving duties, so that he could concentrate solely on performance without worrying about keeping the truck street-legal. Fast-forward a bit, and the Householder Chevy had been morphed into a fully 'caged, four-linked dune weapon with an aggressive engine under the hood. Rear paddle tires were adept at slinging sand. Adam's truck ruled Glamis with a sandy fist.
Although the dunes were fun to play in, the competitor in Adam longed for a starting line and a checkered flag. About this time, Adam's path crossed that of Ryan "Bonzen" Lewis during a Glamis weekend. Ryan's "Trophy Tacoma" (see "The Point of No Return," Mar. '06) was fitted with a dune-and-desert-proven long-travel kit up front. At the time, the Blue Whale had a long-travel front suspension, but it was obvious to Adam and Ryan that the Whale needed a stronger front end to withstand the pounding of open desert. With the '06 MDR California 200 night race looming on the horizon, Adam and Ryan built a completely new front suspension during a three-and-a-half-day marathon. The Whale made that starting line and went on to become a Prerunner-class threat whenever it showed up to a race.
Adam had several strong finishes in the MDR series, but his proudest moment came at the '07 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge when he held off Alan Pflueger's bona fide Trophy Truck through a sweeping turn.
A broken A-arm uniball cup was the truck's undoing. The cup broke during a Glamis weekend, unleashing a front wheel and sending the truck onto its lid at high speed. His initial plan was to replace the cab and the damaged suspension components and keep driving the Whale, but Adam soon realized the whole truck really needed a stronger rollcage. Add to the mix Adam's under-construction Trophy Truck (built by Blitzkrieg Motorsports), and it didn't seem worthwhile to revive the damaged Whale. What the Whale now needed was a fitting farewell.
Despite the rollover damage, there were still plenty of usable high-zoot parts to be gleaned from the chassis. This included the engine, transmission, shocks, seats, brakes, hubs, rear axle, front spindles, etc. Everything that wasn't frame, rollcage, or cab was stripped off.
The truck's final day came at a SoCal recycling yard. Adam and crew took the empty hulk to the yard with video camera in hand. The resulting video, as of this writing, is posted on YouTube as Bye Bye Blue Truck. The Whale's skeleton was first plucked from a trailer. Setting it on the ground, a pair of monster-size Caterpillar bucket loaders realized they would have to work in tandem to get the 'cage to crush. The Cat's front wheels actually lifted off of the ground while trying to force the top of the 'cage down. Impressive. After the first stage, the twisted steel hulk was set on a conveyor belt and fed into a shredder. Out came a steady stream of bite-size steel chunks ready for a proper meltdown and a new life elsewhere. The truck may be gone, but the steel lives on.
Recycling. It's good for the bottle. It's good for the can. It's good for the truck.
 Adam's racing background is...  Adam's racing background is in the Sprint Car world, so there was no way he was going to run a sluggish engine in his desert truck. This 383 stroker small-block Chevy was built by Olsen Racing Engines in Hanford, California. Since it's a stroker (a 350 block combined with a 400 crank), there's no surprise it produces stellar low-rpm horsepower. What's unexpected is just how high this engine will rev. Adam says it will safely run all the way up to 8,000 rpm. A 750-cfm Proform carburetor feeds the 383 using billet metering blocks for precise fuel delivery. MSD Ignition components provide the spark. Exhaust exits the system via custom headers fabricated by Adam himself. There are 650 ponies on tap. Like all the other vital, high-zoot parts on this truck, the engine was pulled and set aside for future use before the Blue Whale met the metal shredder. |  Desert Specialties hubs survived...  Desert Specialties hubs survived mile after mile, pounding the rocks of the Mojave and the sandy expanses of Glamis. Thirty-seven-inch BFGoodrich Project T/As are tough but not indestructible. |  Adam's Sprint Car background...  Adam's Sprint Car background shows in the controls he chose. A Coleman 2:1 steering quickener makes directional changes faster and easier. The gas pedal is like nothing the author has ever seen, but it's apparently standard issue in the Sprint Car world. Finally, a CNC'd brake-pedal system provides sure stopping by way of a long pedal length and carefully chosen master-cylinder bore sizes. |
 The front suspension was designed...  The front suspension was designed and built by Adam and Ryan "Bonzen" Lewis. The build included custom upper and lower control arms and custom spindles. Controlling the 18 inches of wheel travel were 2-1/2-inch-bodied King shocks. To keep shock costs reasonable and performance topnotch, Adam used King's Pre-Runner Series coilovers and "Full Race" bypass shocks. |  |  Desert Specialties hardware...  Desert Specialties hardware was selected for the rear too. The D.S.-built Ford 9-inch is a full-floater that uses 40-spline axleshafts between the spooled differential and the Desert Specialties drive flanges. |
 Desert trucks' rear suspensions...  Desert trucks' rear suspensions need ample bump travel to avoid kicking up the tail section when taking a big hit. The stock rear framerails were in the way, so they were lopped off and replaced with properly placed 'cage tubing. Aluminum panels span some of the 'cage's openings for a refined appearance. The aluminum panels also keep errant bits of terra firma out of the PWR tranny and oil coolers. |  Adam fabricated the rear four-link...  Adam fabricated the rear four-link system. The lower trailing arms use a threaded rod end at the axle and a spherical bearing with a "wobble stopper" where the trailing arms attach to the frame. The "wobble stopper" allows the trailing arms to twist several degrees side-to-side but prevents the arms from twisting so far as to damage the shocks' lower mounting eyes. Twenty-eight inches of travel are on tap. |  |