Building a race car is something that many enthusiasts like us do. Part of that plan typically involves making a timeline that can span months and sometimes even a year or more. Part of the excitement comes when you are able to begin ordering parts, but in recent times that can quickly fade due to supply issues. Fortunately for us enthusiasts, there is Summit Racing Equipment.

Attempting a build like Project 899 is a massive challenge. Thankfully Summit Racing makes getting any part needed as easy as a few clicks of a mouse.

When we came up with the idea of Project 899 we knew there would be a number of hurdles to overcome. One of the biggest is parts inventories and supply times. Most are well aware of the supply chain issues that have affected many industries. So the team immediately developed a list of every part we could think of that we were going to need to have a chance at completing 899 in only nine days. We needed everything from hoses and fittings to fuel system components and electronics. The list was long so it made the most sense to try and source as many parts as possible from a single supplier. Being in business for 55 years and having grown its catalog to include thousands of part numbers from many of the leading brands in the automotive industry, Summit Racing was a clear choice.

Being able to quickly find the correct parts and know the inventory status and ship date made things much easier for us while trying to get everything ready for the Project 899 build.

List in hand, we did our best to divide and conquer. It was a team effort with all of us looking up part numbers and inventory status information on www.summitracing.com. The site makes finding parts easy with its search feature that accepts keywords and part numbers. One of the most helpful parts of the site is the status information for every part you look up. You can quickly see if a part is in stock, how many are in Summit’s inventory, where the part will ship from, or an estimated ship date if it is currently out of stock with Summit and/or the manufacturer.

For Project 899, we broke down the parts list into four large orders so that we could better track the flow of componets being shipped from Summit to Big 3 Racing. This method proved to work quite well, although once we were thrashing on the build we found parts that we needed ASAP. This is another area that Summit Racing shines. With such a large inventory comprised of trusted brands we were able to quickly order a needed part and have it either delivered the next day or we could drive over to Summit’s facility and pick it up ourselves. This was a huge help considering we were working on an extremely short timeline to complete the 899 Camaro.

In a world of online sales, it may not be obvious but it’s still important to have knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful staff. Throughout the Project 899 build, we had a number of interactions with the Summit Racing sales staff. Whether it was a question we had or an order we needed to place, the sales staff was knowledgeable, professional, and worked quickly to help us.

Summit even has aluminum tubing. Rick used it to fabricate a street air intake and a race version for the track to feed the 3.0L Whipple supercharger.

All in all, without the ability to source many different parts from a single place like Summit Racing Equipment we may have had to rethink Project 899. To be sure, we could have ordered our parts from various companies like Holley, Aeromotive, Earl’s, QA1, Mickey Thompson, Derale, and others. Doing so, however, would have most likely killed our timeline of nine days. Does this mean other enthusiasts should attempt to build their race cars in a week? No, but knowing that you can get all of the parts you need from a single source greatly reduces the headaches involved in building a race car yourself. So for your future parts needs go to Summit Racing’s site and get the name brands you trust delivered directly to your door.