By Kristen Carson
Indianapolis Star
May 03, 2002
Around here, they call him "The Chief."
He leans against a table, his arms crossed over his chest. The smile under his mustache crooks off to the right of his face as he chews a piece of gum and nods sliently to visitors.
In this stone-front building on Gasoline Alley -- where posters of cars, tracks and drivers cover the wall, where the year's Indy Racing League schedule hanges above a desk, where guys dressed in hot-rodding T-shirts squeeze past each other in the doorways--Frank Weiss and his machinists build the parts that go into the big-time race cars.
At Frank Weiss Racing Components, 20 computerized mills and lathes sit around the floor, rumbling like jet engines.
The firm is, at its heart, a family business. Weiss, 57, of Avon taught his son, Wade, all the welding and engineering he knew. Now, Wade, 38, of Plainfield runs much of the day-to-day operation.
Polished to a high gleam, the finished rods, pins and fittings would look good in a jewelry tore window. Ingots of metal no bigger than a child's blocks pass from man to man, machine to machine. At each stop, they acquire a new hole, a new screw thread or a newly shaved curve, until the intended part emerges like Michelangelo's David.
But they're more than pretty. They're tough. Dropped into a race car engine, they must run at 200 mph for hours at a stretch. Off-the-shelf oil pumps and exhaust systems aren't up to that kind of punishment.
All this started 22 years ago in the Chief's home garage, where he cut and welded auto parts on weekends. Now, four addresses later, his company has won big contracts and met big expectations.
For example, all cars mounting the inspection rack at IRL races must have hubs bearing the FWRC logo and serial number, or their teams pay a five-figure fine.
The Chief never reveals who his customers are. "Those guys," he said,
"take pride in coming up with--within the rules--some tricky little thing
that might help 'em pick up a mile an hour. And if it works, well, they're
entitled to that edge for as long as they can have it, until somebody catches
on.
"There's just no way that any of the other teams know they've had it
built, or where they've had it built."
Race teams walk through the door with an idea. Sometimes they've drawn it out on paper. Sometimes they haven't. But Frank and Wade, who live in a cooking-without-recipes universe, think and draw and discuss until they make the idea work.
Frank Weiss came by his mechanical talents honestly. He worked after school at his dad's service station in Cardston, Alberta, Canada. By 28, he was a shp foreman overseeing 45 technicians at a large GM dealership.
Along the way, he built a race car of his own, calling it "The Cowtown Special," and raced in western Canada, Washington, and Oregon. With his sights set on the Indianapolis 500, he moved to the United States in 1975 and passed his rookie test at the Speedway in 1979.
Then, in 1980, on a Wednesday just before qualifying, he finished a 176-mph lap and crashed head-on with the inside wall. He spent six months in a wheelchair, nursing broken bones in both legs.
If he couldn't walk, he could at least work with his hands. He had a few metal cutting tools in his garage, so he started building car parts.
"And I ended up having quite a few customers," he said. "Of course, I knew all the guys on the Indy racing circuit."
He combined racing and machining for a few more years. "But my banker didn't like it. My insurance companies didn't like it. My wife didn't like it. You know," he said, "racing is not classified as a real safe sport."
Eventually he chose business over driving. His business is to give race teams that coveted edge, and give it to them fast. This is the world of speed, after all.
"A customer calls me and says, 'I need one of these by next Thursday,'" Wade said. "That means that on Friday, the truck is leaving for a race. So being late is not acceptable."
Staffers put in long hours to meet these demands.
John Romanetz, the fabrication department supervisor, says he works one or two all-nighters every year, fueled my Mountain Dew. "We won't leave until the next day in the afternoon."
Frank may not drop names, but a bulging scrapbook in his office holds thank-you letters from winning teams and race fan favorites.
And a treasured bottle of champagne from a grateful customer sits high in an office window, forever unopened.
On another wall hangs a colored pencil drawing of the entire staff. The artist installed Frank on a throne and drew a crown on his head. And he got the Chief's smile just right.