Rinehart's new Xtreme True...
Rinehart's new Xtreme True Duals for '09-10 baggers features a stepped header design, anti-reversion louvers, and dual O2 sensors in each pipe to accommodate for the smaller O2 sensors found on the '10 models and the larger sensors found on earlier models. The dual sensors also allow for more accurate air/fuel sampling when dynoing a bike.
There aren't too many business owners in our industry that come to the table with the experience or credentials that Gerald Rinehart, President of Rinehart Racing (rinehartracing.com) does. And while the company may not have the extensive history in the V-twin industry as some of the other exhaust manufacturers, its rapid success and popularity is impressive. We recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Gerald, his son and COO, Kyle, and his CEO, Judd Hollifield, to learn a little about the beginning and future of Rinehart Racing.
A dynamic element in helping NASCAR, IndyCar, and AHDRA teams achieve numerous wins and championships with his skillfully designed exhaust systems, you'd think Gerald had extensive schooling, degrees in engineering, and a building full of state-of-the-art equipment to create such powerful/successful exhaust systems. In actuality, he's just a humble down-home guy who was a construction welder by trade and got his start in the exhaust industry in the mid '80s by tinkering away in the shop behind his house outside of Asheville, North Carolina, with borrowed tools and a makeshift workbench. Working on creating a header collector system for his friend Ray Zaruba, Head Engine Builder for NASCAR driver and team owner Dave Marcus, each system Gerald produced outperformed the previous, and word began to spread across the NASCAR community.
As teams began scrambling for Gerald's collections and with encouragement from NASCAR legend Edwin Keith "Banjo" Mathews, Gerald took the next logical step and began creating a full header system. In short time Gerald had his own complete exhaust design that achieved so much success, he quit his construction job and began the exhaust fabrication full time out of his basement. But even then he still had challenges.
The men at the top of Rinehart...
The men at the top of Rinehart Racing (left to right) COO, Kyle Rinehart, CEO Judd Hollifield, and President Gerald Rinehart.
"To earn someone's business, you have to outperform what they already had," Gerald told us. "I had an open door during the off-season at SABCO Racing, and I got my ass handed to me six years in a row. I wore down flow benches, literally melted them down flowing tubes and learning how much difference this step, tube length, and various combinations made in airflow. I got to the point to where I could take a V-8/V-10 Indy engine and take eight to 10 different tube lengths and have them all flow within one half of one percent of each other on a flow bench without using computers or having an engineering degree." Gerald earned SABCO's business the seventh year.
It seems that not having formal training or degrees in engineering was the key. "I don't have a box that I work in," Gerald said. "I have made my living by designing stuff that no one else had designed. Working on the NASCAR stuff, I never stepped across the line as far as doing something illegal, but I always worked in the gray area."
Appreciating Gerald's creativity and knack for exhaust design, top NASCAR officials tapped him for his input on the design of NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow (CoT). During one of the meetings Gerald asked why they wanted his opinion, and NASCAR President Mike Helton's response was, "We have more examples of your gray area designs in the lockup of our R&D center than any other exhaust designer."