UltraMAX: The Ultimate Chassis Company Story by Bruce C. Walls Photos by Susan Taylor-Walls GREENVILLE, SC - When Chuck Dill, of Greenville, SC, got bitten by the Karting bug back in 1972 little did he know then that in years to come he and his future business partner Joe Wright would become leaders in race kart chassis manufacturing and in the karting industry itself. According to Dill the first time he saw a kart race he said to himself, "I'm going to get me one of those," and soon afterwards he did. Dill actively raced between 1972 and 1988 at local tracks such as Speedway Park, Foothills Raceway, Anderson Speedway, Cross Acres Raceway and Westminster Raceway. In 1978 he opened a small karting business in his garage and began what grew into Dill Fabrication makers of Ultramax Racing Chassis. "Back when I started I built a few motors and sold a few parts out of the garage behind my home," Dill recalled. Ten years later his business had grown to the point that Dill felt he was ready to experiment with building racing kart chassis and that year he entered the fabrication business introducing a dirt oval chassis known as the 'Eliminator.' As local racers began winning on Dill's chassis he found that he needed help with his fabrication business and turned to Joe Wright who owned Wright Metal Products in Greenville, SC for help in producing fabricated chassis parts. "That's how we got together," Wright recalled. "I sold my business in 1991 because I thought I wanted to retire young but I couldn't take retirement so we began building Dixie Probe chassis from 1992 to 1995." Karting history was in the making and that year Ultramax Racing Chassis introduced their first chassis the Centerforce that immediately became their bread and butter chassis. With national racers like Brad Sellers, Dustin Rhodes, Chad Porginski, David Pickle, cousins Chris and Jason Seay and Brad Bracken all earning WKA national wins and championships on the Centerforce sales soared. "The Centerforce was our first chassis that was totally designed and prototyped under actual race conditions. We would race on the weekend and get together on Monday morning and review the results and would cut up and build another and go racing the next weekend until we had a chassis that we were pleased with. That trend continues with the development of all of our current models. We started the testing our 2003 Octane models in the early spring and all during the summer of 2002 on a wide variety of tracks with different conditions and track surfaces. The Octane is our most tested Chassis we have manufactured in a few years, with 11 different prototypes cut up and remade during the testing period," Wright explained. "The Centerforce was totally designed by us under race conditions. As we tested and made changes theyıd tell us if a change was good or not," Wright added. "At that time we were the first chassis manufacturer to put up contingency money for the WKA World Dirt Championships in Daytona and we've, to date, put up and paid out more contingency money than any other chassis manufacturer in the world," Wright boasted. During the 2003 Daytona Dirt World Championships Chester Wright each earned two wins on new Blaze Octane Ultramax Racing Chassis's sweeping Stock Medium and Senior Stock. Trevor Bayne bagged Junior Sportsman 2 Heavy on an Octane chassis and won Junior Sportsman Champ piloting a Burn Octane Junior Champ kart. Factory driver Chris Seay earned a 2-Cycle win on an Ultramax Chassis that week. In 1994 they moved their manufacturing and office to their current 16,000 square foot facility at 2595 Rutherford Road in Greenville, SC. Under supervision by Production Supervisor Brent Morton, who has 17-years of fabrication experience beginning in 1985 at Pride Mechanical, chassis production begins with the forming of 4130 Aircraft quality tubing, and then machining the ends for a perfect fit up for welding process. The formed parts are then placed into welding fixtures machined and fabricated by Ultramax to clamp and hold during the welding process. The formed tubing pieces must be exact and very precise in order to fit into the fixtures, if a part is not made right it will not fit into fixture, therefore assuring every chassis welded is exactly the same. Ultramax purchases very large quantities of tubing direct from the manufacturer to get product at one time to control the chemical and physical properties of the material to maintain a consistent finished product. All Ultramax chassis are welded with Tungsten Inert Gas Tig welding a method used by certified welders, and combined with the machined end and no gap fit to achieve the most consistent fabricated chassis possible. Once the new chassis frame has been welded it is then cleaned, prepped, powder coated, inspected and then taken to the assembly area where the remaining parts, the axel, spindles, brakes and other components; which are all custom made in house, that make up the chassis final assembly. From there the complete chassis' are boxed and shipped to dealers around the country. As a kart chassis industry leader Dill Fabrication's staff is dedicated to constant improvement of their product and to looking at where the future of race kart chassis is heading. A big part of their future rides on the shoulders of Brad Sellers who was promoted from factory driver to General Manager in 1998. According to Wright, "Getting Brad (Sellers) to move up here from Georgia was a good move. It wasn't easy, he didn't want to leave there and it took a bit of arm twisting and convincing, but we finally talked him in to coming up here full time." "Brad's involved in the total picture from sales promotion to design and testing whole new chassis, working with in house drivers and dealing with our dealers and distributors," Wright explained adding, "Brad has done an excellent job maintaining our dealer network of over 70 dealers nationwide and has established a respected reputation of working with our dealers and customers and doing whatever needs to be done for our customers. We had a dealer back in 2000 that took racer's money before his chassis was manufactured. The dealer went out of business and we found out about it and we gave that guy a chassis." Sellers was responsible for the latest generation of Ultramax racing chassis series the Blaze, Scorch and Burn that were introduced early last year for dirt and asphalt racers that included a line of champ karts as well. Sellers has brought a lot of drive and enthusiasm with him as he plans to take Ultramax Racing Chassis into the future. "We are now advertising in all the major karting publications and we're offering our support through class sponsorship in both the WKA and IKF sanctioning bodies and we're supporting all of the different series through various efforts like co-opt ads with our dealers on a the local level and were going to be at all of the trade shows such at KartFest 2003 and the Motorsports 2003 show in Fort Washington, PA." Sellers is also looking ahead at the future of chassis design. "Design wise, I see major changes from what we know now as the typical chassis. We are looking hard into the near future. We're seeing battles for the lead where any of the top 12 could have won. Everybody's tired of being the same. It's extremely hard to find an advantage, extremely hard. So now is the perfect opportunity to search for major gains in performance and who ever hits on it will hit big. Our quality is second to none, our performance is good and we are working seven days a week at improving. We've got a lot of good young people here who want to lead the pack and don't want to be second to anyone." Also giving Ultramax Racing Chassis a competitive edge over their competition is something few racers know, which is that Dill Fabrication is a world wide leader in fabricating and manufacturing precision parts for the Power Generation industry and other related customers. Manufacturing those types of products requires very strict and certified procedures and process methods that have been implemented into the manufacturing of their chassis and components. "We feel this gives us an advantage over the other manufacturers because manufacturing that type of products, we have the latest technology in machinery and components and also allows us to have employees with technical and engineering experience that is not normally found in kart shops," Wright explained adding, "My reputation and history in the industry is if you make a product, make it right and when you do not get a good feeling and pride in the product you helped produce, it is time to look of another job or career. Using that theory here at Ultramax, we are able to manufacture a chassis that is equal to and superior to most of the other chassis manufacturers, therefore, our customers are getting a top quality and performing product in our Ultramax Racing chassis." According to Sellers their new chassis designs will be out before KartFest to give racers a chance to dial them in during the off season so they'll be ready to win races and earn championships. To find out more about Ultramax Racing Chassis or locate a dealer near you visit their web site at www.ultramaxracing.com or call them at 864.322.0504.