SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1508148
PATTON RACING ENGINES Pioneers In SCORE Trophy Trucks By Mike Vieira Leon Patton was racing Quarter Midgets at a young age, and later got into short-course off-road racing. After trying the SCORE Baja 1000 and winning his class, it opened a whole new world for him as he built the engine in his short-course truck, and was there when the SCORE Trophy Trucks began to take shape. “Around 1985 or so, teams would use a relatively stock engine to survive the SCORE Baja 1000,” says Patton. “We used a hot-rod engine in our short-course truck and dominated with it.” The result had Patton building many engines for several up-and-coming SCORE Trophy Truck teams at the time. His early customers, as he created some of the first SCORE Trophy Trucks coming onto the scene, included Paul and Dave Simon, Venable Racing for Rob MacCachren, Scott McMillin, and Robby Gordon. Today, Leon’s son Chris, and daughter Natalie are part of Patton Racing Engines. Leon has stepped back a bit to a part-time role in the company, although he still spends several hours a day, four days a week in the shop. Patton said that small-block Fords were the go-to engines at the time but then they moved to small-block Chevrolet engines that could make up to 980 horsepower. “Now, we’re moving on to big blocks, because they’re getting the transmissions and the drivetrains to hold up with the big blocks, and they’re doing 1050 or better,” he said. Early on, Patton had a hand in working with Motec to pioneer the development of their first computer management systems for off-road racers. These days, with modern systems, Chris Patton can review all the data from the racers to determine where potential problems might occur, and then replace or upgrade parts accordingly. Leon says that prior to that ability to analyze things so carefully, top teams would replace just about every single part between races to avoid trouble, leading to much higher costs and time consumption. In the actual machining processes for building engines, computers have also vastly improved capabilities over the years. CNC machines allow more precise, and more varied angles in areas like valve design, allowing experimentation with small changes to extract the most performance possible from an engine. In addition to his Trophy Truck work, Patton also builds Class 1 engines, as well as engines for other forms of racing, and he has had impressive results in Pikes Peak Hill Climb racing. Although he’s officially sold the business to Chris, Leon says, “I’m enjoying it too much to quit. My friends ask why I keep working, and I say, ‘I like it.’”