PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
Chassis Engineering: Clayton Murphy’s
Passion Shows Through
C
It’s clear that you’re passionate about what
you do. How do you think that passion shows
through in the work you do?
My biggest motivator is just racing, period. I
raced motocross when I was young, in my early
teens. I got injured and couldn’t race anymore,
so I turned to cars. All my buddies had cars in
high school and we started going around to the
local racetracks here and just having a good time.
Through the years, I met people who wanted me
to put cars together for them. I did a lot of wiring
and plumbing back in the early ‘90s. I just had
a love for it. I don’t how to explain why I got it
or what bug bit me or whatever it was, but I just
really got into the tuning aspect of it.
My passion has always been race cars. I love
building complete cars. I think it’s a really cool
thing when you can start from scratch, have a
body and roll a complete running car out the door
and the customer is extremely excited when they
get them. With our tuning side of the business,
we go to the racetrack with the customers and
are able to have a lot more hands-on time with
them as well. I want to make sure that the cars
perform like they’re supposed to do, and also
help the customer get down the racetrack and
have more fun.
How does your combination of talents and
abilities come together to benefit your custom-
ers?
I’m the type of person who honestly, truly,
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believes that we don’t build anything necessar-
ily better than anybody else. (Jerry) Bickel and
(Jerry) Haas and RJ (Race Cars) and all those
guys, they build top-quality cars, as do we. I think
the difference that we have is that I race every
single weekend. I can go to the racetrack with a
customer and help them tune the whole car, not
just the chassis itself, but the whole car from
front to back. We’ve tuned a lot of other people’s
chassis, so we find the good points and bad points
about all of them – and we all have them. The
fact that we actually go out and tune cars every
single weekend gives us a little bit of an advantage
over some others because we know what it takes
to get a car down the track, whether it’s power-
related or combinations issues or shock problems.
Whatever it is, we’ve been there and learned a lot.
We don’t know everything by any means. We try
to learn every time we go to the racetrack. We
have great fabricators here. We have a guy here
named George Magale, who’s our head fabrica-
tor in the race car shop. He’s built probably 400
cars in his life, but he doesn’t race. So he has a
great understanding of how the car should go
together. I have a great understanding of how
the car should work. The marriage between the
two is really good.
I know you’re also passionate about help-
ing new talent enter the industry. What’s the
driving force behind that?
My passion isn’t just cars, it’s the industry
as a whole. A lot of these new kids don’t know
enough about it to want to get into it, and I think
Drag Illustrated is helping with that, obviously
putting the word out. The Street Outlaws show
is promoting some of that as well. These kids
shouldn’t be afraid to get involved in this industry
at all. We try to hire as many young people as we
can when they come around. We get guys that
are welders when they come out of school and
we try to bring them in and teach them. A lot of
people think they can’t do it, but it’s really not that
hard. I struggled through school with dyslexia and
learning disabilities and all kinds of other stuff,
but I’ve learned how to tune these cars from the
feel and sight. Learning the computer side of it is
really not as hard as most people think. The big
thing for me is trying to promote the industry as
a whole. A lot of companies don’t do that.
We all have struggles through our lives; it’s
about what you do with them when you get there
and how you deal with them. There’s nothing that
anybody can’t overcome, that’s for damn sure.
You just have to have a passion for something,
regardless of what it is. Find it, learn and push
it as far as you can. - NATE VAN WAGNEN
Issue 123
layton Murphy started working at
Chassis Engineering when he was still a
teenager, sweeping the floors and taking
care of basic tasks around the then-small
speed shop in Jupiter, Florida. Through hard
work and dedication to his craft, Murphy climbed
up the company ladder to the point where he was
running the day-to-day operations and was able
to purchase the company outright.
While Chassis Engineering still manufactures
and provides high-quality chassis, suspension
and driveline components for drag racers and
hot rodders, the Riviera Beach, Florida, shop has
also expanded its capabilities to include building
complete rolling chassis. It’s a personal passion
of Murphy’s, who spends nearly every weekend at
the racetrack as a tuner for customers in PDRA
Pro Nitrous, Top Sportsman, Top Dragster and
local series.
The soft-spoken fabricator and chassis builder
is deeply passionate about everything he does,
whether he’s welding up a rear-end, tuning a
nitrous-huffing doorslammer or fostering the
next generation of fabricators. Drag Illustrated
recently spoke with Murphy at the PDRA Mid-
America Indy Showdown to learn more about him
and gather his thoughts on the industry.