We’re shocked to learn we’ve lost another drag racer this past year. Bill Phillips was a successful businessman and together with his racing partner Bill Hardifer, the two campaigned cars in the three super classes. As a tribute, we’re running this story from 2019 on the team’s new S&W Race Cars-built Corvette.

Bill Phillips Is Hooked For Life

Photos Dave Milcarek

We often joke that the sport of drag racing is like a drug, tough to shake and certainly no de-tox or re-hab program to help. Once it gets in you, it’s there for life, a part of your DNA. Some may quit but they always seem to come back. Such is the case of Bill Phillips.

A dirt track racer literally growing up at tracks around the Pittsburgh, PA area, Phillips became hooked on that style of racing under the tutelage of his father. After several years behind the wheel of late model dirt cars in the early ‘80s, business and family beckoned. A third-generation welder by trade, a move to New Jersey ensued to work as a consultant managing Lantier Construction. “We install natural gas distribution pipelines covering the state of New Jersey,” Phillips said.

Family and business meant a break from the thrill of speed but as we mentioned earlier, once it’s in you, it’s there for life, regardless of the type of motorsports you enjoy.

“I had purchased a new C6 Corvette in 2005 and being a car guy, I wanted to do some things to it to pick it up, despite it being just a street car,” said Phillips. “I took it to Corvette Paramedics near my home, which is where I met Bill Hardifer.”

A long time drag racer with his partner Dave Huber, Hardifer and Huber’s roots go all the way back some 40+ years in the sport. “Bill had walked into Corvette Paramedics where I’m the performance manager around four years ago wanting to perform some small modifications to his Corvette,” says Hardifer. “From a simple tune and mufflers, it elevated to headers, a cam change and more, Bill was pretty adamant about what he wanted. Sitting in my office, he noticed a photo of my dragster and he became very curious. He asked a simple question, ‘What would it cost to get my name on that car?’ Now we’ve all heard that before but very few times does it ever pan out. But he was very serious. And as we have come to realize, it would be hard pressed to find a nicer guy with a bigger heart.”

Now with a street Corvette just the way Phillips wanted it, he explained to Hardifer, “I have a consulting business on the side, W&T Pipeline Consultants, which is separate from what I do at Lantier, but in looking for a little exposure for the company along with getting back into motorsports, I offered to sponsor Hardifer for the 2016 season with my name on the side of his dragster. In addition, I began going to the drag races with them and I just fell in love with it.

“The first time I ever went to a drag race was in 2009,” Phillips says. “It was the Keystone Nationals at Maple Grove and I was thinking ‘what the heck is this?’ I had never seen it before. Certainly the nitro cars were cool, but I was astonished with the sportsman cars and the teams. Then we see the super-category cars run and they leave the line and the throttle stop kicks in and I’m like ‘this the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.’ Now with a couple of cars just like them, now when people ask me what I do, I tell them I can’t wait to go to the track and do the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen.

“In any event, at the end of 2016, I told them I’d love to sponsor the car again but you’ve got to find something for me to drive,” Phillips laughingly added.

The end result was the purchase of a third-gen Camaro which Hardifer and Huber converted from a Pro Street ride to an all-out Super Street racer. The first year out, 2017, with Phillips driving, he finished ninth in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Division 1 standings along with a win at one of the Division’s Quick 8 Friday night races which did little more than just sink the “needle further in the arm;” as we sometimes kiddingly note. Two years with a fair amount of success just brought his excitement level ever higher. No doubt, the man was hooked.

“Even all the years I spent circle track racing,” Phillips says, “I had never had a ‘new’ race car. Towards the end of 2017, I spoke with Bill and said I wanted to order a new car for myself and I wanted it to be a Corvette. Bill had a relationship with Michael Weney at S&W Race Cars so he introduced me to him and we talked.”

With the glut of Corvette roadsters running in the Super Gas class, Weney’s first thought was to build just another one in their long line of roadsters. But that wasn’t what Phillips had in mind.

“In speaking with Bill [Phillips],” said Weney, “we discussed a number of things but what he wanted was a C7 Corvette, Top Sportsman-style car which he could run in Super Gas. Naturally, we’ve built so many types of cars over the years that what he wanted wouldn’t be a problem with the exception that it was very different than what we’d done in the past requiring quite a bit of engineering along the way.”

Starting with a Cynergy Composites fiberglass C7 body, S&W set the body up on the ground at the ride heights they expected the car to finish at. From there, S&W’s John Burke and his engineering team went to work taking measurements in order to provide the fabrication department with CAD drawings to bend tubing, working off of one of the many chassis fixtures the company has. “When Bill ordered the car,” says Weney, “we were working on a two-year backlog, which in the end, we finished the car ahead of that schedule, which is a testimony to our guys.”

“In the midst of the build,” said Hardifer, “Bill suggested we also build a new dragster for me. We didn’t necessarily need one as our present car has worked great for us. But Bill had me sit in a new S&W dragster and he noted how much more room and more comfortable I was. After all, I think my present car has shrunk somewhat over the years, because I couldn’t have gained that much weight,” Hardifer laughingly says. “In any event, Bill decided the team needed a new dragster and we ordered a new one from S&W.”

With quite a project in the new Corvette on their hands, Hardifer and Phillips knew S&W could knock out the dragster easily and as such, they suggested to Weney they do just that, but reiterated the team wanted both cars ready for the 2019 season.

“We didn’t have any real problems building the Corvette,” says Weney, “but it seemed like every time we spoke with Bill [Phillips], he wanted us to complete more of the build. From just a simple chassis and body build, it went to completing the entire build, everything from powdercoating the chassis to installing the engine and trans along with plumbing the entire car. Short of wiring and painting the car, we did just about everything.”

“With it all completed,” Weney added, “the motor and trans installed, we scaled the car to get an initial suspension set-up and we were really happy with the balance of the car.”

In order to maximize the comfort Phillips had with his Super Street Camaro, S&W laid out the interior of the Corvette in the same fashion as the Camaro. Controls, seat, shifter and more are all in roughly the location as the Camaro. “Because he really doesn’t have that much seat time,” says Hardifer, “we wanted to make sure he was comfortable in the new car which is very important for anyone, let alone someone who hasn’t raced that much.”

Now with a new Reher Morrison-built 598-inch engine complete with Brodix SR20 cylinder heads, the new Corvette along with the new dragster were wrapped by Hank Smith in the W&T Pipeline Consultants 1320 Design scheme, following Rich Concato performing all the wiring.

Still a car guy after all these years, Phillips says, “I loved my time with the circle track cars but at my age now, cleaning clay off the cars every week, fixing damaged body parts… it was fun but this is a much easier way for me to have fun and still have that drive to compete. I actually enjoy the drive getting there as much as I do the racing. It’s possible we’ll compete with it in Top Sportsman at some point which is why it has that style of chassis and certification, but that’s not something we’re thinking about at this point. It has the best of everything in it so if I wake up tomorrow and want to go faster, it’s got it all.”

Just another car guy with 50-weight oil flowing through his veins.