QuickJack Rescues a Roush Drifter
SEMA is loud on a normal day. Add a live drift course, modified Mustangs and thousands of people moving through the show, and things get considerably louder. That was the scene in 2017 when the QuickJack team got an unexpected request from a nearby Roush crew.
One of the Roush Mustangs driven by professional drifter Forrest Wang had developed a problem. Wang was already well established in competitive drifting by that point, with years of experience building, tuning and driving high-performance drift cars. Known for both his mechanical knowledge and aggressive driving style, he was exactly the kind of guy you expected to see putting a heavily modified Mustang through its paces at SEMA.
During one of those runs, an issue with the parking-brake system took the car out of action. Getting to the affected components meant removing the exhaust system first, and another scheduled appearance was approaching. The Roush crew needed to get underneath the Mustang and get to work.
Fortunately, there happened to be a portable car lift a short distance away.
From the QuickJack Booth to the Roush Mustang
The Roush team had already seen QuickJack at the show and came over to ask whether they could borrow one for the repair. We grabbed a dolly, loaded up the BL-5000SLX we were displaying at the time and headed over.
That older 5,000-lb. QuickJack model was compact enough to move across the show grounds and bring directly to the disabled Mustang. Once the frames were positioned, the Roush crew could raise the car and start dealing with the exhaust and parking-brake components underneath.
It was an unusual repair in an unusual setting, but that’s exactly what made the moment interesting. There was no service bay waiting behind the drift course and no permanent lift that could simply be moved over to the car. The lifting equipment had to come to the Mustang.
Back to the Drift Course
With the Mustang in the air, Wang and the Roush crew went after the problem while the clock kept moving toward the next appearance. QuickJack wasn’t there as part of some carefully planned demonstration. It just happened to be the right piece of equipment sitting nearby when a serious drift car suddenly needed attention.
The repair gave everyone at our booth a pretty memorable demonstration anyway. A QuickJack that had started the day sitting on display ended up crossing the SEMA grounds, lifting a Roush drift Mustang and helping its crew get back to what they came to Las Vegas to do.
For anyone who brings QuickJack to a racetrack, that story should sound familiar. You hope the car runs perfectly all day, but you bring the tools because race cars rarely care about the plan.