Randall Jones abides pretty well by Mark Twain's philosophy of "everything in moderation, including moderation." His and Wayne Steinbeck's '57 Chevy is one of many '57 Chevys the retired school administrator from Pattonville High School owns. Racing the style of car he first bought when he was a college freshman, Jones, 59, and his Fabulous 50's Club got this one out of a ditch. They paid $150 for it in the early 80s, then sold the front seat for the same amount.

The club was going to race the car, but liability issues quashed that idea for most of the members. Instead, Jones and four other members rebuilt the car - it needed quarter panels and a new floor - and, with power from a junk taxicab engine, drove it to 15.5 second times on the drag strip. In its second of three incarnations, Jones removed the body, installed a roll cage, and dropped a 377-cid engine (400-cid small block with a crankshaft from a 350). In that mode, the car ran 10.10s at bracket races through 1997.

After that season, Jones and Steinbeck, with considerable physical and financial help from Mike Musgrove and Bat at Engine Parts Warehouse, backhalved the car with a coil-over/ladder-bar rear suspension and a strut front end. Jones, Musgrove, and Bat built the current engine, a 400-cid small block (Steinbeck said '57 Chevys didn't come with big blocks) which has a Dart block as a base. The internals are JE 15.5:1 pistons under 18-degree Brodix cylinder heads, Scat cranks, Howard's steel connecting rods, GM Bowtie intake manifold, MSD crank-trigger ignition, and Stahl headers. The carburetor is a Quick Fuel passing methanol fuel.

In addition to building the back half and tin work, Musgrove, a warehouse dealer for Transmission Specialties at his MMI Motorsports in Foley, MO, built the Powerglide transmission. The converter is a spragless type from Transmission Specialties. The 12-bolt rear end has Moser axles and spool and 5.13 gears. Weld wheels are held up in the back by 14.5x32 Hoosier slicks.

The body of the 2,810-pound car is all steel except for the bumpers, hood and deck lid. Jones leaves the starting line with the gas pedal matted against the transbrake and the engine at 5,500 rpm. After the Mega 75 delay box turns him loose, the rpm shifter bumps the transmission into 2nd gear at 7.600 rpm, and Jones crosses the finish line at 7,300 rpm.

The sponsors of the car are Communications Equipment Specialties, which supplies hardware to Sprint and Cingular and is owned by Jones' brother-in-law John Rexford, and Chuck-A-Burger, voted one of the country's 10 best burger places.