The most recent, of course, is the Sidewinder Dodge Dakota sport truck, which is officially the World’s Fastest Pickup. This truck—engine, driveline, chassis, body, electricals, everything—was built, tuned, and tested right in the Banks Race Shop by our own in-house crew. The same can be said for the previous World’s Fastest Pickup, the GMC Syclone, which was built in the Banks Race Shop and which topped 210 mph with an unblown V-6 engine in ‘89-’90. And our Banks-built, twin turbo, stock-block 454-powered Trans Am still holds the A/Blown Gas Coupe record at Bonneville at 268+ mph, with a top speed of 283 mph, set way back in 1987. And then there are the multi-record holding Geisler, Vail & Banks ‘53 Studebaker, the Kehoe-McKinney-Banks “Sundowner” ‘68 Corvette, and the amazing 432 mph Al Teague single-engine streamliner. This last multi-record holder was certainly not built in the Banks Race Shop, but Gale Banks is a partner in the effort.

But to call the Race Shop a “toy room” is really highly unfair. It actually is the Research and Development center of Gale Banks Engineering. The nine employees who work there range from draftsmen, to machinists, to engine builders, to expert welders, to sheet metal fabricators, to clay modelers. More than one of them can do all of that. Just about every product produced at Banks, short of electronics, is designed and prototyped in this shop. If it has three dimensions, these guys can very likely make it.

In short, what we call the Race Shop does everything from new product design and prototyping to the wildest special projects (race vehicles or otherwise) that Gale can dream up. When I asked Race Shop Manager John Espino what exactly this department does, his quick reply was, “Rapid prototyping and proof of concepts.” Well put.

Manning these eight work stations are—you guessed it again—eight installers, known here at Banks as technicians. Each is an ASE certified mechanic with considerable experience in the field, usually consisting of some as dealer line mechanics and some in specialty shops. These guys are kept busy by Cliff Hollaway and Jim Ovard, who are the Installation Department Coordinators, who schedule each installation 1-1/2 to 3 weeks in advance. Many installations can be done in one day, even if it’s a complete PowerPack and a Banks Brake (which, it seems, a large number are). Each Banks product or system has a specified installation time, and the customer is charged for this stated time at an hourly rate that is competitive with area auto dealer shop rates. This is a win/win situation for the customer. First, you know ahead of time how much the installation is going to cost, rather than guessing how long it will take. Second, if the technician runs into glitches—and you know how often that happens if you’ve ever turned wrenches yourself—and takes longer than the specified time, you don’t pay extra. (I must point out, however, that if your vehicle has physical problems, such as frozen or sheared exhaust manifold bolts that must be extracted, or if you have made modifications that cause the job to take longer, they will charge you for this extra time, which I think is only fair.) On the other hand, these technicians install these systems on the same vehicles every day, and you can bet they have learned the most efficient methods for doing the job quickly and properly the first time. If they get the job done in less time than specified, you get to go home sooner. That’s win/win, isn’t it?

Contrast this to doing the installation at home, by yourself. No matter how good a mechanic you are, a first-time installation is going to take a lot longer than someone who does it daily. And if you mess anything up, you have to fix it. The Banks Install technicians take every vehicle they work on for a comprehensive test drive when it’s finished. They check the proper operation of such things as the Banks Brake or SmartLock, and they measure such things as manifold pressure and exhaust gas temperature (on turbo diesels) compared to quantities they know should be correct. So they know everything is installed and working correctly before the vehicle is returned to the owner. All Banks products are warranteed for 2 to 5 years (some lifetime), and if any problem arises that is installation-related, you know they’ll take care of it.

The Install guys work from 6:00 to 3:00 daily (I think they’re crazy). But that means that, if your installation can be done in one day, you’ll miss traffic driving in, and you’ll leave before bad traffic in the evening. The waiting room in the Install building is about as nice as most people’s living rooms, with color TV, free coffee, a magazine rack, and drinks and snacks available. It, and the entire install shop, are cleaned daily by the Banks maintenance crew (in fact, their shop is in the Install building, too). But many who are arriving in motorhomes, or pickups towing 5th wheels or other types of travel trailers—from all parts of the country—prefer to park in the quiet dead-end street out front (we refer to it as Camp Banks), to spend the night. We provide water and electrical hookups, and there are nearly always two or three “Campers” out there.

I’ll end with a fun anecdote that typifies a day at Install. Cliff related that one day there were six or eight customers in the waiting room, chatting away. A black diesel pickup with a sprint car-like aluminum wing on the roof pulled up outside, and one of the customers inside, from Virginia, exclaimed, “There’s a truck just like that that I see at home all the time.” When the owner of the truck came in, it turned out that it was the same truck. The two owners lived 40 miles apart in Virginia, and passed each other every day going to work. They became friends in the Install waiting room and, once their Banks parts were installed, caravanned home together—3,000 miles. As Cliff put it, “Every day we get someone from somewhere.” I don’t think I could have put that better myself.