ATI Black Magic mini funny car to run in 2010

On a slightly larger but still small-scale note comes this photo from Randy Bruette at ATI, who has recently finished restoring the ATI Black Magic Funny Car. No, I'm not talking about the Al Segrini/ R.C. Sherman/ D.A. Santucci-driven flopper, but rather this fine little piece, a minicar built by ATI honcho Jim Beattie for his kids in the mid-1970s when the real car was first storming around the country and up and down the East Coast.

The minicar had languished in a barn for 25 to 30 years before Bruette found it and began bringing it back to life. Built on a Rupp go-kart chassis and powered by a 3-horsepower Clinton engine, it's cloaked in a Vega replica body made of high-impact plastic rather than fiberglass. The body was painted by the late, great flopper painter Tom Stratton in California, who also painted the original Black Magic Funny Car body from a Kenny Youngblood scheme.

Bruette says he's planning to make a Back in the Day Tour in 2010, going to as many tracks as possible in the Mid-Atlantic area for nostalgia events.

The minicar is functional, and a couple tracks have given him the OK to have his 10-year-old daughter, Emmy, make passes in it.