Senior Spotlight: Sean Hancock

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Sean’s 2019 nose car.

Alex Herman, Reporter

Sean Hancock is a senior at Sahuaro who does it all. He would describe himself as a “workaholic”. He doesn’t just love working with and building cars, but he also loves NASCAR and model building. Sean would say he has been into cars his whole life. “I grew up underneath cars trying to help my grandpa and uncle and that sparked my interests in cars and how they worked.”

Sean’s work consists of everything his car might need. Meaning, he does all the body work, builds the engine, does the suspension and fabrication, and if he doesn’t know how to fix a certain car need…he puts the dedication in to learn it! With his work, there are things that are a bit of a challenge. Like for him, it would be the racing aspect of his work. “Having to learn the car, having to figure out what the car likes and doesn’t like, figuring out the setup and how to make the car fast, and how to make you and the car work together. There is a lot of mathematics and what we call “redneck” science into racing that gets complicated.”

Sean’s car when he stripped the car down

Now if you didn’t think building cars by hand was impressive…wait until you here his process of building his own RACE CAR from scratch! Yes… you read that correctly…his own race car! Sean started off by buying a car for his roll cage, but in order to build this and race on his track, he needed a special certification. He then stripped the body down to just a shell, began to take the engine and transmission out, and began the process of building. “I rebuilt the engine and freshened up the transmission. I cut out my trunk floor in order to install a fuel cell under the floor. I had to fabricate a mount to the frame and roll cage for the car. After that, I did some fabrication to mount a new body on the car starting with the back.” He even went on to make his own brackets, so that it held his rear bumper on and protected his fuel cell from rear collisions. After making his brackets, he worked his way to the doors and nose saying, “I made my own mounts to install a 2019 Camaro nose. Making a 2019 nose fit a 1975 Camaro was a headache.” Not long after that, Sean’s process took an unexpected turn. He recalls, “Shortly after that, I wrecked my car. My axel had snapped, sending my car into the wall and full throttle sending me to the ER for a concussion.” But that didn’t stop Sean from doing what he loves saying, “I didn’t let that stop me – the very next day I did damage assessment and as soon as I was cleared I started to rebuild it to where I am today.” It has been a 4-year long process for Sean. With facing many obstacles, like a blown engine, a wreck, and countless others he would say, “Now I am here.”

More pictures of Sean’s car process

With Sean’s car being just about finished and buying his second car as a backup… he is ready to take on the season!