New RPM Magazine advertiser, The Balancing Act in St. Catharines recently held an Open House. Blessed with awesome weather, the indoor / outdoor event featured tunes from 97.7 HITS FM disc jockey Iron Mike Bensson and was an enormous success. Proprietors Gerry Bartel and Terry Thomas were astounded by the turnout on hand to check out the facilities, the car show and to see dyno pulls on the companies’ new Mustang chassis dyno.

People all over the Niagara peninsula got to hear what a quarter mile pass sounded like when Iron Mike jumped into the race Camaro strapped to the dyno. A Trans brake launch and over seven thousand revs in each gear had Bensson real excited. A succession of race and road cars took to the rollers to give the onlookers an insight into dyno tuning and what it takes to runs the numbers at the track. What impressed me most was the numbers delivered by Bob Richards KC Autoparts backed Vette. The car ran a 10.41 on the dyno and when quizzed by yours truly as to what it ran at the track, Richards pulled out a wad of time slips and read off 10.39, 10.40, and 10.41. This proves to me the Balancing Act chassis dyno is going to be the latest greatest tuning aid a racer can have in his quest for ever decreasing elapsed times.

Behind the wheel of the new vehicles provided for the demonstration was local Pro Mod racer Joe Boniferro. As a confirmed Mopar nut it was odd seeing Boniferro behind the wheel of a ’05 Mustang, Caddy CTS and C5 Corvette. Later in the day he was behind the wheel of something more familiar, his famous Koffel’s Place supported Dodge Avenger. Strapped to the rolls of the dyno Boniferro made an easy pull just to give the fans an idea of how loud a Pro Mod really is. This dyno pull did not need 97.7 HIT FM to let Niagara hear the noise, Boniferro did it all on his own.

Onlookers got to tour the facility and see the quality equipment uses to provide a range of services that is too long to list here. They also got to see some neat street rods and muscle cars assembled at the rear of the facility. An onsite BBQ built by The Balancing Act donated the proceeds to charity. They build BBQs you ask? This was a one off, just check out the photo, even was topped off by a Barry Grant carb.

When asked about the event Gerry Bartel told us ‘There were more people than we expected, I think people now know what we were talking about before the event when HITS FM was calling us Niagara’s Best Kept Secret! On a day like today racers car go to the track and test, but what if it was raining and they needed to test, we have the answer and Bob Richards numbers proved you get genuine feedback. I think we have a winner here!’ I think so too Gerry.

Information on The Balancing Act can be found on their website at www.balancingactdyno.com