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The Missouri native’s love for carbon fiber first took off when he was racing sprint cars on the World of Outlaw tour at the age of 17. After 3 years on tour, he spent the next 5 years as a car chief mechanic with Buch Motorsports as well as Jason Johnson Racing. Clyde was always so intrigued with the looks and weight of certain body panels on these sprint cars, he discovered these panels & parts were made out of 100% carbon fiber.
With carbon fiber coming into the dirt racing scene around 2010, not a lot of competitors ran it because of the cost. Regardless of the price, Clyde studied the durability of carbon fiber and observed how it held up during a heavy loaded racing schedule. Turns out, carbon fiber lasted 10x longer than fiberglass not to mention it’s far more attractive to the eye of the racer. With carbon fiber being the clear winner, Clyde dug more into the process to find out how it could be produced for a reasonable price. With the purpose of putting ideas in action, Prime Composites was born! We now build and provide carbon fiber bodies for race teams across the United States & around the world.
Pennsylvania native Doug Hetrick is the owner and operator of C&D Rigging based in Grantville, Pennsylvania. Doug’s love for sprint car racing has been a huge part of his life, especially with C&D Rigging’s sponsorship & involvement with high-caliber teams such as Anthony Macri, Brock Zearfoss Racing, Logan Schuchart & Bill Rose.
C&D Rigging, founded in 2013, is a renowned millwrighting company offering custom millwrighting, rigging, and mechanical erection of machinery and heavy equipment serving the central Pennsylvania area with over 150 years of collective experience.
C&D’s team support and safety is one of the many reasons for their success over the years. Run on quality and integrity, their projects prove their dedication in craftsmanship to exceeding their clients expectations time and time again.
Celebrating their 10 year anniversary & still growing strong, Doug and his team show no signs of slowing down in continuing to provide top tier services to the Central Pennsylvania area.
Doug Hetrick and Clyde Knipp joined forces in 2022 as partners in Prime Composites with one goal in mind; providing top-quality composite components for every open-wheel application. Their combined experience provides a unique opportunity to provide the open-wheel industry with top-of-the-line racing components.
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“Excellence in Quality.”
-Our Vision is to create & provide the racing industry with the best possible composite product on the market.
-Prime Composites uses cutting-edge technology, to manufacture the lightest, strongest, & most innovative components available to the racing industry.
-Our passion for results has us strongly ambitious to get you and your team on the right track with quality you deserve!
Are you wondering what the heck carbon fiber is? Well you see carbon fiber is everything you’d want in a material. With its high strength to weight, stiff strength, high temperature tolerance, carbon fiber is some tough, badass stuff.
Mastered in aircraft, designed for racing, & approved for marine & military grade equipment, carbon fiber will suit every need for a light, strong, & attractive component.
So you’re probably still wondering what carbon fiber is, right? Well it’s science.
Several thousands of carbon atoms are bonded together in crystals, bundled within to form a tow which then is woven into a fabric/reinforcement. That fabric is laid into a mold with epoxy resin, vacuum bagged, & heat treated to then form your application. Once demolded, we trim to spec, packaged safely, & shipped to your door!