RACE CAR ENTHUSIAST AND SONG WRITER

A Multi-Talented Free Spirit

David Cospelich born in 1965 ,was introduced to the racing industry at an early age. In 1972 his Father, Fred Cospelich built, owned and operated an NHRA drag strip, Magnolia Dragway/Deep South Dragway. This state of the art facility for the time, was Division Four Buster’s Rebels. After having to sell the race track, in 1979 his father opened DuCo steel, a small shop that specialized in structural steel fabrication and residential rod iron. David worked in the family business through out high school and was able to work on his own hot rods at night after regular hours. David began racing at the very track that he grew up around, now Gulfport Dragway.

Racing was spread through out his family, in the 1950’s his Uncle Joe Caspolich was credited with many feature wins as a circle track driver. After being convinced to step up to NASCAR by race car owner “Pappy” Crane , Joe found immediate success at his first entry in the Darlington Southern 500 and in 1959 was inducted into the NASCAR Pure Darlington Record club, as the fastest Oldsmobile. He was one of eight members including Richard Petty, Fireball Roberts, Elmo Langley Marvin Panch among others. Even Davids mother, Barbara owned a stock car in the early 70’s that ran on the local dirt tracks in south Mississippi. With NHRA drag racing and short track stock cars in his blood David took to chassis building as his passion over driving. ” I loved driving but eight seconds didn’t last long enough; race car construction was something that took time and could last forever”. In 1981 David formed Steel Brothers Race Cars with his father and the business took off. Soon he was building NHRA Pro Stock cars, Super Gas, Super Stock, Super Comp, Pro Street and Late Model Dirt cars, Steel Bros.was also credited with building a D gas roadster that set a land speed record of 210 MPH on the Utah salt flat in 1988 by Paul Vanderly of Biloxi Mississippi. Fortunately that wasn’t the only talent that this young man possessed, songwriting was something David was working on in his spare time. After a chance meeting with veteran songwriter Wanda Mallette, who was responsible for songs like “Looking For Love” and “Just Another Women In Love” the two began to collaborate and those songs ended up on the desk of more than one country Record Label. After playing music in the local honky tonks, he headed to Nashville, Tn. where he honed his skills as a prolific songwriter and later signed a recording contract with BMG in 1993. After some moderate success with a couple of top 20 hit’s in country radio, David stayed in Nashville off and on for 15 years producing records and writing with up and coming artist

In 2005 after Katrina destroyed his home town of Gulfport, MS, he returned to help out family and friends and was determined to stay a while . In 2006 After participating in the annual event “Cruisin’ The Coast” that leads thousands of people and their street rods to the gulf coast , inspired him to resume his love of building fast cars. This event uses the very streets that he raced on as a teenager. David is currently living in Gulfport, Ms. where he is the owner and operator of Savage Performance , which specializes in complete cars, custom fabrication, parts and accessories..