His pride was clear as Justin “Bondo” Fields sat on a low stool in his body shop in the 800 block of South Main Street, stroking his long taupe-colored beard as he talked about the challenge taken up by his sons.

Gleaming before him on the dust-free concrete floor was a long, low-slung roadster, detailed in deep red candy flames and metal flake paint reminiscent of the hot rods of his teens.

But it clearly wasn’t the car of his youth.

Built from the ground up by brothers Roy Fields, 24, and Justin Fields, 28, the car is destined for high-speed runs this week at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, about 100 miles west of Salt Lake City.

Sporting a stylized D, designating its engine size, and the letters FMR, for fuel-modified roadster, the vehicle piloted by Roy Fields will attempt to set the land-speed record for its class of 247.7 mph.

Now primarily a crafter of fiberglass parts for aircraft restoration, Fields, 52, said he was building cars when his son Justin was a toddler.

“They were both in the shop before they could walk, waddling around in one of those round things with wheels,” Fields said. “When he (Justin) was 6 or so and I got a new dresser, he asked for the old one and built a racer.”

The eldest has always been detail-oriented, Fields said.

For almost a decade, starting when Roy was a toddler, Fields also worked with cousins Clay and Dean Bontrager racing Sprint cars.

“Roy thought it was the cat’s meow,” Fields said. “That’s why he’s driven to go fast. He doesn’t care how pretty it is, it’s how fast it goes.”

Together they formed the perfect team to create the car that Fields can’t wait to see streaking across the barren white flats.

For the past four years, the family has traveled to Bonneville to help Hutchinson resident Mike Yoder run a gas-modified car on the salt flats. Last year, Yoder was just 7 mph short of the record for his 160 mph class, Fields said.

It was at the track last year that Roy, who “got some seat time” in Yoder’s car, determined he wanted to be in the “200 Club,” his father said, reserved for those traveling at least 200 mph.

They began work on designing the car a couple of weeks after returning to Hutchinson, and spent the past 10 1/2 months constructing it.

“Some didn’t think they could get it built,” Fields said.

They applied for their number in May, and when they race it will be in car No. 7557.

Cars can run on any liquid fuel, but the type of fuel separates the classes. The Fieldses’ car runs on a blend of alcohol and nitromethane. Depending on the nitro blend — it will be about 5 percent, but they may “tip in a little more” if they need to boost the speed — the engine will pack 500 to 600 horsepower.

The vehicle weighs only about 500 pounds, Fields said, but they’ll add a couple of dozen book-sized lead weights, all melted and hand-poured by Justin over several days, to add hundreds of more pounds. More weight means more speed.

“The tires will probably begin to spin at 200 mph, to lose traction,” Roy Fields said.

“It’s basically like driving on ice,” his father explained. “Very slick.”

He wouldn’t confess to nerves or growing anticipation as race week approached, though the taciturn Roy, a welder at Superior Boiler Works, conceded, “On the drive there I’ll probably start to get excited.”

The Bonneville Salt Flats is a massive former salt lake, stretching over some 30,000 acres near the Utah-Nevada border. The Bureau of Land Management administers the land and opens it each summer to the races.