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Hot Rod/Comp Cams
Drag Week - FRIDAY
A night of heavy rain was followed by a morning of drizzle and cold temperatures. Nonetheless, racers converged on U.S. 131 Raceway in Martin, Michigan, for their final day of track time. The rains continued well into the morning, forcing Hot Rod staffers to call a general meeting in the track’s conference room. At that meeting, the race was nearly cancelled for good, but an agreement was reached that if necessary, Drag Week racers could compete in the evening’s test and tune session to settle the final run averages. During that meeting, the rain stopped and a brisk wind kicked up. That wind, which ran directly up the length of the track, combined with a great effort by 131 staff, made short work of drying the racing surface. Racers were teched in and ready to run at three P.M., just in time for snafu number two to kick in. With the first pair of cars staged up, the tree began to come down, only to hang up on the top bulb on either side. Nearly an hour later, with much of the starting line timing equipment checked, rechecked, replaced or repaired, a Drag Week racer figured out the problem. An electrical box on the back of the Christmas Tree had shorted out, disabling the timing system. The track surface was great and the rest of the afternoon went along as planned, albeit several hours later than expected.
He wasn’t exaggerating. Larsen, who had been a solid 8.90s racer all week long in the blown, Rat-powered tube car, swapped pulleys, swapped plugs, loaded it up with race gas and went an astounding 8.38. That’s the quickest E.T. of the meet, by a long shot. “It’s an accomplishment to make it this far,” Larsen
said. “If you look at the way we ran the event, we didn’t
bring a trailer or even swap the tires. I’m not taking anything
away from anybody who ran this whole deal, but I think it was pretty cool
that we didn’t have to do too much work to this car the entire time.”
Larsen’s Nova is a sledgehammer. It basically turns all the conventional
wisdom of what is and isn’t a street car on its collective head. “That’s a substantial investment and I didn’t want to risk it,” Cunningham told a racer. By removing himself from competition, the 2003 Chevy Silverado of Jim Neuenfeldt became the class leader and champ in the Small Block Power Adder class. The guys were pretty pumped to be on top of the heap at this inaugural event, which will almost surely go down in history as the litmus test for hard core street legal racers. Their 2003 Silverado was many things on this trip. It was a very quick and cool ride, a test bed for turbo and fuel injection tuning and a rolling support vehicle for the entire field. While their dual axle trailer looked like a little much at KCIR, nearly every racer benefited from the fact that every tool known to man was housed on that flat bed. The guys with the truck were smiling all week long, having the time of their lives and even knocking back 13 mpg while pulling the trailer. Not too shabby considering the truck had a best E.T. of 10.08 at 136 mph.
“We are number one today, we’ll be number one tomorrow, and we’ll be number on Friday,” he said. He has lived up to his prediction and had become the pilot of the baddest street car on planet Earth. A car that he has rebuilt with the help of other racers, a car he has poured considerable sweat and blood into during the course of the last week and a car that should be enshrined for doing what it did this week. Driving an all-original, 1 of 50, Hemi Super Stock Dart around for the whole week has to be one of the most impressive accomplishments ever for a street legal drag racer. By claiming the top spot, Scott earns a complete fuel injection system courtesy of the Comp Performance Group. He also has the bragging rights of a lifetime. “Troy Green is the man,” Scott said, referring to the engine builder and his co-pilot on this trip. “He was the original owner of this car and I bought it a couple of years ago. The motor was three years old before we had the issue at Bowling Green. It is really an awesome deal. All of these racers are great and we are so happy to have won this event.” How big is big? -- We already told you that Dave Korth and his brother ran into transmission issues in Kansas City. We also told you that they got them repaired and caught back up with the group in Bowling Green, Kentucky. What we didn’t tell you was who actually fixed the transmission. Does the name Dave Schorr ring a bell? The IHRA Pro Stock racer owns a transmission shop just down the road from the drag strip and the brothers sought his services with their malfunctioning Torqueflite. When Schorr’s crew tore into the offending transmission in the morning, they discovered that the front pump was history. “He was a great guy and put two guys on our car to get it done so we could get on the road,” Korth said. “He started telling us about running the IHRA Pro Stock cars and how they had 816 cubic inch motors. My bother and I didn’t even know that they built motors that big.” As the job was getting done, Schorr’s mom was showing Korth and his brother pictures and giving them a little family racing history. The transmission must have been rebuilt right, because they didn’t even have a hiccup for the rest of the week. We didn’t want to tell the brothers about some of the 900-inch motors John Kaase builds for the pulling world. And the winners are -- Congratulations to all of the 2005 Hot Rod Magazine/ Comp Cams Drag Week winners! The Daily Driver class saw the closest competition of all, with Brian Corrigan and his Mercury Capri taking the win by the slimmest of margins. In fact, the battle came down to the last day at the last track. Corrigan averaged 12.005 elapsed times through the week on the 12.000 index. Amazingly, Tom Fauglid averaged 12.005 as well. Amazingly, it all came down to mph as the tie breaker and Corrigan averaged one half of one mph faster over the week. Congratulations to both racers for some outstanding competition.
The big bad Mustang Mach1 of Jay Brown, who was running the huge 515 inch, Ford FE big block in the Big Block Naturally Aspirated class, dominated his competition. Making roughly six mpg the whole trip, he averaged 10.634, 126.738 at the five drag strips to take the trophy.
Last but not least is the legend himself, Carl Scott. A mind-numbing average of 8.581 at 157.138 mph earned him the win in the Big Block Power Adder class. The fact that the motor was rebuilt under an awning in Kentucky and that he and co-pilot Troy Green were able to survive 1400 miles in the beast is a testament to their drive and determination to win this event. Congratulations to all the winners and to all the competitors who made it to Michigan under their own power. This was an incredible week, full of people going above and beyond the call of duty to help fellow racers and people they can now call friends. Additional notes, courtesy of Jim Luikens Overall Event Winner: Carl Scott Class winners Scott and Neuenfeldt BOTH blew their engines on their last pass of the day. Charlie Smith, Phil Cooper's helper in the purple Nova, did the wheel stand of a lifetime and then blew Phil's engine on his onlypass of the day. Phil let him make a pass after he was finished running. Larry Larson did a half track burnout on his 8.38 run that dropped everyone's jaw. He was the only car to break 8.50 and run over 160 mph (163.51)
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We
told you he’d do it – Larry Larsen, the KC native
and pilot of that mean fuchsia (don’t call it pink) 1967 Chevy Nova
told us that he planned to really let it rip on the last day of the event.
Class
leader decides to step out – John Cunningham and his blue
1966 Nova wagon made a tough decision on Thursday night. He decided to
load his car into the trailer because of the strong rainstorm that was
buffeting the Kalamazoo, Michigan, area. This act was observed by another
team and brought to the attention of Hot Rod officials, but Cunningham
readily admitted loading the car up. 
A man
of his word – Although every racer wanted to believe Carl
Scott when he told us that his motor would be rebuilt and he would be
in Columbus on Thursday, we’re sure a few had doubts.
Eric Neifert
won the Naturally Aspirated Small Block class. His beautiful red Camaro
was on form all week, suffering only a minor transmission issue in Bowling
Green. Other than that, the car was on the money at every track. The 383-inch
small block under the hood made good power, allowing Neifert to average
11.18 at 119.988 mph during the course of the week.
It only
made sense for a truck to win one of these classes. After all, with their
ability to carry a load on their back and noted American durability, a
pickup seems like a perfect choice. Jim Neuenfeldt’s 2003 turbo-Silverado
performed flawlessly during the course of the week. The team would adjust
boost levels and play with the fuel injection, but we never saw them thrashing
around at all. He averaged 10.242, 134.216 in the Small Block Power Adder
class.
© Competitionplus 2005
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