MATUSEK BOMBARDS ALL-TIME NMCA SPEED MARK

Lucas Oil Raceway Park in Indianapolis has been the site of many historic racing accomplishments.

Steve Matusek added his name to that prestigious list this past weekend at the National Muscle Car Association World Street Finals.

Matusek clocked the fastest mph in the history of the NMCA at 250.41 mph during the final qualifying session, shattering the old record by 16 mph. Matusek was driving his 2010 Mustang Twin Turbocharged Pro Mod in the Pro Street class.

More impressive is that 250.41 mph is the fastest mph ever recorded for a Roush-Yates engine. The 250.41 became the official NMCA record when Matusek backed it up with a 248.80 lap during first-round eliminations. Matusek lost in the second round at Indy with a 6.081-second run at 249.12 mph.

“As a driver, you are part of the car, and I have to shift the car at certain points on the track, and feel certain conditions,” Matusek said. “You know as a driver when it is accelerating when you put it in high gear, you get a sense for how fast you are going. When I was in the car, and I was probably right about the eighth-mile when I plunked it into high gear, I assumed that it was on a pretty good pass because that is relatively early to have to get it into high gear. We were out there (Sunday) and we wanted to win the race. We were pretty dejected that we didn’t win the race, but on the way home we reflected and thought what an accomplishment to be the first car ever in NMCA history to run over 250 mph, and the fact that we were able to do it as a collaborative effort with Roush-Yates. They trusted us enough to work with us and put their name on the side of our car, and it is an honor to work with them.”

Matusek’s Mustang is a modified version of the one the NHRA’s Pro Stock drivers are campaigning.

“This is basically the Ford Pro Stock body, that we got from Ford and we licensed it,” said Matusek, whose fastest career mph in this car before last weekend was 243 mph. “It’s a 115-inch wheel base, and then the chassis is a Larson Race Cars chassis. The engine is the same basic block and heads that Larry Morgan, (Jim) Cunningham and all the Ford Pro Stock guys are running, but after that everything is different. This is one of Roush-Yates’ Ford 500-inch Pro Stock style engine that they did for us to run Pro Mod with. A lot of the valve train technology that Roush-Yates developed for their Pro Stock engine is in this engine, and it is unbelievable. The stability of the valve train is unbelievable and that is attributable to Roush-Yates and Comp Cams, because Comp Cams developed the camshaft for it as well. They (Roush-Yates) seem to be pretty excited about it (the 250.41 mph lap), which is a pretty cool deal.”

Matusek was running his Mustang in the Pro Street category because that class basically has the same rules package as the NHRA Pro Mod cars.

“This is the only engine combination like this in the world,” Matusek said. “We have been babying it, we have been learning, and we have been trying different things. We are not a professional race team. This is an Aeromotive company car. So, we have been developing new fuel system components on it, and we have been testing sporadically, and we have been trying to use people within Aeromotive to help build the car and test (it), so it has really been a collaborative effort. We probably haven’t got the thing up to speed as quickly as we would have liked, but we are going to run this thing in Vegas, and our expectation is to run this thing well into the 5.90s at over 250 mph there. That was a goal on Day 1, and I think we are going to be able to reach that.”

Matusek is the president of Aeromotive, a company that designs and makes high performance fuel systems for race, street or marine use, and is based in Lenexas, Kan. Matusek’s drag racing team consists of himself, Dave Scheelk and Larry Larson. Scheelk and Larson make the tune-up calls on the car.

“The talent level on our team is such that we knew we could get there, it was just frustrating that it was taking us so long,” Matusek said. “But, that is related to the fact that we were not able to go out and test. Larry runs a business, I run a business and Dave works for us, so it is not like we can take weeks off at a time and go test. We do not have our own R&D people who help us develop this thing. We do it in-house by ourselves with the assistance of my company Aeromotive. That’s what is really rewarding to me. This isn’t a package that we bought from somebody and stuck in the car and we bought somebody’s tune-up and stuck it in the car, and we bought some cookie cutter chassis. This is all one off stuff that we did, so it is very rewarding that we are now starting to see some of the results.”

The NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Drag Racing Series will run its final event of 2011 in conjunction with the NHRA national event in Las Vegas Oct. 27-30. Prior to competing in Vegas, Matusek said he plans on racing at the American Drag Racing League World Finals Oct. 21-23 at Texas Motorplex in Dallas.

“They (ADRL) now have a Pro Mod class that they are running, and we are going to use that as a race/test session for us on the way to Las Vegas,” said Matusek, who has yet to race on the ADRL circuit in 2011.

Matusek started racing the Roush-Yates engine this season.

“The first race we raced at was Houston (April 29-May 1 in NHRA’s Pro Mod Series),” Matusek said. “We missed qualifying (at Houston), but we found out a lot things about the car (this season), and we are pretty excited because now it is repeating, and it is not on the edge. It is relatively soft and we think we have something now that will be competitive.”

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