= = = Chicago Street Racers = = =
#1
09-21-2014, 06:50 AM
= = = Chicago Street Racers = = =
Chicago Street Racers
So there I was in the passenger seat of Brian Mitchell's 7-second, blown-alcohol Nova. He had just done a John Force burnout and was backing up to stage the car to make a quarter-mile pass. I was wearing a borrowed helmet that was two sizes too big, and despite a promise to the contrary, Brian hadn't had a chance to install any sort of harness or seatbelt on my side of the car. The cabin was full of tire smoke and pungent exhaust. My eyes were starting to water, and the staccato exhaust belching from the zoomie headers was causing the ill-fitting helmet to buzz on my skull. Arms and legs outstretched, I braced my body against the impending g-forces, knowing full well it would be a futile gesture if we crashed. It was now that I seriously began to question my decision to be a passenger for an all-out pass down the track. Where were my sensibilities 10 minutes ago?
Before my brain could register another complaint, I noticed we were at the starting line with both staging beams lit. Three amber bulbs later, the engine bellowed, burying me in the seat. Fired up on adrenaline, I was able to process the next few seconds: I glanced at the tach—its needle was reading somewhere north of 7,000 rpm—the dash and gauges were shaking as if the whole car was vibrating like a guitar string, and the scenery was streaking past the side windows like a sped-up karate movie. Something flashed ahead, the windshield was briefly obscured by something dark. Brian snapped the throttle closed and cut the ignition. Over the rushing wind and drivetrain gear whine, Brian said in a calm voice, "I think we just lost the hood." Peering over the dash, I saw only fenders and engine. We coasted the remainder of the track to a 10.098-second quarter-mile e.t. at 81 mph. "That would have been a pretty good pass," Brian said later. Roughly calculating the time and speed based on where the hood blew off the car, we were well on our way to a high-7-second pass, by far the fastest ride I've ever experienced.
If you've been reading Car Craft the last two years, you're aware that we've been traveling the country looking for the fastest street cars. We started our trek in southern California and journeyed to Oklahoma City, coincidentally arriving the week the first episode of Discovery Channel's Street Outlaws program aired. Texas followed about six months later, and we finally ended up in Chicago to meet Brian Mitchell, a "retired street racer" as he puts it, to shoot his alcohol-swilling Nova and meet some of his racer friends. Our trip fell on the same weekend that his local track, Great Lakes Dragaway, was hosting its annual King of the Streets competition, an invitational grudge race with minimal rules and fast cars. Luck was smiling on us.
King Of The Streets
Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin, is the oldest continually running dragstrip in the U.S. Track owner Randy Henning was also proud to point out it's one of the busiest in the country, with events nearly every day of the week during the fleeting summer months of Wisconsin. It's a cool, old place with lots of history—all the big-name drivers of the 1960s and 1970s stopped here for match races when that movement was huge.
King of the Streets is run by track manager Trent Eckhardt. It's a twice-yearly invitational event, where the fastest local cars compete in three classes—Junior, Gangster, and Senior—in a grudge-race format on an unprepped track. Pairings are determined by drawing names from a hat (previous years used a fried-chicken bucket), and big money is on the line, so the action is intense.
The format feels very much like a street race. Crowds gather at the starting line, and lots of cash is trading hands on the sidelines as dudes talk smack in the spectator area, betting on the winners. Racers are allowed to do a burnout through a puddle of VHT, and crews can spray VHT between the burnout box and the starting line, but that is all the prep allowed during the event. At the starting line, drivers stage like normal, but the amber bulbs are removed from the tree, so they have no warning before the green light. The rules are minimal: cars in the Junior class must be registered, have working lights, windshield wipers, and a horn. In addition, all glass must be in place and cars need a minimum of two front seats and carpet throughout the cabin. They are limited to a 26-inch-tall drag radial. Aftermarket suspension parts are allowed, but the stock attaching points must be used. Any powertrain or power-adder is permitted. Senior cars need to run 28x10.5 tires, and that's about it. The Gangster class falls somewhere in the middle, requiring the use of a 26-inch-tall tire (drag radial or slick is OK), stock-style suspension, and that's about it. No wheelie bars are allowed in any of the classes, and Senior cars only run eighth-mile, mainly for safety, because the potential quarter-mile trap speeds would be pretty huge. You never really know how fast the cars go, because the time and e.t.'s aren't posted—only the win light blinks on. Winners advance to the next round of eliminations and are randomly paired again by drawing the names from a hat. All classes were limited to 16 entries, and it took all day to work through the field. In the end, the winners were Larry Dee in Junior, Kevin Connolly in Gangster, and Steve Kelley in Senior, who walked away with $10,000 in cash.
Big crowds behind the starting line augment the street-race vibe.
Tuff Enuff
Brian Mitchell's 1966 Nova is easy to find on YouTube; you don't even need to add "Nova," just search for "Tuff Enuff." Amid videos for The Fabulous Thunderbirds' song of the same name, you'll find a clip of Brian's Nova making a 7.29 pass at 185 mph, and it looks as easy as a walk in the park.
In 1994, he spotted this car while on a job interview and ended up buying it for $4,000. "It took me four months to come up with the money," Brian said. The car was mostly stock, with a mildly warmed over small-block. The words Tuff Enuff were hand-lettered on the rear-facing portion of the decklid, so the name stuck. He raced at the track and on the street for years, and the car slowly got faster. "[It] evolved into what it is today," Brian said. "I had to keep up with the crowd." In 2007, he switched the car to alcohol. Why? "Because I always wanted an alcohol car," Brian reasoned. So be it.
The long-block is out of Great Lakes Dragaway owner Randy Henning's Top Alcohol funny car. It's a Merlin 532 big-block Chevy with conventional valve-angle Profiler cylinder heads. The supercharger is a standard helix Mooneyham 14-71 that Brian runs 34 percent overdriven. The transmission is an Andy Vogt–built TH400 with a Coan torque converter. A 41⁄2-inch chromoly driveshaft connects to a Fab9 rear axle built by Josh Kruger with 4.11:1 gears. Josh also built the 4-link rear suspension. The fuel pump is cam-driven and feeds the Enderle mechanical fuel injection, which Brian can tune by changing the size of the injectors and fuel bypass. Except for the MSD 10 ignition box, there are no other electronics on the car. "My right foot is the traction control," Brian said. We're guessing this combination is good for at least 2,500 hp on 25 psi of boost.
Brian is an assistant track manager at Great Lakes Dragaway, and that position allowed him to start the Real Street Drags program there and at Wisconsin International Dragway in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. Being a former street racer, he wanted a venue that captured the vibe of street racing, minus the risk, so Real Street Drags runs on a prepped track with a full safety crew. Starts can be done with the tree, arm drop, or flashlight, and drivers can spot each other car lengths at the starting line. "The jail thing was getting annoying," Brian quipped as he described his motivation to start the program, which runs one evening per month at both tracks.
Being track manager also affords Brian the opportunity to use the track to test his car during off hours. He and several local racers gathered at the top end of the track after the completion of KOTS to set their cars to run on unprepped asphalt. Several of them were invited by Discovery Channel to race the cast of Street Outlaws in St. Louis. The taping eventually got canceled because of weather, so we're still waiting for a rematch of Tuff and Dave's Sonoma.
Brian's two kids, Josh, 11, and Shannon, 8, race Jr. Dragsters, so the next generation of Chicagoland racers are on their way.
Showboat Shane
Shane Gritt of Sobieski, Wisconsin, brought his 1937 Chevy pickup to GLD. He bought it about 25 years ago from a family friend and had intended to use it as a mud-bogging truck. Those plans made a 180-degree turn, and the truck now tears up the dragstrip with quarter-mile times in the 8.40s. It's powered by a 7.0 L LSX block with an Eagle rotating assembly, JE Pistons, ported LS7 heads, and a Comp solid roller cam with about 250 degrees of duration and 0.720-inch lift. The twin Precision 72mm turbochargers are impossible to ignore, and they contribute to this powerplant's impressive 1,230 hp at the wheels on 16 pounds of boost, and Shane has room to turn that up even more. The rest of the truck is built with a 1973 Camaro front stub, a ladder-bar rear suspension, QA1 coilovers, a TH400 transmission, and a Ford 9-inch rear axle. Shane is a machinist by trade, so be built nearly everything on the truck and even pulled off the great-looking paint job. "I haven't gotten around to painting the bed—yet," he said.
Scotty K
Yeah, it's ugly, but we totally loved Scott Kasabuske's 1992 Mustang. He and crew chief/buddy Nick Chapman built the car in 60 days using parts from Nick's crashed Mustang. Scotty owns Chubby Kid Street Cars and Nick runs Grant's Service, so both guys know their way around a race car. The Mustang is powered by a 500ci big-block Chevy with about a 200 shot of nitrous. A TH400 trans and a Strange 9-inch complete the drivetrain. They were racing in Gangster class and made it all the way to the final round in a car built front to back for less than $25,000, shook the tires, and lost to Plumber Kevin.
Plumber Kevin
Kevin Connolly drove this maroon 1990 Mustang to victory in the Gangster class, and it was actually the third KOTS win for Kevin in this Mustang. "The prior two wins were in Senior class. This year I stepped down to prove that it could be done on a smaller tire," Kevin said. He's owned the car since 1999. It was a street car when he bought it, "but things just progressed into what it is now." Quite a progression, too, because it's now got a 522 big-block Chevy that makes 940 hp on the motor. It was built out of a Dart block and conventional heads by John Platek and Tom Dixon at Markem Machining. On top of that, he sprays a huge shot of nitrous. "We run a 52 jet in there," he said, hinting at the amount of nitrous pouring into the engine. The carburetor is a 1250-cfm Dominator, and Kevin relies on the tune-up, rather than expensive electronics, to get the car to hook. A Powerglide and 9-inch complete the drivetrain. Kevin really is a plumber: "I've been doing that since 1994."
Boost 12
Joey Rabiola's 2003 Mustang Cobra is well known in the Chicagoland area. It's got small-block Ford powered with twin Bullseye Power BatMoWheel turbochargers, a Performance Racing Transmissions Powerglide, and a Dean's Performance Ford 8.8 rear axle. The engine runs on Fast XFI2.0 tuned by Kurgan Motorsports. We asked Joey how fast the car is; his answer: "We grudge race, so times are not given." Awesome. Go to BullseyePower.com for cool pictures of the BatMoWheel's interesting-looking billet compressor wheels.
OZZ
Robert Hajdani's 1994 Camaro was a stand-out at KOTS. In an era of turbo LS engines, it was interesting to see a traditional small-block under the hood. This one measures 390 ci and is force-fed by a 94mm Precision turbo. The engine, turbo kit, and exhaust were built by Sound Performance. Proformance built the Powerglide transmission, and a Ford 9-inch is out back. His best pass to date is an 8.08 at 176 mph.
By John McGann, Photography by John McGann
Car Craft, September 19, 2014
So there I was in the passenger seat of Brian Mitchell's 7-second, blown-alcohol Nova. He had just done a John Force burnout and was backing up to stage the car to make a quarter-mile pass. I was wearing a borrowed helmet that was two sizes too big, and despite a promise to the contrary, Brian hadn't had a chance to install any sort of harness or seatbelt on my side of the car. The cabin was full of tire smoke and pungent exhaust. My eyes were starting to water, and the staccato exhaust belching from the zoomie headers was causing the ill-fitting helmet to buzz on my skull. Arms and legs outstretched, I braced my body against the impending g-forces, knowing full well it would be a futile gesture if we crashed. It was now that I seriously began to question my decision to be a passenger for an all-out pass down the track. Where were my sensibilities 10 minutes ago?
Before my brain could register another complaint, I noticed we were at the starting line with both staging beams lit. Three amber bulbs later, the engine bellowed, burying me in the seat. Fired up on adrenaline, I was able to process the next few seconds: I glanced at the tach—its needle was reading somewhere north of 7,000 rpm—the dash and gauges were shaking as if the whole car was vibrating like a guitar string, and the scenery was streaking past the side windows like a sped-up karate movie. Something flashed ahead, the windshield was briefly obscured by something dark. Brian snapped the throttle closed and cut the ignition. Over the rushing wind and drivetrain gear whine, Brian said in a calm voice, "I think we just lost the hood." Peering over the dash, I saw only fenders and engine. We coasted the remainder of the track to a 10.098-second quarter-mile e.t. at 81 mph. "That would have been a pretty good pass," Brian said later. Roughly calculating the time and speed based on where the hood blew off the car, we were well on our way to a high-7-second pass, by far the fastest ride I've ever experienced.
If you've been reading Car Craft the last two years, you're aware that we've been traveling the country looking for the fastest street cars. We started our trek in southern California and journeyed to Oklahoma City, coincidentally arriving the week the first episode of Discovery Channel's Street Outlaws program aired. Texas followed about six months later, and we finally ended up in Chicago to meet Brian Mitchell, a "retired street racer" as he puts it, to shoot his alcohol-swilling Nova and meet some of his racer friends. Our trip fell on the same weekend that his local track, Great Lakes Dragaway, was hosting its annual King of the Streets competition, an invitational grudge race with minimal rules and fast cars. Luck was smiling on us.
King Of The Streets
Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin, is the oldest continually running dragstrip in the U.S. Track owner Randy Henning was also proud to point out it's one of the busiest in the country, with events nearly every day of the week during the fleeting summer months of Wisconsin. It's a cool, old place with lots of history—all the big-name drivers of the 1960s and 1970s stopped here for match races when that movement was huge.
King of the Streets is run by track manager Trent Eckhardt. It's a twice-yearly invitational event, where the fastest local cars compete in three classes—Junior, Gangster, and Senior—in a grudge-race format on an unprepped track. Pairings are determined by drawing names from a hat (previous years used a fried-chicken bucket), and big money is on the line, so the action is intense.
The format feels very much like a street race. Crowds gather at the starting line, and lots of cash is trading hands on the sidelines as dudes talk smack in the spectator area, betting on the winners. Racers are allowed to do a burnout through a puddle of VHT, and crews can spray VHT between the burnout box and the starting line, but that is all the prep allowed during the event. At the starting line, drivers stage like normal, but the amber bulbs are removed from the tree, so they have no warning before the green light. The rules are minimal: cars in the Junior class must be registered, have working lights, windshield wipers, and a horn. In addition, all glass must be in place and cars need a minimum of two front seats and carpet throughout the cabin. They are limited to a 26-inch-tall drag radial. Aftermarket suspension parts are allowed, but the stock attaching points must be used. Any powertrain or power-adder is permitted. Senior cars need to run 28x10.5 tires, and that's about it. The Gangster class falls somewhere in the middle, requiring the use of a 26-inch-tall tire (drag radial or slick is OK), stock-style suspension, and that's about it. No wheelie bars are allowed in any of the classes, and Senior cars only run eighth-mile, mainly for safety, because the potential quarter-mile trap speeds would be pretty huge. You never really know how fast the cars go, because the time and e.t.'s aren't posted—only the win light blinks on. Winners advance to the next round of eliminations and are randomly paired again by drawing the names from a hat. All classes were limited to 16 entries, and it took all day to work through the field. In the end, the winners were Larry Dee in Junior, Kevin Connolly in Gangster, and Steve Kelley in Senior, who walked away with $10,000 in cash.
Big crowds behind the starting line augment the street-race vibe.- Lots of betting happens at KOTS—even on a coin toss.
- Track manager Trent Eckhardt called the shots.
This is all the track prep allowed.
Tuff Enuff
Brian Mitchell's 1966 Nova is easy to find on YouTube; you don't even need to add "Nova," just search for "Tuff Enuff." Amid videos for The Fabulous Thunderbirds' song of the same name, you'll find a clip of Brian's Nova making a 7.29 pass at 185 mph, and it looks as easy as a walk in the park.
In 1994, he spotted this car while on a job interview and ended up buying it for $4,000. "It took me four months to come up with the money," Brian said. The car was mostly stock, with a mildly warmed over small-block. The words Tuff Enuff were hand-lettered on the rear-facing portion of the decklid, so the name stuck. He raced at the track and on the street for years, and the car slowly got faster. "[It] evolved into what it is today," Brian said. "I had to keep up with the crowd." In 2007, he switched the car to alcohol. Why? "Because I always wanted an alcohol car," Brian reasoned. So be it.
The long-block is out of Great Lakes Dragaway owner Randy Henning's Top Alcohol funny car. It's a Merlin 532 big-block Chevy with conventional valve-angle Profiler cylinder heads. The supercharger is a standard helix Mooneyham 14-71 that Brian runs 34 percent overdriven. The transmission is an Andy Vogt–built TH400 with a Coan torque converter. A 41⁄2-inch chromoly driveshaft connects to a Fab9 rear axle built by Josh Kruger with 4.11:1 gears. Josh also built the 4-link rear suspension. The fuel pump is cam-driven and feeds the Enderle mechanical fuel injection, which Brian can tune by changing the size of the injectors and fuel bypass. Except for the MSD 10 ignition box, there are no other electronics on the car. "My right foot is the traction control," Brian said. We're guessing this combination is good for at least 2,500 hp on 25 psi of boost.
Brian is an assistant track manager at Great Lakes Dragaway, and that position allowed him to start the Real Street Drags program there and at Wisconsin International Dragway in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. Being a former street racer, he wanted a venue that captured the vibe of street racing, minus the risk, so Real Street Drags runs on a prepped track with a full safety crew. Starts can be done with the tree, arm drop, or flashlight, and drivers can spot each other car lengths at the starting line. "The jail thing was getting annoying," Brian quipped as he described his motivation to start the program, which runs one evening per month at both tracks.
Being track manager also affords Brian the opportunity to use the track to test his car during off hours. He and several local racers gathered at the top end of the track after the completion of KOTS to set their cars to run on unprepped asphalt. Several of them were invited by Discovery Channel to race the cast of Street Outlaws in St. Louis. The taping eventually got canceled because of weather, so we're still waiting for a rematch of Tuff and Dave's Sonoma.
Brian's two kids, Josh, 11, and Shannon, 8, race Jr. Dragsters, so the next generation of Chicagoland racers are on their way.
It's not a Pro Mod. It's closer to a Top Sportsman car, but it's really a grudge-race car. —Brian Mitchell
Showboat Shane
Shane Gritt of Sobieski, Wisconsin, brought his 1937 Chevy pickup to GLD. He bought it about 25 years ago from a family friend and had intended to use it as a mud-bogging truck. Those plans made a 180-degree turn, and the truck now tears up the dragstrip with quarter-mile times in the 8.40s. It's powered by a 7.0 L LSX block with an Eagle rotating assembly, JE Pistons, ported LS7 heads, and a Comp solid roller cam with about 250 degrees of duration and 0.720-inch lift. The twin Precision 72mm turbochargers are impossible to ignore, and they contribute to this powerplant's impressive 1,230 hp at the wheels on 16 pounds of boost, and Shane has room to turn that up even more. The rest of the truck is built with a 1973 Camaro front stub, a ladder-bar rear suspension, QA1 coilovers, a TH400 transmission, and a Ford 9-inch rear axle. Shane is a machinist by trade, so be built nearly everything on the truck and even pulled off the great-looking paint job. "I haven't gotten around to painting the bed—yet," he said.
Scotty K
Yeah, it's ugly, but we totally loved Scott Kasabuske's 1992 Mustang. He and crew chief/buddy Nick Chapman built the car in 60 days using parts from Nick's crashed Mustang. Scotty owns Chubby Kid Street Cars and Nick runs Grant's Service, so both guys know their way around a race car. The Mustang is powered by a 500ci big-block Chevy with about a 200 shot of nitrous. A TH400 trans and a Strange 9-inch complete the drivetrain. They were racing in Gangster class and made it all the way to the final round in a car built front to back for less than $25,000, shook the tires, and lost to Plumber Kevin.
I thought we were going to go out in the first round. Next thing I know we were in the finals. —Nick Chapman
Plumber Kevin
Kevin Connolly drove this maroon 1990 Mustang to victory in the Gangster class, and it was actually the third KOTS win for Kevin in this Mustang. "The prior two wins were in Senior class. This year I stepped down to prove that it could be done on a smaller tire," Kevin said. He's owned the car since 1999. It was a street car when he bought it, "but things just progressed into what it is now." Quite a progression, too, because it's now got a 522 big-block Chevy that makes 940 hp on the motor. It was built out of a Dart block and conventional heads by John Platek and Tom Dixon at Markem Machining. On top of that, he sprays a huge shot of nitrous. "We run a 52 jet in there," he said, hinting at the amount of nitrous pouring into the engine. The carburetor is a 1250-cfm Dominator, and Kevin relies on the tune-up, rather than expensive electronics, to get the car to hook. A Powerglide and 9-inch complete the drivetrain. Kevin really is a plumber: "I've been doing that since 1994."
Boost 12
Joey Rabiola's 2003 Mustang Cobra is well known in the Chicagoland area. It's got small-block Ford powered with twin Bullseye Power BatMoWheel turbochargers, a Performance Racing Transmissions Powerglide, and a Dean's Performance Ford 8.8 rear axle. The engine runs on Fast XFI2.0 tuned by Kurgan Motorsports. We asked Joey how fast the car is; his answer: "We grudge race, so times are not given." Awesome. Go to BullseyePower.com for cool pictures of the BatMoWheel's interesting-looking billet compressor wheels.
OZZ
Robert Hajdani's 1994 Camaro was a stand-out at KOTS. In an era of turbo LS engines, it was interesting to see a traditional small-block under the hood. This one measures 390 ci and is force-fed by a 94mm Precision turbo. The engine, turbo kit, and exhaust were built by Sound Performance. Proformance built the Powerglide transmission, and a Ford 9-inch is out back. His best pass to date is an 8.08 at 176 mph.
Read more: Chicago Street Racers
>Vid's Below > EnJoy >= = = = = = = = = =>
#3
09-21-2014, 07:18 AM
>Street Racing not permitted on the MCF ?< Want 2 Race ?
*Note, the MCF does not endorse
or condone "Street Racing"
>Want 2 Race me ?<
Some owners/driver's Gamble with their Cars, $'s & their `Life 4-Sure.
Below is an example of what you should not do
on the streets in your area
**Please take it 2 the Track 4-Sure **
Don't risk your license, higher insurance, crazies drivers & your `Life (?)
or condone "Street Racing"
>Want 2 Race me ?<
Some owners/driver's Gamble with their Cars, $'s & their `Life 4-Sure.
Below is an example of what you should not do
on the streets in your area
**Please take it 2 the Track 4-Sure **
Don't risk your license, higher insurance, crazies drivers & your `Life (?)
Fastest Street Car ?
Last edited by Space; 09-21-2014 at 07:41 AM.
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