Airride Autocross (what A Blast)

[TUBED]

This weekend Good Guys was in Nashville, TN. and Air Ride Technologies sponsored and or ran the autocross at the show. I had read Bret's post concerning the show here on P/T and thought I'd watch them either Friday or Saturday throw their rides around to see if they were really abusing their fleet.

Regretfully I didn't get over to that area Friday so I made sure to go Saturday (twice). I watched for awhile and began to talk to one of Air Rides guys as they were thrashing the course. They were taking passengers along for a blast if desired, all that was required was signing a waiver or release. I was reluctant at first so I decided to ride in the 67 Camaro and the 66 Chevelle (with Bret driving the A-body) and compare them.

WHAT A BLAST! let me say it again WHAT A BLAST!, the seat of pants feel is no comparison to hanging over the FENCE watching.
By the time you're half way through the course you have grin on your face understanding what all the excitement is about concerning autocross events or maybe roadracing and it was all on AIR.

Anyone in the show could run their ride also and I have to say there were a few street rods running some wild passes, some of the rods were making some serious power.

None the less this is by far the best time that I've had at a car show and the autocross twist brought something fresh to the table for a first time experience. As a manufacture of what I feel to be good quality setups, Air Ride certainly-excuse the pun GOT OFF THE FENCE, they worked hard all weekend (except for Tony hehehe). Good Guys also put on a top notch event and I look forward to the Nashville Nationals returning to Nashville for the next few years.
Gerald

[bret]

Just a few facts: We timed over 1200 laps on Friday and Saturday. We ruined nothing but a couple of right front tires. We had over 1000 people watching on Saturday afternoon.
Bob Johnsons Cuda made a damn respectable showing for being the first time on a track. It was refreshing to see that Bob was NOT afraid to thrash his car in front of a crowd. Instead of hiding out at the car show he proved that he is a REAL hotrodder and that new car gremlins [burnt clutch] will affect everyone. When he gets this Cuda lined out it will rip your friggen heart out as an appetizer.
There were several "ordinary" cars that participated...stuff you would likely NEVER see on an Autocross track: a 47 Chevy sedan, an original Model A Ford, a 63 Falcon, a 65 Comet, a 55 Chevy convertible, and our 68 Bonneville among others. In addition to performing suprisingly well [in some cases, unbelievably well] there was just a massive amount of enthusiasm from the drivers. We couldn't have had more fun at a wet t shirt contest without the t shirts!
This was the first Street Challenge Autocross that we have ever done or that Goodguys has ever done. We thought that people may be tired of racing lawn chairs so we tried to give them an alternative [as well as some shameless self promotion:)]. We had a huge number of positive comments about the event [as above] and are planning to have another Street Challenge at the Goodgus events in Kansas City On labor Day weeekend and in Dallas at the end of September. I'l post more details as they develop.
All I can say is...bring your car, have a great time!

[bret]

...our 71 Camaro...by at least a half a second. Brad ran a 12.67 on Saturday morning. While it was widely speculated that this was a "specially prepared, highly tuned factory demo vehicle with an experienced driver", the reality is that we just aren't that ambitious. This is the 71 Camaro the we did the ShockWave/StrongArm/AirBar installation on at the HotRod trade show in March. It has a 420 hp Jasper engines 383 with a Bowler 4L60E automatic. We drove it to to event, put 4 more clicks of compression and rebound valving into the ShockWaves, made approx. 150 laps on Friday and Saturday, and drove it home Sunday afternoon. Brad Coomer, thedriver, is one of our fab shop guys who had never drove in any racing event, let alone an autocross, and who had never drove this Camaro except in and out of the fab shop. This setup is about as civilian as it gets. This is also the same black and white Camaro that just ran 3500 miles on the Hotrod Power Tour earlier this month. Its not been at our shop since late May...its been at Bowler's having a new transmission control system developed for it [which works quite well, by the way:)].
The rest of the cars we took there, my 70 GSX, my wifes 68 Bonneville, and her 67 Camaro, a 66 Chevelle, a 66 SS Nova and our 56 F100 performed nicely as well. We took probably 75 people for rides during the weekend. I can't think of anyone who was not entirely impressed.
Anyway...after all the work we put into the autocross and all the great results I just had to toot a little bit.

[Tony@AirRideTech]

they worked hard all weekend (except for Tony hehehe).

hey now.... if I had my way, I would not have been stuck at the booth all weekend but the way we had to throw this together with the staff i had available to me..... that was just the way the cookie crumbled.... however! I do have to add that within the whole 20 minutes I was at the autocross, I clicked off a 14.10 in the Chevelle which until that point I had never even gotten behind the wheel of. Unfortunately though, I still owe Bret a steak dinner.......:)

[syborg tt]

nice work guy's - glad to see you will be doing this at future events.

[TUBED]

It's all good Tony, I look forward to learning more about autocross action in the future.
Gerald

[Bill Howell]

Bret, you still coming to Pigeon Forge in Sept. right? We want to see you wear out the track here too.
It is for the Protouring "Tour in the Hills" Event we talked about on the Power Tour.
Call or pm me.

[formula]

Glad to hear the tranny control is working out on the '71! I know I'm still itching from my ride in the camaro on power tour, and it was just tooling around on the streets of columbia. I can't imagine blasting around the track in that thing...musta been awesome fun. I hope I can make it to one of the future challenges.