Ultimate Street Car Invitational, HR Mag March 09

[John McIntire]

Congrats Steve! Just got the mag, gave you a pretty good write up! Well, as good as they could I guess
They brought up a good point, you've never had Penny down the 1320. Any plans to do so, you know, just for fun? I think it be interesting to see what she runs.
Anyway, Congrats!

PS. How did you mount those mesh screens on the front lower valence?

[Steve1968LS2]

It's "on my list"... I'm sure traction would be the issue, maybe I should get a set of drag tires?

Besides all the factual errors in thier story it was pretty good.

I had to laugh at the "It pains us to report this, but..." part.

Also, the deal said that winner gets "a feature in HR magazine"

I asked when my feature would be and got a resounding.. NO.. lol

[Steve1968LS2]

PS. How did you mount those mesh screens on the front lower valence?

The mesh is held in by four screws on the top and the bottom isn't attached. It stays in place due to spring tension. I will try to dig up a picture.

[TonyL]

Yeah, I got a kick out of the "it pains us to report, but a PHR project car won.." bit also.. LOL.

I was surprised at the amount of cars that got no love or mention at all. Like Fuel and others.

[Damn True]

When did Penny become a "PHR project car"?

[Steve1968LS2]

Yeah, I got a kick out of the "it pains us to report, but a PHR project car won.." bit also.. LOL.

I was surprised at the amount of cars that got no love or mention at all. Like Fuel and others.

Yea, there were a ton of cars they didn't talk about.. actually it didn't give a very good "feel" for the event.

My biggest complaint (as a reader) was that there wasn't a clear results box with the top times. How could they not list the times?

We have a large (11 page) story coming out in Camaro Performers about the event next month. I made sure to give love to all the Camaro's and list all the top times.

[Steve1968LS2]

When did Penny become a "PHR project car"?

Well, that's where I worked when I did some of the build. It never was a traditional "project car" were we build it from the ground up but there were quite a few stories done in PHR. The Fairlane was a PHR Project Car.. Penny is just a car we did some stories on. Not many since Hunkins didn't like the car very much.

It's a project car wherever I happen to work, right now that happens to be CP.

[bret]

I haven't seen it yet...did they include the part where all my **** fell apart?

[Steve1968LS2]

I haven't seen it yet...did they include the part where all my **** fell apart?

"air ride's Bret Voelkel brought his company's test car, the Velocity '68 Camaro. The F-body runs a Wourld Products Warhawk 427ci LS motor and a Bowler 4L65E with paddle shifters. Since he was a sponsor, Bret couldn't compete, but he nevertheless put the car on the track and had some fun with it. It did OK but didn't set the world on fire, thanks to losing Third and Fourth gears in the transmission"

Did they even take notes at the event??? You were competing just like DSE, the optima car and everyone else.

[monza]

Yeah, I got a kick out of the "it pains us to report, but a PHR project car won.." bit also.. LOL.

I was surprised at the amount of cars that got no love or mention at all. Like Fuel and others.

Have not seen it yet but team Fuel was cranky and tired so maybe I snapped at the wrong guy... lol

[Steve1968LS2]

Have not seen it yet but team Fuel was cranky and tired so maybe I snapped at the wrong guy... lol

You weren't the only one not mentioned, so I don't think it was you.

No mention of Big Red.. or that poor guy who blew he radiator. No mention of Rick Love or his second gen but the Freeling Camaro got two pages.

But hooked ya up in my story

[James OLC]

I don't know what's better - not setting "the world on fire" like Bret or getting "killed"... lol

Like Dave I haven't seen the issue yet but I look forward to seeing next month's Camaro Performers (I think).

[Steve1968LS2]

I don't know what's better - not setting "the world on fire" like Bret or getting "killed"... lol

Like Dave I haven't seen the issue yet but I look forward to seeing next month's Camaro Performers (I think).

Heck, your in this months issue too...


Don't worry, I didn't toss you under the proverbial bus.. lol

[TonyL]

Yea, there were a ton of cars they didn't talk about.. actually it didn't give a very good "feel" for the event.

My biggest complaint (as a reader) was that there wasn't a clear results box with the top times. How could they not list the times?

Because they only care about pretty cars and not real data?

Hence the Greening car getting two pages that could have gone to coverage?

at least it wasnt 2/3s images of contestants wives and girlfriends..

=P

/I keed.

[Boyd]

I didn't get a good vibe from the Hot Rod story either. But I do have a question.

While I wasn't there, it seemed like there were quite a few "untested" cars at the event. Why would anyone bring an untested car to the "Ultimate Street Car Challenge"? Emphasis on the "Ultimate." I don't see any NASCAR teams bringing a bunch of untested cars to Daytona every year. Seems to me that this only fueled Hot Rod's pre-concieved notion about high-dollar pro-touring builds. The previous months story on the uber-mustang didn't help either.

[bret]

"air ride's Bret Voelkel brought his company's test car, the Velocity '68 Camaro. The F-body runs a Wourld Products Warhawk 427ci LS motor and a Bowler 4L65E with paddle shifters. Since he was a sponsor, Bret couldn't compete, but he nevertheless put the car on the track and had some fun with it. It did OK but didn't set the world on fire, thanks to losing Third and Fourth gears in the transmission"

Did they even take notes at the event??? You were competing just like DSE, the optima car and everyone else.

Its always tough to tell the whole story in the limited space of a magazine article, but I can elaborate a bit here.
Although air ride was a sponsor, I was competing. This was just a technical reporting error...unfortunately I was never a serious factor in any portion of the competition.
In my attempt to be the hero and mug for the camera, I did a giant burnout from the pits...until the car hooked up and rolled the sprag over in the drum in the trans. It wasn't Bowler's fault, it was mine. He told me [again, several times] that that trans would take 550hp. I put it behind an engine that made 630hp. The first time it got seriously hooked up, I found out he knows what he is talking about! Therefore I spent the rest of the day making laps at 85mph in 2nd gear on the rev limiter at 6500rpm. Mark Bowler was there and offered [several times] to take the trans out and attempt to fix it right there in the pits. I was just way too lazy to do that. I figured that we still had 1st and 2nd so we could do the autocross ok and save some face there.
While we were wringing our hands over the trans I missed the walk through for the autocross. Since I missed the walkthrough and drivers meeting I missed the fact that there was a tricky little routing at the end of the autocross that I dutifully missed...all three runs. Again...my bad. In Indiana we call that a "cluster****" .
We celebrated our "success" in traditional Indiana fashion with several dozen cocktails that night.

I think the reason you saw so many "unprepared" cars there was because this was an invitation event. The invitations were extended to new cars that, for the most part, were appearing at SEMA. If you have ever tried to get a car finished in time for the SEMA show you can sympathize with this position. There were several that didn't make it at all, and a few that made SEMA but didn't make it to the track. You'll have that.
I thought the quality and variety of cars AND people was exceptional. I can't WAIT to do it again [hopefully with better success]this coming year!

BTW..."not setting the world on fire" was likely better than setting it on fire like the first time that Kinnan reported on one of my cars in '97. You had to be there.

[James OLC]

I didn't get a good vibe from the Hot Rod story either. But I do have a question.

While I wasn't there, it seemed like there were quite a few "untested" cars at the event. Why would anyone bring an untested car to the "Ultimate Street Car Challenge"? Emphasis on the "Ultimate." I don't see any NASCAR teams bringing a bunch of untested cars to Daytona every year. Seems to me that this only fueled Hot Rod's pre-concieved notion about high-dollar pro-touring builds. The previous months story on the uber-mustang didn't help either.

There may have been several completely untested cars at the event (myself included) but they were in the minority and at the end of the day, it was the cars who had miles (road and track) on them that really did dominate the event. There were, however, several exceptional cars with lots of miles on them (Bret and FUeL for instance) that unfortunately had issues and in Dave's (Monza's) case received very little mention in this particular article. Perception I guess.

Why come to an event like this "untested"? I can only speak for myself here but my focus was really on the SEMA show and taking care of the people/companies who had helped me put the car together. I was honored to have been invited by optima to attend the Invitational and did everything that I could to make both events. From the limited time that I did have on the car (I think I put more miles on it in Vegas than I did before hauling it down) I knew that I had a transmission issue but decided that I would run it anyways; I came on a trailer and I was going to leave on a trailer... fortunately I did in one piece.

I think that people have to keep in mind that Pro-Touring is still (relatively) in it's infancy - especially when it comes to tracking our cars. If you look back to the first years of the Hot Rod Fastest Street Car Shootout's it was no different. They used to be like the Thunderdome - two went in, one came out - every pass had a winner and the guy who blew up. They have come a long way since then; we will too. I think that what you will see for the Second Annual event will be much different from what you saw in 2008, now that everybody knows what the event is like and what it will take to be competitive.

[Larry Callahan]

I'm ready for next year!

[Bill Howell]

I read the article today and guess I came away with a different take than some of you did. I thought it was pretty good coverage and at least Hot Rod did a story on the event. Who won and who broke, etc is only important the the few of us that know the players. As a regular reader of Hot Rod, the great news is they covered an event that we all have interest in. As the event grows the coverage will improve, but so will the cars.

Between this event, RTTHs and now this year the new Motor State Challenge at Gingerman, we are really starting to make a mark on the hobby. We can not expect to be giants the first year or two, but hey it will be fun to look back in about 5 years and say I remember when......

Don't look at this as a negative, it isn't.

Go optima, go Hotrod and GO PROTOURING!

For the rest of you, quit your bitching, finish your cars and attend an event this year, there will be magazine coverage at all of them and who knows, you may just get noticed if you will just attend....

[mazspeed]

It didn't seem to me like the hot rod article was complementry to Steve or the entire event. It seems if another magazine should be doing this event with more enthusiasm. I do want to ask Steve why you were able to use those tires? Where you on 100 tw tires? I thought the event was limited to 180 tw? I may be wrong, not sure.