MSD True Street Challenge - Street Car Shootout

Mix 31 real street cars with Florida's infamous Spring Break, and you've got a recipe for

By Johnny Hunkins

The problem with so-called "Street Car Racing" is, well, they just ain't real street cars. Just because a magazine calls them street cars doesn't make them street cars, so they're fooling nobody but themselves. To right this wrong, we've partnered with the NMCA and MSD to co-sponsor the MSD True Street Challenge, which will make its way to seven cities this year.

Here's the deal: Drag your licensed street car to one of our seven events, drive it 30 miles with us watching, then launch it down the quarter-mile three times back-to-back. There's no waiting to be invited by some all-mighty editor, there's no qualifying, there's no eliminations, there's no head-to-head competition, just you against the ET clock. Your three runs are averaged, and then scored according to ET from quickest to slowest.

To keep out the race car pretenders, the rules are simple, yet stringent. All cars have to be street legit, i.e. licensed, registered, insured and inspected. And we check all of this. Twice. You can have any powertrain you want, but the max tire size is 10.5 inches. Back-half cars are OK, but most opt for bolt-in stock-location suspension items. From the start of the 30-mile drive to the end of the three runs, a closed-hood, no-tuning policy is strictly enforced. If you "pop," you loose. And those are the rules.

Our season-opener in Bradenton, Fla., was a doozy. For starters, it's right smack dab in the middle of Spring Break. After the long winter, it's hot--and so are the girls. Mix 31 competitors, a major dose of East Coast cabin fever, great Florida weather, hot girls on Spring Break, lots of testosterone, and a few hundred gallons of high-octane race gas, and, well, you can guess the rest.With few exceptions, the field included well-traveled street pieces. One of those exceptions was the winner, Rodney Meyers of Pinellas Park, Fla., Rodney won with a 9.575-second average with help from a seriously stout '67 Chevelle packing a 540-cid big-block Chevy with a 175hp hit of nitrous. Power goes through a turbo 400 and a scienced-out back-half suspension. Yeah, it's got a 'chute and some other suspiciously non-street-looking stuff on it, but Rodney pulled off the 30-mile drive and three back-to-backs without tuning or any help from a crew. Congrats to Rodney, who won $250 and an MSD True Street letterman jacket. We're guessing that most racers would prefer not to risk trashing a nice race car like this for $250--which wouldn't even cover the cost of replacing a holed piston from a nitrous lean-out.

Finishing behind Rodney were what we would call pure street cars, and you'd recognize them as such at any traffic light on Main Street, USA. Take Charlie Nagy's '87 Mustang GT, for instance, it yanks down 10s with ease using a 331-cid small-block Windsor, a D-1 Procharger and a C4 trans. Then there's David Povio's '87 Buick Turbo-T, which looks like a grandma car. David says he tried to keep it out of the 10s 'cause it doesn't have a rollbar, but he let a few 10.40s rip in time trials just to let us know the deal.

And then there's our Editor's Choice Award, which we give to the car we would most want to own and drive every day. There was absolutely no question in anybody's mind that this belonged to Trev Jordan and his '77 Trans Am. Trev's T/A is the ultimate true street bruiser, with a 511-cid, 532hp Pontiac mill, which cranks through a TKO-600 five-speed and a 9-inch rear with 3.50 gears. Trev did all the work himself, including the trans install and the rack-and-pinion steering conversion. This thing is set up to corner and stop too, making it an all-around performer. Trev admitted he'd never drag raced the car before, and didn't want to get in trouble with officials. With that in mind, he ran a 12.92 best, getting off the throttle at the 900-foot mark. (You can check out Trev's Poncho on page 32 to get the gory details.)

Regular guys also came out on top, with $100 prizes awarded to runner-up, 10-, 11-, 12-, 13-, 14-, and 15-second index winners. These are folks whose three-run average came closest to (without going over) those respective ET breaks. MSD also awarded a new set of spark plug wires to each of these competitors. All True Street cars were also invited to participate, without additional charge, in the open bracket race the following Sunday.

By the time you read this, we should be preparing for the MSD True Street Challenge at National Trail Raceway in Columbus, Ohio, which happens Saturday, June 3. If you're not big into drag racing, but want to see what you're street car will do on the track, this is the place to show us. Remember, it's not about beating the other guy, cutting a good light, or dialing in--it's just you against the ET clocks with our cameras locked and loaded. Come out and show us whatcha got. To check out the MSD True Street rules and schedule up close, visit the NMCA at www.nmcadigital.com.