Neither Mike nor the Daytona are strangers to competition or road courses either. Prior to the OUSCI, they’ve competed in the Bullrun Rally and The Fireball Run, raced at Grattan Raceway, Monticello Raceway, Pocono Raceway, and New Jersey Motorsports Park. Occasionally he even gets a little heavy footed on areas of wide-open road too. His worst ticket? Coming out of Canada at 121 mph. “They were not happy with me,” Mike says with a laugh. “They wanted to impound the car but they didn’t have a flatbed long enough to transport it!”
The heavy foot won’t get Mike in trouble on his next planned adventure; in 2012, he plans to be the first Dodge Daytona ever to run the famed Nurburgring and Autobahn when he ships it over to Germany. With the Daytona’s slippery 0.28 coefficient of drag (Cd) and planned swap to some new 6.1L Hemi power, it should be able to slice through the air with ease.
| OUSCI Results |
| Detroit Speed & Engineering Road Rally: |
completed |
| RideTech Autocross: |
44th |
| BFGoodrich Hot Lap Challenge: |
35th |
| Wilwood Speed-Stop Challenge: |
39th |
| Raybestos Performance & Design Challenge: |
32nd |
| Driver: |
Mike Musto (owner and builder) |
Mike Musto; Pleasant Hill, CA
Oiling: Hemi pan with ½-inch pickup, Melling HV oil pump, Accusump with 3-quart accumulator
Rotating assembly: RB steel crank, Eagle H-beam rods, 10.7:1 Ross pistons
Cylinder heads: Edelbrock, 84cc chamber
Camshaft: Hughes cam with Lunati lifters
Valvetrain: Harland-Sharp rockers, 1.5 ratio
Induction: Holley Street Dominator with 850 double-pumper carb
Exhaust: TTI headers with Dynomax Super Turbo Dual 3-inch pipes and X-pipe
Fuel system: Mopar Performance pump
Ignition: MSD Pro-Billet distributor and 6AL ignition
Cooling: Milodon water pump, U.S. Radiator with twin 12-inch SPAL fans
Transmission: Tremec TKO600 five-speed
Rearend: stock rear with Eaton Detroit Truetrac and 3.55 gears
Front suspension: 1.22-inch torsion bars, Edelbrock Performer IAS shocks, Firm Feel 1¼-inch antiroll bar, Firm Feel tubular upper control arms
Rear suspension: Mopar Performance leaf springs, Edelbrock Performer IAS shocks, Hellwig 1⅛-inch antiroll bar
Brakes: ’08 Challenger SRT8 14-inch rotors with ’08 Viper calipers, front; 13-inch Challenger SRT8 rotors with PBR ’98 Mustang calipers, rear; Hydroboost hydraulic brake assist
Wheels: 18x9 and 18x10 Mr. Angry “Angrier”
Tires: 265/40R18 and 285/40R18 Continental Extreme Performance
Unlike the numerous “R” designations that have popped up on lesser cars over the past few years, the Raybestos GTO-R actually earns that now seemingly universal designation for “race prepped.”
Designed and built by Hot Rod Chassis & Cycle (HRCC) as a giveaway car for Raybestos, you’d expect that this ’64 GTO was little more than looks and graphics—but that’s just not how Raybestos’ Josh Russell and HRCC’s Kevin Tully build cars. Russell decreed that this needed to be one that not only talked the talk, but fully walked the walk. He wanted something that harkened back to Raybestos road racing days as well as nodded toward their heavy involvement in NASCAR right up to the current cars—maybe with a little bit of Herb Adams Gray Ghost thrown in.
Tully was more than onboard with that concept. While HRCC might be best known for their traditional hot rods, they’ve also always built race cars. Matter of fact, the ’63 Plymouth Savoy Super Stock that HRCC built won the title of World’s Fastest Nostalgia Super Stock at the Nitto tires NMCA/NMRA World Series. Of course, Tully had never tried his hand at building a road race car. He had reservations though: “It’s science and math, not black magic,” Tully told us. “Technology is technology; you just have to understand it.”