Shane Stymiest
The newest heads-up class in drag racing is starting to pick up momentum with new racers and increased performances. It has spawned a new rivalry as well as Justin Burcham and HiPo Joe Charles have made that publicly known. There is also a new name in the game, Shane Stymiest, and he turned to one of the best in the heads-up racing realm—Charlie Booze Jr. of Booze Brothers Racing. The class went from two racers in Florida to four by Maryland and from what we are hearing a few more engines were just sold and there could be a field of 8 by Bowling Green.
Up until this point a Tremec TKO-600 backed the quickest and fastest car, belonging to HiPo Joe, but that is about to change thanks to the delivery of a new Performance Automatic C4 transmission and a few different torque converters. We certainly applaud HiPo Joe and MV Performance to test a different combination to remain in front of the competition despite being nearly 2-tenths ahead of the closest competitor. That is what happens when the engine under the hood is sealed and the tuning locked—you turn to the drivetrain to find an advantage.
Stymiest on the other hand stepped up his game after MIR simply because the car was literally finished the morning of qualifying. Once the event was over the car went back to Booze Brothers Racing where Charlie installed a new UPR rear suspension setup and consulted with Marty Chance at Neil Chance Torque Converters. A new converter was ordered and Booze reset the chassis. The quick results came a weekend after the MIR event had concluded during a test session at Mason-Dixon Dragway. Stymiest ran an impressive 10.94 at 120 mph on just the 7th pass on the combination. It puts him first in the 10s with the automatic combo as the car features a Performance Automatic C4 transmission.
HiPo Joe Charles
