A former meteorologist with the United States Navy and junior ROTC instructor, Bob Cosby, raced to the 2004 Factory Stock championship in his black notchback Mustang. With a Coyote swap motivating the machine now, Cosby leaves wheels up and rows the gears, and is competing in Ford Muscle this weekend.
Edelbrock Renegade racer Eric Bardekoff came into the weekend hoping to get his Whipple-supercharged S550 Mustang into the 4.50s, and he did just that, posting a 4.57 in the first round of qualifying to take the top spot. Now, he's fighting traction issues after spinning in the following two qualifiers, dropped to number two on the sheet, and is looking for the cause of the issue.
Just like the engines in factory 2018-and-newer Mustangs, the Coyote engine in John Urist's VP Racing Madditives Street Outlaw Mustang runs a dual-fuel system. With tuner and direct-injection wizard, Uwe Ostmann of Xtreme-Di collaborating on this program, the Hellion Turbo team recently added a fifth fuel rail to the system, which acts as an accumulator to ensure more balanced pressure is fed to the four fuel rails supplying sets of 2500cc direct and 1700cc port injectors from Xtreme-Di with a 60/40 balance of fuel running at 2,500 psi. Urist and Ostmann made a deal that if they won in Bradenton, they would make a run at securing a 10th NMRA championship for the Fireball, so look for this high-tech stallion throughout the season.
It's rare to see one of these cars out and about, but this one is definitely pretty special. Robert Young of Charlotte, North Carolina, brought his 2020 Shelby GT350R out to the 13th Annual Scoggin Dickey Parts Center NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals Presented by MAHLE Motorsport with his friends from the Unstabled Mates Mustang Club, the host club for this weekend's UPR Products car show. Sporting a tuned suspension, carbon fiber wheels, and more, this is one special Stang in the turns. Young loves the way it sounds and drives and says it always puts a smile on his face.
At 85 years young, John Russell is mixing it up in ARP Open Comp with his 1970 Ford Maverick. The car has six NHRA Wallys under its belt from its days as a six-cylinder car. These days it blasts down the track courtesy of a Bischoff-built, 424-cube small-block, a Rottler Powerglide, and a Ford 9-inch. Russell hadn't raced in two years, so he was still shaking the rust off his reaction time, hence his 23rd qualified spot after three rounds on the merits of a .054. The car is a runner, however, clocking as quickly as 9.22 at 126 mph this weekend at the 13th Annual Scoggin Dickey Parts Center NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals Presented by MAHLE Motorsport.
After making the jump to G-Force Racing Transmissions Coyote Stock, Dennis Harmon is having a blast driving his 1987 Mustang LX coupe, which he says is the most fun car he has ever raced. He says it brings him back to his early days driving fast street cars, and even building the Fox was a great time. He was fighting a bit of an engine stumble during qualifying, however, and hoped it was just a loose battery ground. Running a 10.15 to place in the 15th qualified spot after three rounds, means he has some ground to make up heading into eliminations.
A fresh face in the Richmond Gear Factory Stock ranks is Chris Niebauer and his 1985 Mustang GT. He bought this clean ride with the sleek paint job and Coyote already under the hood. The former street machine underwent a full race makeover at the hands of class stalwart Mike Bowen, who changed just about everything but the roll cage and the paint job, including adding a Holley Digital dash for datalogging, a PMAS mass air housing, and the necessary SFI bits. The really interesting facet of this Fox is that it also had a 6R80 automatic in the tunnel. The transmission remains in place, now controlled by a Quick 6 standalone transmission controller, and the team is still figuring out the auto for this class, so it should be interesting to keep an eye on this combo. Niebauer qualified sixth after three rounds with a 10.76 off the footbrake.
Thanks to Nitto Tire for their continued support of the NMRA and NMCA drag racing series and especially of the NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Street Legal Drag Racing event where winners receive coveted Nitto Tire Diamond Tree rings. Nitto's Ron Bergenholtz (left) and ProMedia president Steve Wolcott (right) have put together many great opportunities for the series racers over the years.
NMRA Exedy Racing Clutch Modular Muscle racer Adam Cox knows the importance of family and has his mother, Nevada, who is also a strong breast cancer survivor, joining him this weekend as well as for the rest of the season. Cox and his AEM-backed 99 Mustang were sitting in eleventh after Friday's three rounds of qualifying thanks to the driver's 0.029-second reaction time.
Waiting out the rain delay has given Martin Connelley and his team time to think over why they're having an unusually difficult weekend as the driver is sitting fourteenth in NMRA Edelbrock Renegade/NMCA Edelbrock Xtreme with a best effort of 4.761 at 146.05 mph. Connelley, who captured several championships in recent years with multiple cars, tried to streamline his program by focusing on just one car instead but the plan seems to have backfired. The guys have had his 93 Mustang's RPM Transmissions-built three-speed Turbo 400 out 11 times in just 23 laps trying to find where the trouble is so they can get back to square one, and they're getting closer each time. Connelley's running the same ProCharged 8.2 deck 363 ci engine from BES Racing Engines on gasoline with a Haltech Nexus R5 EFI system that was so successful for him in the past, so he knows the car can definitely be a frontrunner.
After making his NMRA JDM Engineering Limited Street debut at the season opener in Florida, Stacey Roby is in Atlanta looking to add laps to the 14 Mustang he purchased from fellow NMRA driver and multi-time champion, Mike Ciborowski. Roby had some trouble in testing as the car would go back to idle RPM during the first 60 of his hit. Rick Anderson and the guys from Holley spent most of the da Thursday and some of Friday morning making software updates to the EFI system and changing wiring, and Roby was able to make a full hit when qualifying began. His 8.546 at 158.87 mph run put him in fifth overall, and he's hoping to be able to sneak up on it and bump the number down further now that he's got good data to go on.