No Trailer Needed—How To Run Low 10s And Drive It NMCA/NMRA Events
By Kevin McKenna
Sometimes you set out to prove a point and things either go surprisingly well, or you fail spectacularly and have to pick up the pieces and move on. Fortunately, this is one of those stories that has a happy ending (so far).
The mission, undertaken roughly six years ago, was to build a competitive car for the NMRA Series, specifically the FSC Ford Muscle and HP Tuners Super Stang index classes. We wanted a car that not only ran in the 10-second zone, but had to be reliable with a minimal amount of required maintenance, and most importantly, could win races. And as the title of the story suggests, we had no intension of ever owning a trailer to haul the car.
Seems easy enough, right? Naturally, there is a catch. Since there was a fairly strict budget for this build, and no room at home to store a truck or a trailer, this car had to be 100-percent street legal. That requirement significantly increased the degree of difficulty since we were looking for 10s, and also to drive it several thousand miles from event to event. It was also needed to accomplish all this without stranding its owner by the side of the highway. A bit too much to ask? Apparently not, as we’ve learned.
The starting point was a common 2014 5.0L Mustang GT that ran in the high 12s in bonestock condition. Now obviously, there’s nothing wrong with racing the car as it came from the showroom and there are plenty of NMRA and NMCA racers who do just that in a variety of classes including the hugely popular Torquestorm True Street division.
But we wanted more performance; actually, quite a bit more so we elected to install a supercharger from VMP Performance. When it came to power adders, we pondered several options, but the TVS-style supercharger seemed to check all the boxes in terms of performance, reliability, consistency and cost, both short and long-term.
The folks at VMP promised to turn a 12-second car into a 10-second car and they delivered with room to spare. In addition to the supercharger kit, the only other initial “mods” were a set of aftermarket JMS wheels and Mickey Thompson ET Street R radial tires. Everything else was stock (save for the billet oil pump gears) including the exhaust system and our first trip to the drag strip netted a best of 10.79 at over 128 mph.
We now had the performance we were looking for, but was it a competitive race car? It didn’t take long to find out as less than a week after the supercharger install, I was fortunate enough to win the Ford Muscle class at the NMRA Spring Break Shootout in Bradenton. Admittedly, there was a good bit of luck involved, but at the end of the day, we’d checked off a couple of important boxes.
First, we had a consistent 10-second street car and secondly, we had a car that could contend for race wins.
All of this took place in the Spring of 2018 and five years later our Mustang is still ticking with the consistency of a fine Swiss timepiece. In fact, one might argue that the car is better than ever.
The VMP Supercharger kit was the first on the fairly significant list of mods that were added either by desire or by necessity. It took about 50 runs to destroy the stock catalytic so we installed an X-pipe (which is still the only non-factory exhaust component). We also improved safety and reliability with a carbon fiber one-piece driveshaft from QA-1 Performance and driveshaft safety loop from Stiffler’s Performance. Later on we traded the stock axles for a set of Strange Engineering units along with an Eaton TruTrac to strengthen the rear end.
Running 10s with a fully street-legal car is never boring, but we ultimately wanted a bit more performance, so over the last five years we’ve added a torque converter from FTI, double-adjustable rear shocks from QA-1 and a rear suspension upgrade courtesy of BMR Suspension, which also includes its anti-roll bar. Other mods include a JMS Throttle Pedal controller and a trunk-mounted intercooler tank from Lethal Performance.
Today, we’ve got a Ford Mustang that has run a best of 10.07 at almost 136 mph so it’s on the verge of breaking into the 9-second zone! Simply adding 100-octane race gas and making a simple tune-up change thanks to HP Tuners should get us the magical slip. That prized 9-second time slip is on the top of the to-do list for 2023.
The on-track results have also been better than expected including a very surprising championship during the 2020 season to go with a total of four NMRA event wins, the most recent of which came last season in Martin, Mich.
We’ve also entered five drag-and-drive events and completed them all, racking up over 5,000 highway miles in the process. On race weekends, I carry a small jack and impact gun and swap tires when I get to the track. Otherwise, there isn’t much difference between the race and street set-up.
I often joke that this car has never been on a trailer and that’s the Gospel truth. Hopefully, that statement doesn’t come back to bite me at some point, but the reality is that since the original supercharger was installed in 2018, the car has made well over 300 quarter-mile runs, most of which have been in the 10s. It’s also got more than 50,000 miles on the odometer, with almost zero issues. We did have a throttle body go bad before the final round in Bradenton a couple of years ago, which cost me a possible race win, but otherwise it’s been rock solid and extremely reliable. It’s also worth noting that the car still has ice-cold AC, XM Satellite radio and it gets around 22 mpg on the highway as long as you exercise a bit of discipline with your right foot.
Are there days when I wish I had a trailer? Sure, it’s nice to have access to spare parts if you need them and some shade on hot summer days but as Clint Eastwood once famously said, “A man has got to know his limitations.” To that end, I’ll continue to drive to as many events as possible.
By Kevin McKenna
Sometimes you set out to prove a point and things either go surprisingly well, or you fail spectacularly and have to pick up the pieces and move on. Fortunately, this is one of those stories that has a happy ending (so far).
The mission, undertaken roughly six years ago, was to build a competitive car for the NMRA Series, specifically the FSC Ford Muscle and HP Tuners Super Stang index classes. We wanted a car that not only ran in the 10-second zone, but had to be reliable with a minimal amount of required maintenance, and most importantly, could win races. And as the title of the story suggests, we had no intension of ever owning a trailer to haul the car.
Seems easy enough, right? Naturally, there is a catch. Since there was a fairly strict budget for this build, and no room at home to store a truck or a trailer, this car had to be 100-percent street legal. That requirement significantly increased the degree of difficulty since we were looking for 10s, and also to drive it several thousand miles from event to event. It was also needed to accomplish all this without stranding its owner by the side of the highway. A bit too much to ask? Apparently not, as we’ve learned.
The starting point was a common 2014 5.0L Mustang GT that ran in the high 12s in bonestock condition. Now obviously, there’s nothing wrong with racing the car as it came from the showroom and there are plenty of NMRA and NMCA racers who do just that in a variety of classes including the hugely popular Torquestorm True Street division.
But we wanted more performance; actually, quite a bit more so we elected to install a supercharger from VMP Performance. When it came to power adders, we pondered several options, but the TVS-style supercharger seemed to check all the boxes in terms of performance, reliability, consistency and cost, both short and long-term.
The folks at VMP promised to turn a 12-second car into a 10-second car and they delivered with room to spare. In addition to the supercharger kit, the only other initial “mods” were a set of aftermarket JMS wheels and Mickey Thompson ET Street R radial tires. Everything else was stock (save for the billet oil pump gears) including the exhaust system and our first trip to the drag strip netted a best of 10.79 at over 128 mph.
We now had the performance we were looking for, but was it a competitive race car? It didn’t take long to find out as less than a week after the supercharger install, I was fortunate enough to win the Ford Muscle class at the NMRA Spring Break Shootout in Bradenton. Admittedly, there was a good bit of luck involved, but at the end of the day, we’d checked off a couple of important boxes.
First, we had a consistent 10-second street car and secondly, we had a car that could contend for race wins.
All of this took place in the Spring of 2018 and five years later our Mustang is still ticking with the consistency of a fine Swiss timepiece. In fact, one might argue that the car is better than ever.
The VMP Supercharger kit was the first on the fairly significant list of mods that were added either by desire or by necessity. It took about 50 runs to destroy the stock catalytic so we installed an X-pipe (which is still the only non-factory exhaust component). We also improved safety and reliability with a carbon fiber one-piece driveshaft from QA-1 Performance and driveshaft safety loop from Stiffler’s Performance. Later on we traded the stock axles for a set of Strange Engineering units along with an Eaton TruTrac to strengthen the rear end.
Running 10s with a fully street-legal car is never boring, but we ultimately wanted a bit more performance, so over the last five years we’ve added a torque converter from FTI, double-adjustable rear shocks from QA-1 and a rear suspension upgrade courtesy of BMR Suspension, which also includes its anti-roll bar. Other mods include a JMS Throttle Pedal controller and a trunk-mounted intercooler tank from Lethal Performance.
Today, we’ve got a Ford Mustang that has run a best of 10.07 at almost 136 mph so it’s on the verge of breaking into the 9-second zone! Simply adding 100-octane race gas and making a simple tune-up change thanks to HP Tuners should get us the magical slip. That prized 9-second time slip is on the top of the to-do list for 2023.
The on-track results have also been better than expected including a very surprising championship during the 2020 season to go with a total of four NMRA event wins, the most recent of which came last season in Martin, Mich.
We’ve also entered five drag-and-drive events and completed them all, racking up over 5,000 highway miles in the process. On race weekends, I carry a small jack and impact gun and swap tires when I get to the track. Otherwise, there isn’t much difference between the race and street set-up.
I often joke that this car has never been on a trailer and that’s the Gospel truth. Hopefully, that statement doesn’t come back to bite me at some point, but the reality is that since the original supercharger was installed in 2018, the car has made well over 300 quarter-mile runs, most of which have been in the 10s. It’s also got more than 50,000 miles on the odometer, with almost zero issues. We did have a throttle body go bad before the final round in Bradenton a couple of years ago, which cost me a possible race win, but otherwise it’s been rock solid and extremely reliable. It’s also worth noting that the car still has ice-cold AC, XM Satellite radio and it gets around 22 mpg on the highway as long as you exercise a bit of discipline with your right foot.
Are there days when I wish I had a trailer? Sure, it’s nice to have access to spare parts if you need them and some shade on hot summer days but as Clint Eastwood once famously said, “A man has got to know his limitations.” To that end, I’ll continue to drive to as many events as possible.
