by Eric Rihlmann

I've been into cars and drag racing my whole life. My dad is a mechanic by trade and initially sparked my interest into cars. I was reading Hot Rod and Car Craft magazines on regular basis at an early age.

The first car I ever wanted was a '66 - '67 Nova. When I was around 12-13 years old I was constantly searching in the classified ads for such a car. Although, after coming across a '70 SS Nova with no motor or trans for too good of deal to pass up my Dad and I picked that up as a project car. By the time I got my license I had itall together and ended up driving that car everyday for about 2 months. Driving that car everyday grew old very quickly. I had my eyes set on a Notchback Mustang. My older brother and cousins both had several fox-body Mustangs throughout the years including a few Notchbacks and a '93 Cobra. My cousin used to always take me out for rides in his Mustangs and prior to that old Chevy's. That's where I first experienced being in a car with full throttle powershifts. After being in those cars I was hooked on Late Model Mustangs. I knew with minor bolt-ons these cars would out perform most muscle cars from the old days and would do this with everyday drivability. In the mid 90's my cousins '93 Cobra was running 12.5's with just the typical exhaust, gears, & slicks.

So after I sold the Nova the search was on for a Notchback Mustang. After about two months of searching I picked up a red '92 Notchback with rare black interior. The car already had full exhaust, 3.73's, and a Pro 5.0 shifter. This was the first stick car I ever drove and from the first moment I let out the clutch I was hooked. The first weekend that came up I took it to Englishtown Raceway Park. On my first two passes I only ran disappointing low 15's missing gears on both passes. I guess third time is the charm because on my third pass I hit every gear with the gas pedal to the floor and was rewarded with a 13.96 @ 98mph 2.05 60ft on street radials. I was amazed when I picked up my time slip; I thought it was a misprint or something. My original goal for the day was just to run mid 14's. Ok so without getting into too much detail about this car. I tried to make it run 12.9 with the stock engine, but ended up only running a best of 13.2 before I started doing more mods. I soon placed the car on eBay and got an offer that I couldn't refuse.

Once again I was on the hunt for another Mustang. This time I really wanted a clean all original Calypso Green or Reef Blue Notchback. After about 6 months of searching I came across my current '93 Reef Blue Notchback on eBay. The car had 77k on it and only had an x-pipe, cat-back, underdrives, and a mass air. The paint was all original, the undercarriage wasn't undercoated, and nothing appeared to be tampered with. In this trim with just the addition of Nitto drag radials on the stock ponys the car ran a best of 13.7 @ 99mph. A lot of my friends called foul and thought the car had to have cam or some porting done to the engine. From that point on I decided to try for the stock engine 12's thing all over again. I wanted to run the number with as minimal mods as possible. After doing a lot of research and applying everything I learned from my previous car I came up with a plan. The first additional to the car was a set of light weight Bogart wheels with a set of ET Street slicks. Just adding the wheels to the car dropped my ET's to a best of 13.43 @ 100mph 1.95 60ft. At this point I knew if I could pull a high 1.6 to low 1.7 60ft that I could reach a 12.9. I planned on running the car a lot and didn't want to risk breaking the rear so I went ahead and built up the rear with stronger axles, differential, and rearend girdle. While I had the rear out I figured I would also add rear control arms to help tune the suspension in. The first time out in this trim I went a new best of a 13.21 @ 101mph with only a 1.80 60ft. Going by the rule of thumb that 1 tenth reduction in the 60ft will drop 2 tenths in the ¼ made me realize I was almost there. About a week later I got in last minute on the East Coast Stang track rental at Atco New Jersey. On my first pass I ran a new best of 13.06 @ 102mph with a 1.7x 60ft. I immediately picked up a few bags of ice and let the car cool down for maximum performance. After a few more passes I ran my first 12 second pass, 12.99 (barely.) After a few more passes I was able to drop a few more hundredths with a new best of a 12.96 @ 103mph with a 1.69 60ft. I was excited to say the least.

During this year I added a few more mods which included shortie headers, strange 10 way adjustable struts & shocks, and a short-belt to bypass the power steering. I ran a new best of a 12.77 @ 105mph 1.67 60ft with these mods. Also this year its been in the works to have my car featured in 5.0 Mustang Magazine. After a few rained out photo shoots there is one more planned at the Superstallions.net Fall Nationals at Cecil County Raceway. As for future I'm not really surely what is in stored for the car, but I wouldn't mind having a new Cobra in its place.