December 2006 Featured Ride:

Congratulations: Mike88

" Well you can kind of say i was born to be a drag racer and car nut. my father and uncle always had fast cars and they drag raced quite often when i was younger. i spent alot of time watching and helping them at the dragstrips learning the ropes of the sport. i started out, believe it or not, as a mopar guy. my dad always liked chevys so i wanted to be a little different so i picked up a 1969 dodge dart at the age of 14. i built it up pretty good and finished it by the time i got my license to drive. it was a great first car to learn to race with. i drove it through out my senior year of high school. then i got bored with the old muscle car scene and picked up, yet another mopar, a 1987 shelby GLHS. it was a limited edition shelby charger, #597 of 1000 built and signed by the man himself (carroll shelby). it had a turbo an intercooled 2.2 4cyl motor in it. it was a fast little car that i won a few awards and race trophies with on the old NMCA circuit in the EFI class. but once again i got bored, this time with the FWD 4cyl scene. actually i was the only one at the time rockin a turbo 4cyl. everyone had vettes, grand nats, camaros, and of course mustangs. i felt the urge to get back into a RWD V8 car again.
in the mid 90's i officially became a true ford guy when i went for a ride at the local cruise spot in my cousins 1989 mustang gt. the sound and torque the 5.0 was belting out made me realize what i have always wanted in a car all along. in 1995 i bought my first stang. it was a black 1988 LX 5-speed. i did heads, cam, intake, gears, exhaust, all the normal stuff everybody was doing to these cars at the time. it was a fast and fun car, but it was never setup the way i wanted it. i raced it nonstop at all the local drag strips, but never got the timeslips i wanted either. 4 years later in 1999 i sold the black LX and picked up my current midnight blue 1988 GT. it was bone stock and untouched just the way i wanted it. it felt weird getting back into a stock 5.0, but when it ran some incredible 1/4 mile times the way it sat, i knew i had a freak on my hands. i ended up doing alot of research on just how fast a stock motored 5.0 can go. i read alot about the pioneers of the stock mustang drag racing world, like Al Renkel, Ed Hohenberg, Bob Cosby, and Lee Rutter. these guys were absolutly flying with stock motors. i wanted to do the same, so i followed all their tips and tricks and ended up running my goal of 12.90 at one of our svtsnake track rentals. it was a huge achievment that not many people can say they did. i had the bug to go faster, so i thought about going the route of the masses and break down and get an aftermarket H/C/I setup but i just could not bring myself to do it. so i researched again and found out that the 97-00 ford explorers were equiped with GT-40P heads and an intake manifold almost exactly like the 93 cobra's. i knew if i could find a low milage explorer motor in a junkyard that this would be the ticket for me. well i ended up finding one with 46,000 miles on it and did the swap. i yanked out the horrible suv torque cam and put in my 1988 cam in it. it felt really strong on the street so i knew it was gonna fly at the track. i brought the car to atco raceway and it did better then i hoped for. i ran 12.48 at 107+. best mph was 108 so i know there is more ET in it. i'm proud to say i'm still running a stock ford 5.0 and loving it. who says you need aftermarket parts to go fast!!!
i would like to thank my dad who always helps out at the track when i go racing. my wife diane who puts up with my nonstop yapping about my car and racing hobby. of course the whole crew at mustang magic. i have been a customer of theirs since they opened the doors at there deer park shop a decade ago. stevie and joey at mustang magic have been my good friends since highschool. they have always help me out whenever i needed help. i would also like to thank SVTsnake for choosing me to be featured ride of the month. this is a true honor to me and my stang. this is such a great website to be a part of. i have made some good friends here and i hope it stays strong for years to come. see you all soon at the track!!! "