April 2004
Pontiac Heaven, www.pontiacheaven.org and Speedworld www.SpeedworldMotorplex.com, which is located just north west of Phoenix, AZ, hosted an event the first weekend of April. Saturday was reserved for only Pontiac powered vehicles. Sunday was open to all musclecars (and trucks). I made it to the track for the Sunday event. There was a lot of impressive iron on the grounds. The two organizations did a great job serving up time trials on the 1/4 mile tarmac, a car show, car parade down the track (at a sane speed!) and finally race eliminations.
(click on the pictures for a larger view)
This is a Pontiac powered AA/FD. It's not some old chassis that was found in a barn, but a 2000 Stirling chassis with a 225" wheelbase. The motor is a 1959 389 Poncho block. It uses a Crower billet crank, C/A rods, Ross pistons, Crane Cam, highly modified Wenzler Super Chief heads all topped off with a Mooneyham supercharger. To date the car has only made partial passes, clicking off abbreviated 7.50's. They expect it to eventually get into the 6's. They plan on trying an aluminum block, retro blower and a set of rare Mickey Thompson cylinder heads. to get the car in the 5 second range!
Here's an old Pontiac A/FX car, altered wheelbase and injected!
Here's a former Chrysler A/FX car. This thing supposedly had a hemi in it, though I never did track it down in the pit. He was running a manual transmission and clicking off some very entertaining low 11 second times.
A 1937 Chevy coupe was reeling of some low ten second ET's.
I think this GeeTO Tiger was a replica built for the Pontiac and nostalgia shows. He ran an 11.01 @ 122 mph on the one run I saw.
This Poncho was sponsored by Network Tire & Alignment. It featured a blown Pontiac that apparently had connecting rod issues on Saturday and was relegated to the pits :(
I ran into a friend from the lake, Mike Ciraolo, who was running his 1966 Pontiac Grand Prix. Powered by a 389 with simple bolt-on's, the car was clicking off 13.5's during time trials. Not too bad given the immense size of this car! Mike had just started running with slicks and getting used to the differences. He was steadily knocking his 60' times down. So eliminations came and Mike figured he'd dial in a 13.50. The day was heating up and he figured he wasn't going to go much quicker. As it turns out, Mike and his competition broke out. Mike stopped the clocks with a 13.30 time. He was bummed that he didn't back off the throttle at the end, but happy that he picked up a couple of tenths. Keep dialing it in Mike, and you'll be in the 12's!
In the late 50's and early 60's, this was one of the fastest Top Fuelers in Arizona. The Steinegger & Eshenbaugh digger. The car was run until about 1965 when the owners decided to retire the operation due to the ever increasing cost. Most racers were switching over to the new 426 hemi motor and the team figured they couldn't stay competitive with their 392. The cars was found in a shambles and bought for the whopping price of $40! It was fully restored and than returned to the original owner.
