The Spectre team is well known for automotive adventures, whether blasting across the salt flats, hosting a hill climb, designing a cold air intake for a world-famous art car or tearing apart a brand-new Cadillac CTS-V Wagon.
Yes, you read that correctly. Amir’s latest personal challenge is to put his brand-new Caddy on a strict weight-loss regime. Like any good dieter, Amir will keep careful notes about each lost pound and you can follow the exclusive on Bangshift.com.
We have just over one month before the second annual running of the Spectre 341 Challenge. We’ve posted here before about how the best thing about the event is not the ghost town feel of Virginia City’s wild west setting, nor even the 5.2 miles of thrilling, twisting road, but rather the people who participate.
One of the very first people to sign up for the inaugural race last year was Car Craft Magazine editor, Jeff Smith. Now, Jeff spends every day talking about cars, test driving cars, working on cars and writing about cars, so we wouldn’t blame him if he got a bit blasé, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Jeff showed up with his famed blue 1965 Chevelle in 2010 and cheerfully tackled the hill, enthusiastically bench racing with other participants and even swapping in a new alternator mid race in order to make another run.
Jeff is a great story teller, so we’ll let him take over and tell you what it’s like to run Hwy 341 and why everyone should have four or more Chevelles.
What do you do (day job)?
I am the Senior Technical Editor for Car Craft Magazine
Have you always liked cars, or did you get in to cars because of a friend or family member?
I have been into cars about as long as I can remember. When I was ten years old, I started hanging out at my grandfather’s Skelly gas station in Boone, Iowa and he put me to work pumping gas. That was the real start of my love with cars. I graduated high school in 1972 right at the end of the muscle car era so I was around them all the time. It was a great time to be a kid – just young enough to miss Vietnam and just old enough to really enjoy all those muscle cars. My first car was a ‘66 GTO with a 389 and 4-speed, but my favorite car that I still own is my ‘66 SS396 Chevelle 360hp car that is slowly being restored — with an emphasis on slowly…
What’s your dream car?
That’s really a moving target, but strangely I’d really like to own an early CTS-V Cadillac! I never thought I’d hear myself say that, but that car really does something for me. And there’s room for all my big friends, which is a plus.
How long have you had the Chevelle?
I traded a V6-powererd Vega for my ’65 Chevelle somewhere around the early ’90s. It has competed in or participated in an amazing list of different events and competitions. I’ve bracket raced it, it has done the Power Tour twice in the early days (when I was with Hot Rod), I’ve raced it twice in the Pony Express 100 (hitting a top speed of 167+mph), it competed in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational in 2010, two of the west coast Pro Touring Run to the Coast events, and an uncounted number of cruises and car shows. I also want to run it in the Muroc Mile standing mile event sometime. I think it will do 140+ mph if I work on the aero a little. It’s kind of a brick. But when you say “the Chevelle” we have to be specific as to the ’65, because I have three other ’66 Chevelles plus a ’65 El Camino. It’s a sickness for which there is no cure.
What are some of the modifications from stock?
The short version is an absolutely ancient Lingenfelter-built 420ci small-block Chevy with a Accel Gen VII EFI system, AFR heads, a Bow Tie block, and a Crower rotating assembly. It only has a Richmond 4-speed behind it along with a 3.31:1 geared 12-bolt. The biggest change, and what we continue to work on is the suspension. It’s a rolling billboard for Global West Suspension with a complete tubular upper and lower control arms and a coil-over front conversion. The rear also has a Global coil-over shock conversion using a set of verrry nice set of Penske double-adjustable shocks on all four corners that have really made a huge difference in the handling. Tires are BFG 27535R18 KDWs mounted on 18 x 9.5-inch wheels with six inches of back spacing. Most Chevelle guys don’t believe you can get that much tire under a stock wheelwell but you can if you pay attention to the backspacing.
What was the first competitive driving you ever did?
It was a class race after I graduated from my first driving school at the Jim Russell British School of Motor Racing at Riverside around 1980! We were driving Van Diemen Formula Fords with Cortina four-cylinder engines and a Hewland gearbox that was really hard to shift correctly. It was way too much fun and cemented my feeling that turning corners was more challenging than going straight on the drag strip.
What other racing events do you participate in?
Pony Express 100 in the 140 and 150 mph classes in two different years with my Chevelle. I’m most proud of the fact that I finished both of those races. It’s a lot harder than you think. I also rode shotgun with John Lingenfelter in 1990 at the Silver State Classic where we went 206 mph in his red ‘86 Corvette. That was cool.
I also participated in something called the Triathlon of Motor Sports in Las Vegas – two passes on a drag strip, two laps on a 3/8-mile paved oval, and four laps on a 1.6mile road course that has since been replaced by the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. That was a fun event – I was competing in the A-Production class against Corvettes and finished second in two events to a Lingenfelter ‘Vette. I’ve also done a bunch of track days at Willow Springs, Buttonwillow and Fontana. I also raced with a buddy Dan Livezey with a Street Prepared 5 Camaro in Pro Solo where we did well.
How does competitive driving differ from street driving?
Mainly you can concentrate on your line and not worry about cross traffic or what some idiot in the next lane is going to do, or not do. You just cannot let it all out on the street – it’s just too dangerous. That’s why I do so many track days since I use them to tune my car.
How does driving a muscle car differ from competing in a new car?
New cars are great, but they lack personality. Racing with an older muscle car adds personality, but also grief (which is the real cost of owning these cars) since they break all the time and at the most inopportune moment (usually when the most people are watching). This is what happened to me at last year’s 341 race with a dead alternator. Subsequent electrical problems sidelined me at later events until I finally put a whole new wiring harness in the car. Can you imagine? A 36 year-old wire harness that failed! New cars present far less grief unless you start modifying them – then they’re just like older cars, just more expensive.
How did you find out about the 341 Challenge?
I’ve spent too much time around Amir lately and his boundless enthusiasm easily rubs on me. If I’m not careful, I’ll be volunteering to help run the streamliner car and getting sucked into that deal. It would be very easy…
(Ed. Note: Done, you’re on the team, Jeff….)
What did you think about the event last year?
I didn’t come adequately prepared for as many laps as we ended up running. The main thing was I forgot that we were at 7,000 feet. I probably didn’t need nearly as much octane as I thought to run my normally aspirated engine. I need more experience with tuning my engine for altitude to know how much octane I can get away with.
Why do you want to return to 341 this year?
It’s like any other competitive event, I want to improve on last year’s lap time.
Do you have any recommendations for the newbies this year?
Have fun and don’t be intimidated by the mountain.
Is there anything else you’d like to share about yourself, your car, or racing in general?
If I start, we’ll be at this for hours….
We never know where we’re going to meet a Spectre customer. At the recent Car Craft Magazine Anti-Tour, we spotted a stealthy little Dodge parked in the shade. A peek under the hood showed off a custom intake using Spectre components.
Dodge only offered the Demon for three years, and 1972 was the very last opportunity for a customer to pick up the sporty A-body. We spoke with Marc from Viau Motorsports about the car.
“The build for this car was guided by two main ideas,” Marc told us. “The first was for a road race inspired car to be used in ’spirited driving’ on-road tours, with reliability, ease of maintenance, and self support as key factors in design. The second was to use as many Mopar family parts as possible in the design and construction. This Demon was designed for the road.”
1972 Dodge Demon Specs:
We haven’t been the only people to be impressed by the Viau build. The Demon was last year’s winner of the Mopar Muscle Magazine True Street Challenge.
Nice work guys!
