At Spectre, we’re very lucky to have such an amazing team and enough good friends that we’re able to cover multiple shows across the country at the same time. While the HRPT rig and cars have been traversing the South, the amazing Morrow Family has been running cones in Colorado ( then running cross country ) in the Carbon Camaro.
Brandy is working on a detailed recap of the Good Guys show in between gas stops as the Morrows head our way to meet us on Power Tour, but we just couldn’t wait to brag. Brandy fans, send our girl some congratulations because she drove that black 2nd Gen like she stole it and picked up her first win of 2011! Nice work, Brandy!
There’s no time for reveling in the glory though, the Morrows are racing against time now to get from Colorado to meet up with the rest of us in Nashville (and maybe get a few more autocross runs in?)
Over the roar of the engine Brandy told us about their progress, “Though we’ve had a couple slight hiccups with the fuel pump again which we have had to let cool down, we are approx 100 miles away from St. Louis on I 70 east. We hope to make Nashville before midnight as long as the car cooperates.”
Drive safe, Mike, Lisa and Brandy. We’ll see you soon!
Everyone knows that Texas is bigger than life. We arrived in Ft. Worth with big expectations for the show. We set up on Thursday while fighting some Texas-sized windstorms. If it wasn’t for our friends over at the Hotchkis Sport Suspension who rushed over to help Brandy and Lisa with the awning, we might still be searching for them out in the Texas landscape.
Luckily, we got all set up without losing anyone and had a quick glance at the autocross, which was unlike the usual peanut shaped course. This course would be on average a high 30 second to one- minute course depending on the driver, but had a couple more turns including a quick 90 degree lefthander that came right after a fast speed right sweeper. Little did the competitors know that the quick 90 degree lefthander would ruin many a fast lap because of the speed they would be carrying into that turn after the big sweeper, but we didn’t have that fun until Friday.
We were greeted on Friday by some familiar, but unexpected, faces. Not only did Brian Finch and Albert bring their cars out (after attending the El Toro Run To The Coast Event only weeks before), but Rob Macgregor brought out his no limits truck and John Hotchkis and Rob Phillips came out with the ’69 Chevy C10 to run in Vendor class for team Hotchkis.
The booth traffic was light, so Brandy and Steve headed over to the autocross course where Jason from Gateway Mustangs, both DSE cars, and Rob Phillips’ C-10 were all parked and waiting to run. After some tire pressure and suspension adjustment, with help from John Hotchkis, Brandy was surprised to find herself right at the top, running neck and neck with the other vendors. By the end of the day, the Spectre Carbon Camaro was in the top three! Could Brandy keep it there? We’d find out on Saturday.
Saturday came quickly, probably because we were all so excited about Brandy’s excellent autocross performance. The morning went well and Brandy was in the running for 2nd place while back at the booth, Guy Smith was building custom intakes and answering tech questions.
On the last run of the day, fellow enthusiast, Brian Finch hopped in the car with Brandy and coached her through the run to claim 2nd place, an amazing finish against some really tough competitors!
With no autocross on Sunday, the Spectre team caught up with some of their favorite customers. There were tons of Spectre equipped cars in the crowd, from Carson Collvins ‘41 Chevy Ratrod to Ted Parrish in his ‘56 Safari . Spectre friends Ed & Sue Cullen with their ‘40 Ford DLX and Tim Chesney with his ‘65 Mustang Fastback brought their cars out just to park in the Spectre Booth for the whole weekend. They were very kind and definitely helped promote our product with their Spectre Intakes.
Guy finished up the installs, including one on Jerry Watson’s ‘69 Nova . We did an install in October on one of Jerry’s other cars and he was so impressed he came back with the Nova to get another Spectre Intake installed.
We’ll offer some more detailed looks at some of the customer cars in our “New Products” blog, so make sure you check that out!
Although the folks in the East might disagree, for us on the west coast, winter has flown by, and we couldn’t believe it when we realized it was time for the Good Guys Season opener in Scottsdale, AZ.
Scottsdale always brings some unique cars that we don’t see anywhere else. Some of our favorites this year were Volkswagens and included a custom VW Bug made to look like a toy car, and a group of VW buses that all park together every year. Is it 1968?
The weather for the show was perfect all weekend long, and Friday was busy, with hot rods, street rods, muscle cars and classics all lined outside the entrance eager to claim their spot before heading to the vendor midway and check out the autocross. It was great to see such a big car count at what is a relatively new show on the Good Guys circuit.
We were set up in our usual spot near the back of the vendor midway next to PPG, Baer Brakes and Peak. We had a very special booth car for our demo install, Tim Kelly’s ‘67 El 442. No, that’s not a typo, it really is an El Camino/442. Definitely a one of one set up! Needless to say, the El 442 saw a lot of attention.
We love all the Good Guys events, but Brandy especially likes the stops which involve autocross, and the Arizona show started the autocross bright and early on Friday morning. Spectre’s Carbon Camaro was one of three official vendor cars, but there were lots of good friends running Spectre parts in other classes.
Despite vendor “competition” we’ve actually found the autocross to be a great place to work closely with other manufacturers. In Scottsdale, John Hotchkis, head of pro-touring suspension company, Hotchkis Performance teamed up with Brandy to work out the suspension tuning on the black Camaro.
This isn’t to say there was no competitive feeling in the crowd, Brandy was pretty thrilled to be just 8/10 of a second behind Brett Voelkel in the Ride Tech entry for a second place finish!
On Saturday, Brandy gave rides to lots of show goers, including Nicole Shumate, whose father Bill was running one of the most unusual entries in the autocross!
Nicole and her dad are building a Camaro, and she was really interested in learning about autocross. Nicole hopes to have her car done by next year so she can come out and start running the autocross. We certainly support that, and can’t wait to see Nicole and her friends on the track.
Sunday came quick and it was time to pack up. Brandy helped hand out awards and then it was off to Fort Worth, Texas. Will it be a TEXAS sized show?
The last day of RTTC was everything California is famous for: warm, sunny and super fast!
Our morning started at the Speed Stop Challenge. If you are new to our blog, and unfamiliar with a Speed Stop, it’s basically a test of braking and car control. The driver accelerates from a dead stop and then hits the brakes with the goal of bringing the car to a halt within the coned-off box. The goal is to have the quickest time without flat-spotting tires or sliding through the stop zone.
Although the Spectre team had often helped out at Speed Stop challenges during other events, Brandy had never actually competed in one! It was a little confusing at first, but after the first couple of runs everyone was starting to get the hang of it.
Autocross followed the Speed Stop and everyone was grateful for Saturday’s practice . The weather was perfect, the ground was dry and the Carbon Camaro was just excellent.
The track portion ended up being the most fun part of the day. Brandy lined up right behind Camaro Performers’ Nick Licata, and was able to check out his racing line during the warm up.
We’ll let Brandy describe the experience:
“The first lap was warm-up as usual, but I started to gain more speed through the straight aways and developed a good line to follow through the turns. Second lap was feeling good, third was even better carrying more speed through the corners and then came the fourth lap…. Towards the back end of the course the car started to get lose in the back and drifted a little to the left. I tried to correct it, but couldn’t catch it in time and around the car went… yeah I know, I spun a car on rear 345 tires! Seriously though it was fantastic because it meant I was pushing it. Though I had spun, it was good to see that I was finding the limits of the car. Let’s just say I took the pink hat with pride that time!”
After Brandy’s adventure, Mike took the car out in the afternoon session. The car was looking great and handling really well. With a little bit of tweaking, this car should do great things this season.
The day came to an end too quickly. The top speed challenge was a great success and very competitive. Brian Finch, Kyle Tucker, Ryan Matthews and Steve Rupp were some of the top contestants in the Spectre top speed challenge, and the final top speeds surprised us at the end of the day. Kyle Tucker finished with a top speed of 97mph and Steve Rupp followed closely with 96 mph.
For those of you who want the numbers, overall results are below.
Overall Road Course
1. Ryan Matthews 1:02.8 (Sun)
2. Blake Foster 1:03.0 (Sun)
3. Brian Hobough 1:04.0 (Sat)
4. Kyle Tucker 1:04.9 (Sun)
5. Brian Finch 1:06.2 (Sun)
6. David Pozzi 1.07.0 (Sun)
7. Kyle Newman 1:07.0 (Sun)
8. Todd Akes 1:08.1 (Sun)
9. Mark Gearhart 1:08.2 (Sun)
10. Sal Solorzano 1:08.3 (Sun)
11. Rick Klein 1:08.6 (Sat)
12. David Gordon 1:08.8 (Sun)
13. Tom Foglesong 1.09.0 (Sat)
14. Carl Cassanova 1:09.3 (Sun)
15. Chris McCrae 1:09.4 (Sun)
16. Mary Pozzi 1:09.5 (Sun)
17. Bruce Cambern 1.09.7 (Sat)
18. Brett Campbell 1:09.7 (Sun)
19. Brandy Morrow 1:10.3 (Sun)
20. James Shipka 1:10.6 (Sun)
21. Nick Licata 1:12.0 (Sun)
22. Doug Renner 1:12.4 (Sun)
23. Gerald Lum 1:12.4 (Sun)
24. John Barkley 1:12.8 (Sun)
25. Tom Ciancitto 1:13.3 (Sun)
26. Jon Rasmussen 1:13.4 (Sat)
27. Rob McGregor 1:13.5 (Sun)
28. Jeff Manka 1:13.7 (Sun)
29. Steven Rupp 1:13.8 (Sat)
30. Cory Condit 1:13.8 (Sun)
31. Casey Aldridge 1:13.9 (Sun)
32. Henry De Los Santos 1:14.1 (Sun)
33. Rob Chandler 1:14.2 (Sun)
34. Brett Habegger 1:14.2 (Sun)
35. Deanna Marengo 1:14.3 (Sun)
36. Ron Wheeler 1:14.5 (Sun)
37. Karl Stuber 1:14.7 (Sat)
38. Rob Philips 1:14.7 (Sun)
39. Deacon Markey 1:15.3 (Sun)
40. Michael Provencher 1:15.4 (Sun)
41. Chris Robinson 1:15.7 (Sun)
42. Chad Ryker 1:15.8 (Sun)
43. Don Chemello 1:15.9 (Sun)
44. Matt Alcala 1:16.2 (Sun)
45. Mike Wright 1:16.5 (Sun)
46. Don Swertfeger 1:17.6 (Sat)
47. Jon Upton 1:19.5 (Sun)
48. Steven Martinez 1:19.7 (Sat)
49. Dan Weishaar 1:20.5 (Sat) (ran 1:24.7 in Mustang on Sunday)
50. Erich Monteith 11:20.6 (Sat)
51. Jack Fields 1:20.6 (Sat)
52. Valerie Pichette 1:21.1 (Sun)
53. Paul Setter 1:21.2 (Sat)
54. Matthew Briggs 1:21.5 (Sat)
55. Christian Melchior 1:21.5 (Sat)
56. Jay Reynolds 1:21.7 (Sat)
57. Rodney Prouty 1:22.1 (Sun)
58. Bruce Steward 1:22.3 (Sun)
59. Bill Fowler 1:22.5 (Sat)
60. James Fields 1:23.1 (Sat)
61. Larry Callahan 1:23.8 (Sat)
62. Evan Daly 1:24.4 (Sat)
63. Chris Gonzalez 1:24.5 (Sun)
64. Nicholas Ruffley 1:25.8 (Sat)
65. Joe Huerta 1:33.2 (Sun)
66. Cris Gonzalez 1:33.9 (Sat)
Overall Autocross Results from both days:
1. Brian Hobaugh 37.000
2. Kyle Tucker 37.206
3. Mary Pozzi 37.679
4. Ryan Matthews 38.139
5. Blake Foster 38.210
6. Brian Finch 38.215
7. David Pozzi 38.313
8. Bruce Cambern 38.423
9. Kyle Newman 38.778
10. David Gordon 38.834
11. Brett Campbell 39.108
12. Chris McCrea 39.159
13. Deanna Marengo 39.283
14. Sal Solorzano 39.299
15. Nick Licata 39.366
16. Carl Cassanova 39.546
17. Gerald Lum 39.631
18. Steven Rupp 39.811
19. Rob McGregor 39.892
20. Todd Akes 39.954
21. Rob Chandler 40.115
22. Steven Rupp 40.187
23. James Shipka 40.232
24. Mark Gearhart 40.282
25. Jon Rasmussen 40.303
26. Mike Morrow 40.538
27. Jay Reynolds 40.568
28. Larry Callahan 40.732
29. Henry De Los Santos 40.83
30. Brett Habegger 41.326
31. Cory Condit 41.498
32. Casey Aldridge 41.534
33. Steven Martinez 41.599
34. Doug Renner 41.636
35. John Barkley 41.748
36. Tom Foglesong 41.752
37. Matt Alcala 41.873
38. Sean Haggai 41.907
39. Evan Daly 42.035
40. Michael Provencher 42.138
41. Don Chemello 42.223
42. Jeff Smith 42.414 (also ran 41.647 +1)
43. Chris Robinson 42.377
44. Chad Ryker 42.583
45. Mike Wright 42.721
46. Rick Klein 42.792
47. Valerie Pichette 42.928
48. James Fields 43.164
49. Michael Cavanah 43.269
50. Matthew Briggs 43.391
51. Deacon Markey 43.542
52. Jeff Manka 43.565
53. Rob Phillips 43.575
54. Tom Ciancitto 43.626
55. Al Melchior 43.774
56. Karl Stuber 43.789
57. Erich Monteith 43.906
58. Bruce Steward 43.932
59. Jon Upton 44.010
60. Paul Setter 44.027
61. Valerie Pichette 44.309
62. Ron Wheeler 44.457
63. Rodney Prouty 44.571
64. Joe Huerta 44.688
65. Nicholas Ruffley 45.173
66. Don Swertfeger 45.749
67. Sam Ashteokenyan 45.765
68. Dan Weishaar 46.282
69. Bill Fowler 46.411
70. Tom Cronkright 46.707
71. Cris Gonzalez 49.534
72. Joe Huerta – no time?
73. Christian Melchior – no time?
74. Jack Fields – no time?
The Spectre crew was on the road early Saturday morning, heading towards Irvine for the first day of RTTC competition. Bill Howell had promised the event would go on rain or shine, but as we watched the windshield wipers on the truck window, we wondered how the forecasted heavy rain would affect the event.
El Toro is a former Marine Base and is still dotted with airplane hangers and “Keep Out” signs. Registration for RTTC was in an empty airplane hanger, and we parked the Spectre rig just outside.
While Mike and Steve set up the awning, Brandy filled up the gas can, then took the Carbon Camaro through tech. A funny thing happened on her way back in to the base, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
The Driver meeting started around 9am. The organizers divided everyone into three groups based on car number. The Camaro was part of the second group which was scheduled to hit the road course first.
The other two groups would go to the autocross and the brake stop challenge respectively, and switch stations throughout the weekend.
Bill warned everyone about the wet track, the restricted areas of the base and the dreaded “Pink Hat”, a bedazzled cowboy hat the color of Pepto Bismol, which would be the punishment for spinning out or other poor track behavior.
Sadly the pink hat already had found a home before the race even started and it was on the head of our very own Brandy Morrow. Apparently Brandy had taken out a cone on her way in from the fuel run and RTTC organizer Yancy Johns happened to see her do it…and well…rules are rules.
Brandy was a good sport about her new accessory, and she didn’t have to wear it long. The rain had stopped but the road course was very wet and cold and there were soon multiple competitors with muddy fenders vying for the sequined hat.
Steve and Mike had adjusted the Camaro to the track settings that Brandy liked best after the Willow Springs track test and sent her out on the track with a warning to watch out for puddles and not to push the car past her comfort point.
The Carbon Camaro set-up is quite different than the rest of the Spectre cars, especially the Mustang and the El Camino, which Brandy campaigned in 2010. The black Camaro not only has power steering, but also power brakes, something which takes a little getting used to.
There was enough time in the first session for three laps on the track and one cool down lap. Using the first lap as a warm-up, Brandy carefully worked her way through the puddles until she was nearly lapping the other car on the track!
After a quick break for lunch came the autocross section. Participants were meant to alternate with the Speed Stop Challenge, but there was a timer issue so they let everyone run on the autocross or the track for the remainder of the day. After running her three laps of autocross, Brandy handed the keys to Mike and so he could get in some track time as well.
Late that afternoon, Spectre customer, Brian Finch, let Yancy Johns drive his silver second gen Camaro. Yancy took out the huge orange water barrel at the hairpin turn on the very first lap! Luckily the car and Yancy were unharmed, but during the closing meeting Brandy gleefully presented the pink hat to Yancy. Revenge was sweet indeed.
As the sun went down, we packed up and grabbed some dinner with a few of the other drivers before heading home to prepare for more racing on Sunday.
If all the “pro-touring” events on the calendar this year are half as fun as Run to the Coast, we’re in for a great year.
Organized by Bill Howell and Yancy Johns, Run to the Coast is a three day event in Southern California which involves street driving, autocross, speedstop challenge and roadcourse and we participated in the Carbon Camaro along with more than 50 other vintage and modern muscle cars.
Run to the Coast actually kicked off early for Spectre when Mike Norris arrived at our shop on Thursday to tune Camaro Performers’ editors, Nick Licata and Steve Rupp’s “Black Betty” and “Bad Penny” Camaros.
We also worked on Bad Penny’s Intake, getting rid of the extremely heavy piping in the car and using our aluminum tubing to create a much lighter, true cold air intake.
We sent the magazine guys out in time to join the rest of the RTTC participants for the two hour cruise to the coast, through the mountains, past Lake Elsinore and back to the Spectre shop for snacks and dyno time.
Many participants stopped along the way to Lake Elsinore for pictures of their car and the lake at the view point station on Ortega Highway (highway 74) but we still had participants rolling in to the shop a little after noon.
We expected 10-15 cars, but by the end of Friday at least 40 cars had stopped by Spectre. Nearly 85 people ducked the rain and sat at the shop, watching the dyno runs and catching up with friends from around the country.
No event with the pro-touring crowd is complete without some friendly go-kart competition, so we hosted a karting event at the nearby Fast Lap Indoor Kart Racing. Karting was free for anyone who wanted to participate and the teams were divided into groups of 4-5 people. There were a total of 11 groups! Some of the people driving included: Kyle Tucker and Ryan Matthews from DSE, Steve Rupp, Mary Pozzi, Brian Finch, Dan Weishaar, our RTTC hosts Bill Howell and Yancy Johns and many, many more.
The Spectre team missed out on the Kart action since they stayed late at the shop to finish up an intake install on Carl Casanova’s 1968 Camaro. It started with a simple request for a heat shield, but turned into a complete cold air intake install by Guy Smith and Mike Morrow.
We met up again with the other racers at TCI for a BBQ Dinner. The food was fantastic and they even had tours around their facility.
Everyone headed home or to their hotels with windshield wipers on and fingers crossed in hopes that Saturday would offer some sunshine.
Good performance on the track is almost as much about driver seat time as it is about car prep. On Jan 31st we headed out to Willow Springs Raceway in Rosemond, Ca to work on both cars and drivers.
Our new track cars for the 2011 season include the Two JZ-GTE powered ’70 Maverick and the long awaited Carbon Camaro. Both cars are high horsepower pro-touring style builds and have been up north most of this year, the Camaro at Campbell Auto Restoration and the Maverick in the capable hands of Steve Schmalz and the Performance Fabrication crew.
The guys from both Campbell and Performance Fabrication came down with the cars to get some track time and test some of the recent upgrades. Steve from Performance Fab. started the morning in the Maverick on the Streets of Willow roadcourse, while Brandy, Mike and Mark set up a mini autocross on the skid pad and practiced running the Camaro through the cones.
The black Camaro looked pretty menacing carving around the practice course, with its one-off wheel flares and beefy 345/30ZR19 rear Kumhos. That vicious stance isn’t all show either; our newest 2nd gen has more horsepower, lots of traction, and a full modern suspension with customized adjustable rear sway bar. It’s also the first Spectre car in a long time to have power steering and power brakes, two additions which make a BIG difference on the tight turns of an autocross. Brandy finished up the practice session with a lot of enthusiasm about driving the car in upcoming events.
Steve came in off the road course a little less thrilled with the Maverick. Apparently the little blue Ford was acting up with twitchy steering and unpredictable handling. It looked very cool on the autocross though, even picking up a front wheel around the corners!
Everyone had better reviews once the Camaro hit the road course. There were a few clearance issues with the wide rear tires when the car was driven hard, but some minor adjustments in the pits soon cleared up any chafing. It was funny to see so many people under the cars, discussing possible solutions to both the Maverick’s handling tendencies and the Camaro’s tire rub problem. We really have an amazing group of people working with us.
Not only are there great people wrenching on the cars, but we are lucky enough to be working with some fantastic photographers too. Larry Chen and Linhbergh Nguyen from Speedhunters joined us at the track to take some photos and make a few laps of their own.
Larry brought his roommate, Yu-Chen in an Acura RSX, and they spent almost as much time on the track as we did. Larry rode with Yu-Chen and gave him some quick tips while the Spectre team was working on the cars. Yu-Chen picked up the racing line quickly and was noticeably faster by the time lunch arrived.
Why was he so quick?
“Video games,” he told us with a grin.
After lunch, Brandy and Mike took turns on track in the Camaro while Steve and Mark discussed options for improving the Maverick’s touchy handling characteristics.
By sunset, the team had a full eight hours of driving under their belts, and a solid plan for modifications and additions to both cars. We’ll find out the results soon, as our first competitive event, Run to the Coast is coming up this weekend!
As we’ve mentioned before, the best thing about traveling the country exhibiting at car shows isn’t the scenery, or the road food, or even the racing, it’s getting to meet up with Spectre customers and see the project cars they build with our products.
At LS Fest in Bowling Green this past Spetember, we ran in to Jaime Kook and his wife, who came down from Canada with their olive green ’68 Chevelle.
We met Jaime on Power Tour 2009 while installing an intake on his car. Since then we’ve kept in touch and when he comes out to shows we are attending, we are honored that he parks his car in the Spectre booth.
Jaime’s original intake was quite a project. Spectre tech Guy Smith mocked up the intake without the car, hoping it would clear his hood. After playing around with a couple of different degree bends, Guy completed the kit with two Spectre inline filters and it fit perfectly!
Since the install, Jaime had the intake powder coated flat black and the car repainted (originally it was silver- now it’s a hip flat green). The Kooks next project is a car for Jaime’s wife so she can have her own wheels for Power Tour 2011!
As we’ve mentioned before, Pleasanton, CA is close to home for many of the Spectre team, including our fearless leader, Amir Rosenbaum.
The Autumn Get Together was very well attended, partially because it is one of the few Good Guys events which allows late model American cars as well as classics.
We had our hands full at the booth fielding questions from diverse groups of truck, Lowrider and modern muscle car owners.
The plan was to run the Maverick in the weekend autocross, but the busy booth meant that the Spectre autocross team spent most of Saturday answering tech rather than running through the cones. It was probably for the best, as Thursday’s test runs had brought up a couple of tire rub issues.
Happily, we were well represented on the course by Mary Pozzi, Deanna Marengo and other skilled Spectre friends.
Brandy did get to run the track on Sunday in a “borrowed” 2010 Dodge Charger. It was a bit different from the normal Spectre rides, but it made a lot of noise and gave Brandy an appreciation for her well-sorted race car!
As always, we saw some great builds done using Spectre products, and did several installs in the booth. We were happy to host the Spectre winner of the Motorator.com Crew Chief Challenge during the show. As a runner up in the Motorator online tech contest, we gave Alex and his family passes to the show as well as a Spectre CAI for his ‘68 Mercury Cougar.
Amir and his family came out to join us in the booth and it quickly became clear that the young Rosenbaums take after their parents. After a quick morning introduction, 11-year old Adam Rosenbaum was talking to customers, explaining product details and selling parts. We’re going to have to bring him on the road with us!
The Pleasanton show was bitter-sweet, as it is one of the last shows of the year, but we won’t mope for long. 2011 looks to be our busiest show year yet! We can’t wait.
Sunday at LS Fest was a hot-rodders dream day. The weather was perfect, the sun was shining, it was warm and there was Autocross, Speed Stop Challenge, Top Speed Challenge and drag racing!
The booth was busy all day with spectators and customers. Brandy turned the driving duties over to Mike so she could talk filters and take photos.
There was a lot of action to photograph. There was a drift exhibition and tons of cool drag cars. Participants in the Speed Stop Challenge and Top Speed Challenge were starting to get pretty serious too. On Saturday, a lot of people stopped short; not knowing where the stop box started and when they needed to brake. The few that had competed in this event before started going the other way, getting a little too confident! Brian Finch proved that in his second gen yellow Camaro as he came up too quick on the stop box, went sideways and continued through the box only to complete a 180 deg spin and drive the remainder of the drag strip backwards.
By Sunday it was a whole different story. Everyone had caught up to speed and competition was fierce. Although Jeff Schwartz was unable to attend the event, he sent some of his guys out with two of their cars. Mike was really pushing Schwartz’s 1965 Pontiac Tempest on the Brake Stop Challenge. Even Holley had their truck on the course competing.
A lot of the participants were running Spectre components. Bret Voelkel of RideTech and Greg Schneider used a couple of Spectre tubes, a Spectre shield and a Spectre filter to create a custom true cold air intake on their ’66 Chevelle after completing an LS swap in the car. The filter shield was added to the filter to help block the mud and debris that was getting kicked up from the tire since the filter sits right in front of the passenger front tire.
Another Spectre customer had come to our booth and wanted to see if one of us could come to his car and see what he had done with our product. He was not racing, but had come for the car show portion of LS Fest. Unfortunately, we did not get his name, hopefully we’ll see him at another show. His custom intake was pretty innovative!
Awards came at the end of the day. Mark Stielow won the Spectre Top Speed Award with a top speed of 87 MPH. Brian Finch came in second. Mark Steilow also walked away as the overall winner. Since Mark had to leave early, Yancy Johns accepted both his awards. We can’t wait to see what the competition is like next year!
Major props to Holley and FM3 Marketing for organizing and promoting the event. We were all really impressed with the magazine and television coverage. Next year will probably be bigger with ten times more participants. We are really looking forward to next year, hopefully we’ll be featuring our rebuilt LS powered 2nd gen “Carbon Camaro”.
Saturday started out perfectly. There were scattered showers on the forecast, but the morning was dry and competition on the autocross was serious. There were way more competitors than the day before, lined up and ready to run. The SCCA Autocross chapter that helped run the autocross was extremely helpful. The main instructor, and course designer, was busy the entire day jumping in and out of cars, giving people tips. He had good advice, after his lessons, drivers were improving by a second or more! He even joined Brandy in the El Camino for one round to give some pointers on some of the decreasing radius turns on the course.
Brandy drove all morning, but it isn’t all racing and fun for the Spectre crew. We were there to work, and it was time for the Spectre Top Speed Challenge. This was the first event where we decided to tie in the Top Speed challenge with Baer Brakes SpeedStop Challenge and it went really well. although it did mean that we had no time to send a driver out to participate in the drag racing, or to watch the Engine Swap contest, which we heard was very cool!
Maybe it’s a good thing we weren’t able to make it on to the drag strip, Nick Licata, editor of Camaro Performers, broke his driveshaft while on the track mid afternoon! Everyone pulled together to get the car off the track safely. Some people might have called it a day, but Nick is a racer, and he had one goal, get back on the track! Nick was about to have a driveshaft shipped next day from California, but the car gods were friendly and he and fellow writer, Steve Rupp, found one locally.
One of the engineering/ mechanic schools that had competed in the Engine Swap contest offered to help Nick replace the driveshaft that night and everyone signed the broken driveshaft the next day as a little memory of the event.
One of the coolest things about LS Fest is how focused the participants are on racing, yet everyone pitched in and helped each other out. As we are becoming a familiar sight at so many events, the Spectre booth ends up being a hang-out for journalists and other racers. We opened the lounge in the truck for our media pals to store their equipment, parked cars under our awning, and sat around joking with everyone, telling stories and building memories.
It’s great to see folks like Bret and Greg from RideTech, Stacy from DSE, the crew from Holley, our own team and so many old friends. Some of the usual participants like Brian Finch and Yancy Johns came out with their cars as well. Brian Finch debuted his version two Spectre Cold air intake at the LS Fest. Brian already had a couple of our parts on the yellow Camaro, but was adding on to the kit to make it a true cold air intake. This was Yancy’s first event driving his 2010 camaro that he just got back from Steve Rupp and Camaro Performers. We hope to install an intake within the next month or so or do a custom kit on his car.
We had time to chat, because around 3pm the rain came back. It came down in buckets, but luckily only lasted a short time. By Sat evening the racing was back on, and we were able to see the
Prostock cars run for the first time. Very cool.
The Inaugural Holley LS Fest in Bowling Green Kentucky should have been non-stop auto action. After all, this celebration of all LS powered vehicles has participants spending three days competing for the grand championship through a series of events including drag race, autocross, 0-60-0 speed stop challenge, show-n-shine and a scavenger hunt cruise. On Friday morning however, the only thing that was thundering on the track was the rain. It was pouring!
Everyone was sure the day would (literally) be a wash-out, but after RideTech tested the course and a couple changes were made, the autocross course was finally opened late in the afternoon. The course was soaked, with enormous puddles everywhere.
We were all surprised they were going to let us run the course since it was still sprinkling, and at first the action was nuts. Our fearless driver Brandy Morrow was in the El Camino and initial runs were on the wild side. She wasn’t the only one all over the course, drivers were spinning out, going sideways, it was quite a show.
Brandy’s first reports on the El Camino were concerns about how the rear kept coming loose. Even a small application of the gas pedal sent the car sideways. Never afraid of a challenge, and with the help of co-driver Mike Morrow, Brandy got used to the wet weather handling and started drifting the course, letting the back end come around on the tight corners.
Even dry, the course was one of the more challenging configurations we’ve come across this year. Many of the competitors struggled at first. There were a lot of DNF’s the first couple times (including Brandy). Rather than making a complete run through the course one way, this course required drivers to complete a 360 degree turn, only to go back the same way, retracing the route, and exiting through the finish line. It was a quick course, with times in the low minute range once the water dried up. The tight turns and the giant puddles made it popular with the photographers, if not with the drivers!
After toweling off, competitors jumped back in their cars for the cruise and scavenger hunt. Each participant had to drive around the town looking for items on their checklist and taking pictures of the items as they found them. The weather forecast looked promising for Sat so we crossed our fingers and looked forward to morning.
With two days of Autocross, there were cones flying at the Kansas Speedway and when we weren’t on the course, we were installing intakes and presenting trophies. It was a busy weekend in the heartland of America!
The Kansas City show was a little smaller this year, but many of the attendees were first timers, and they all seemed to have a great time. That’s a good sign for next year!
Our booth was crowded all weekend with people asking questions, showing off their custom intakes and installing new intakes right there at the show!
Bob Bell, owner of a beautiful ’56 Chevy Pick-up Truck came to us looking for a true cold air intake. We helped him install a Spectre intake and he was very pleased with the results.
Another customer, Karl Kozad, owner of both a 1966 Corvair and a ’54 Chevy hung out with us at the booth all weekend. Karl spent most of the first day designing and installing his own intake for the Corvair. (This is why we love Karl… so self sufficient!) He was so happy with the performance that he brought the car back on Saturday and joined us in the Autocross. This was his first Autocross with Goodguys and he put on a pretty good show!
The Autocross was some pretty intense competition, and not just from Karl. Ryan Matthews from DSE (Detroit Speed and Engineering) came in first, running his fastest lap time in the mid 27 sec range. DSE owner, Kyle Tucker came in just a fraction of a second behind Ryan to claim second. 27 second laps are pretty impressive, considering the average was 28-31.
Mike and Brandy Morrow swapped off driving duties in the Spectre Mach 1 Mustang. Both Morrows ran in the 30 sec range, losing a bit of time to overly worn tires. Our tire sponsor, Yokohama, was also exhibiting and rep Greg gave us some suggestions for replacement tires, and rode a few runs with Brandy.
This will be the last event the Mach 1 will be attending for the remaining of the year and possibly for good. We are thinking about retiring the car from the show circuit with hopes of featuring two new vehicles next year. Our 1970 mid engine LS7 powered El Camino is on a transporter to met us after the show, replacing the Mach 1 and running in the Autocross for the next four weeks. Yes, there will be Autocross all four weeks!!! How exciting! Watch out orange cones, here we come!
It’s been a crazy month here at Spectre Performance. We just wrapped up the Spectre 341 Challenge hill climb in Nevada two weeks ago, now we’re heading to Columbus for the GoodGuys Rod & Custom Nationals in Columbus this weekend! In the meantime we have one more video from the Midwest Muscle Car Challenge in Illinois and Indiana, so enjoy!
It has been a very busy summer so far for the Spectre team. A few weeks ago we attended the Midwest Muscle Car Challenge in both Indiana and Illinois, and had a blast flogging our green ‘70 Camaro on the autocross and road course. Then we did the Long Haul on the Hot Rod Power Tour, with company President Amir Rosenbaum driving our ‘70 El Camino with four more Spectre project vehicles in tow. Now we’re prepping for the 1st Spectre 341 Challenge hillclimb in Virginia City, Nevada, next weekend.
While we’re putting the final touches on our own Midwest Muscle Car Challenge video, the crew at Ride Tech did a fantastic job on their own video, so we thought we’d share it here. Nice work guys, and thanks for the great shots of our own Brandy Morrow in the Camaro!
