Mopars Hit Hard At The Gatornats! Huge Super Stock Gallery!

The NHRA has started its big national event tour in the East at Gainesville Raceway in Florida for the past 48 seasons. Traditionally held in March, thousands of fans come down from cooler climes in the North to enjoy the weather of the Sunshine State and witness often record-setting times. The Gators were blessed with excellent conditions again for 2017. Of course, for those of us with a traditional sense of Mopar history, it is a wide variety of wheels-up Stockers and Super Stockers that makes this event a lot of fun. Coupled to special displays and exhibition runs, it was again a non-stop weekend of color and speed.

One big deal at this year’s event was the season debut of the School Of automotive Machinists (SAM) Factory Stock Showdown, which features late-model Drag Pak Challengers against Cobra Jet Mastangs and COPO Camaros. This is now a combined class of FS/XX supercharged and FS/X normally-aspirated entries, though the Gators program participants were all blown XX models. Geoff Turk, whose “Blackbird SR354” Drag Pak raced in Super Stock last season, was the only Dodge ready for this early season event, having spent most of March testing between Florida and his home in Illinois. There were 17 cars pushing for an elite qualified field of eight finalists. Anyone in XX or X trim who did not make the Showdown could be rotated back down into the normal Stock Eliminator program; the finalists would run a round on Saturday and the final two rounds on Sunday.

Turk, who campaigns the stealth-black car with the help of his wife Sandy, rolled off the trailer early Thursday morning into 30-degree weather and air that measured far below sea level. The trick to Factory Stock is finding the balance between wheelstand and traction due to the 9-inch tire width. The car’s engine is built along the lines of OEM components and must be legal under strict Stock eliminator rules.

The Turk car features horsepower built by Engine Masters Challenge winner Tony Bischoff (BES Racing); this is a highly-blueprinted example of the factory Drag Pak 354 supercharged engine. The car also uses a worked Coan transmission and converter; the body was painted in stealth black when the package was built at Roush, and was subsequently dialed in by MR2 Performance and Mike Roth for class racing. The name comes from Geoff’s interest in aviation history.

By running in Super Stock, Geoff had dialed the car in during 2016 and it is now the quickest Drag Pak in history. Indeed, even in milder FS trim earlier this season, the car is so quick that it ran -1.30 under the index at a points race the weekend before the Gators. The result was that NHRA added 28 pounds to the 354 Drag Pak combination automatically. Since the LX-platform car still cannot get down to the new 3,518-lb. weight regardless, it will have no effect. In fact, the car actually runs a little heavier than the 3,550-lb. minimum in the Factory Stock Showdown.

The first shot Thursday yielded an 8.264, placing him into the field which ranged from 8.15 to 8.39. Those numbers had tightened up after the second round of qualifying, so though the Dodge had run a solid 8.204, it remained sixth in the program, which now ranged from 8.10 to 8.23. As a result, Geoff decided to make the class eliminations round that afternoon, but conditions had changed and the Blackbird spun the tires right at the launch. This would set up a first-round meeting on Saturday afternoon with Chris Holbrook’s Mustang, which was the number-two qualifier. Unfortunately, it had the same result; a light wheelstand that almost immediately unloaded the tires to end the Blackbird and 354 Drag Pak’s efforts in the first SAM Factory Stock Showdown.

Meanwhile, action continued in many other classes, and the following pictorial will give you the Sportsman lowdown from Gator-town, Mopar style!

MOPAR SUPER STOCK QUALIFIERS

MOPAR STOCK QUALIFIERS

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