Real Street Eliminator IV

Real Street returns with a new competition and now has the owners (or designated hit men) wheel their machines. So this is now just as much a driver's race as it is a test of the machines. This is John Wegner's nitrous-assisted big-block Camaro.

Real Street returns with a new competition and now has the owners (or designated hit men)

The new era in street car competition is to pit these machines against each other in a real-world environment of braking, acceleration, and handling rather than merely judge them on how good they look. For you longtime Car Craft readers, this is really nothing new. You may recall a then-unique competition CC initiated back in the May '86 issue called Real Street Eliminator (RSE). The premise today remains the same, but we've made some changes and even added a unique twist just to mix up things a little.

Last year, we called this competition Street Machine of the Year, but for this year, we've returned to our RSE roots with a three-way competition held in conjunction with the GM Performance Division-sponsored Car Craft Summer Nationals in St. Paul. We modified the competition slightly by adding an additional challenge to last year's 60-to-0 stopping contest. Instead of only measuring braking efficiency, we came up with what we call the Launch Box sponsored by Rust-oleum-a 150-foot-length lane with a coned-in box at the end. Each competitor must launch from the starting line and then bring the car to a complete stop inside the box while avoiding the cones. This makes accelerating the car as critical as stopping-and all within an abbreviated distance. As the RSE competitors discovered, it's much more difficult than it looks. Of course, we retained the other two competitions from last year, the QA1 autocross and the ever-popular Mobil 1 chassis dyno challenge.

In past years, RSE was an invitational event, but this year we opened it up to a limited number of Car Craft Summer Nationals participants. Like last year, we also split the competition into two categories, giving the muscle cars a chance to prove what they could do without having to wrestle against later-model machines. As a quick rules overview, each car had to complete all three events with the low elapsed time in the autocross and Launch Box offering 30 points and only the top three finishers received points. With the Mobil 1 dyno challenge, peak horsepower was the arbiter that not only established the top positions but also served as a tiebreaker should two competitors finish with duplicate times in either of the other two events-which happened this year. First, we'll introduce the competitors and then we'll dig into the meat of RSE.

The Competitors
Late Model

Muscle Car

The Mobil 1 Dyno Challenge
Out on the street, horsepower is a big bragging point. That's what the Mobil 1 Dyno Challenge sets out to discover. This first RSE test was easy-the car with the most horsepower wins. We purposely kept the rules simple by allowing any engine, any displacement, and any power-adder with any combination of the above. The early oddsmakers sided with the power-adder cars, although they had to run on pump gas. However, in the Late Model class, the two supercharged cars ended up a couple of cards short. The better hand in this case was a simple case of major league displacement as proved by Keith Anderson's mildly breathed-on V-10 Viper taking the top spot with a stellar 578 hp, closely followed by Richard Adams' '08 427 Corvette at 514 hp.

The Muscle Car class also had its share of nitrous players. At first, it appeared that John Wegner's 502ci big-block '69 Camaro had everybody covered with his 450hp run that was hampered by an underachieving nitrous kit and tire slippage. Later, Jeff Schwartz, driving Grant Craft's black '65 Tempest, squeaked in with a slightly better 476 hp that looked like it might take the top prize. But then on Sunday morning, Lyle Nienow showed up at the last minute with his 572ci Rat-powered Chevelle and blitzed them both with an excellent 544hp pass. This move would have a significant impact on the overall Muscle Car class finishing order.

John Boos thumped 'em all in the autocross with his race-prepped '86 Corvette. Gumball tires really helped his cause, as did excellent wheel skills. Keep in mind this is just a C4.

John Boos thumped 'em all in the autocross with his race-prepped '86 Corvette. Gumball tir

QA1 Autocross
The QA1 autocross was not only the most popular venue of the three but also the one with the most drama. We thought that allowing unlimited laps might level the playing field between the beginners and the sharks. Several competitors took advantage of that loophole by making multiple runs over all three days. The guy who maximized this advantage was Jeff Avril with his '95 Camaro. He had never run autocross before, but before the end of Saturday, he had all but wasted a set of Goodyear F1s. On the plus side, he also drastically reduced his lap times. How many laps, you ask? How about a total of 137. He started out running in the mid-13s and eventually pulled down his time to an impressive 11.858-or roughly 1.8 seconds with just a simple air pressure adjustment and learning how to drive his car. And he had a blast doing it, too.

As for the class heavy hitters, John Boos made it clear he had brought a stout weapon with his '86 Corvette. A combination of a well-prepared car, good driving skills, and double-sticky road-race rubber eventually created the only 10-second passes we saw all weekend. Close behind was Keith Anderson's '09 Viper with an 11.133 and Nick Abernathy's sinister black Corvette running an agonizingly close 11.135 taking the third spot in the Late Model class. The muscle cars were not far behind with Jeff Schwartz driving Grant Craft's '65 Tempest to a quickest 11.45 closely followed by John Wegner's beautiful '69 Camaro. Latecomer Lyle Nienow surprised everybody with his big-block 572 Chevelle that cranked out an excellent 12.46, which was impressive after only a handful of passes. Mike Standley gets credit for driving slideways with his drift technique '81 Malibu. Most of our competitors had little to no autocross experience. That's a hint for you '10 RSE wannabes.

The Ironman award went to Jeff Avril, who waded through a total of 137 passes on his way to destroying the set of Goodyear F1s on his '95 Camaro. He also had the most fun of everybody-just ask him.

The Ironman award went to Jeff Avril, who waded through a total of 137 passes on his way t

We also need to send a shout-out to the Land O' Lakes region SCCA club and all its volunteers who gave up a beautiful Midwest weekend in July to perform tech inspection, timing, and cones-chasing for the QA1 Autocross and Rust-oleum Launch Box. The club made the entire weekend run flawlessly and produced an outstanding event for all the competitors and Summer Nationals participants who took advantage of the courses. We especially want to acknowledge Dan and Cathy Corgard, Rick Sellner, Stacy Scharch, Paul Peters, Mark Utecht, Sean Penegor, Jimmy Griggs, John Feesl, Erik Dahl, Brent and Carrie Carlson, Eric McClellan, Alex Awsumb, Kurt Schroeder, Jim Gillen, Tom and Janine Fuehrer, Ryan Olson, Dan Halverson, Randy Van de Loo, Jeff Forss, Dan Bidinger, and the rest of the LOL SCCA club members who did a great job. Thanks to everyone.

Rust-Oleum Launch Box
In case you skipped the introduction to get right to the results, the Rust-oleum Launch Box is new for RSE this year with a 150-foot straightaway that requires each competitor to launch his car and then get it completely stopped inside the box without incurring a 2-second penalty for hitting a cone. The early runners found it a real challenge, but by Saturday, it appeared that an unlikely leader had appeared in Mark Storlien's '62 Corvette. No one, including Storlien himself, expected the Pro Street Vette to bring anything to the autocross party, and it only cranked 401 hp on the chassis dyno. But Storlien killed 'em on the Rust-oleum Launch Box. The fat rear tires offered great traction on the virgin pavement, and without the benefit of ABS, he managed to get the Corvette stopped in impressive short order. The rules only require the rear axle centerline to be ahead of the open end of the box, and the Vette's short wheelbase may have contributed to the quick time that almost stole the show for either class.

The Late Model cars should have had a bit of an advantage, since many were equipped with ABS. But our experience with measuring stopping distance with ABS cars has proven that the driver still has significant control over how quickly the car stops. Few drivers really know how to squeeze (it's more like stomp) out those ultimate high-g decel times. By Sunday, there were tire marks that extended the entire length of the course.

If you thought the Late Model class was tight, you could cover the top three cars in the Muscle Car class with less than 0.10 second. Amazingly, Storlien's Vette bested the Muscle Car class with very little drama. We investigated the Vette's raw data very closely and were impressed with the accel and decel portions of the run. Mark actually achieved 0.90 to 0.91 negative g during braking for almost a half second. Anderson's Viper pulled a 1.01 negative at times, but the '62 Vette's braking curve achieved high numbers over the entire length of the course. That's what contributed to its quick overall time.

Overall Results
Don't be fooled into thinking this was a runaway win for the Viper. It was actually much closer than the point spread makes it appear. Keith Anderson squeaked out a win in the Launch Box over Nick Abernathy's Corvette by a mere 0.02 second, but even if Abernathy had won the Launch Box, it would not have been enough to overcome the Viper's consistent performance in all three venues. And don't blame it on V-10 power, either. In the autocross and the Launch Box, it was handling and driver finesse that commanded the field. On that note, John Boos' '86 boy racer looked like the car to beat with its awesome 10-second autocross pass, but he only attempted a handful of Launch Box runs, which when paired with limited horsepower on the dyno could only push his effort to the third spot overall.

Competition was just as tight in the Muscle Car class with the shootout between John Wegner's big-block Camaro and the Jeff Schwartz-driven Tempest lasting right up until Sunday at noon when time trials ended. The autocross was a great battle with less than 0.30 second separating the two cars. It was even tighter in the Launch Box with less than 0.04 second between their respective best passes. Add in Mark Storlien's we-never-saw-it-coming stellar Launch Box run and the Sunday morning horsepower blitz by Lyle Nienow's Chevelle and the whole Muscle Car outcome could easily have been much different.

The Wrap-Up
Real Street was a total winner event, and in the coming months we'll highlight both class winners as well as John Wegner's Camaro, which we thought was more than deserving of a closer look. And if you think your machine has what it takes to take on cars like these, get it ready for next year because we plan on doing this again at the '10 Car Craft Summer Nationals. We'll be disappointed if you don't show up.