Gary Rohe's 1980 Ford Mustang - Gary Rohe: Cheatin' S.O.B.?

Staging behind everyone else, Gary made his final qualifier at night. The cool air didn't help, and the car did a 9.24 slip 'n' slide before backfiring in the lights. Sounded scary to us.

Back at the trailer, NOS' Steve Johnson came by looking for some help with a customer's Ford, figuring Gary would know what to do. The guy hadn't locked out the advance curve in the MSD distributor, so Gary and Danny did it for him. The guy offered to pay, but Gary said, "Get outta here-I don't want your money. I may need a favor some day." Later he told us, "I try to help the BES customers, but if I'm not busy fixing something, there's no one I won't help."

Finally the time came for another pass in the second round of qualifying-this time the car didn't hook as it went 9.17 at 148. It was no improvement, but apparently no worse for the wear.

By the end of Saturday, Gary was still low qualifier with the 9.04, and seemed only mildly concerned about the top-end bang earlier in the evening. A leakdown test, with number-two qualifier Bill Joysey looking on, revealed one cylinder with 30-percent leakage. An ear on the carb confirmed a leaky intake valve. "That's what I get for running cheap stock valves." We asked if they were going to tear it down: "Wouldn't do any good-I don't have any spares."

Turn-around time before the final round of Saturday qualifying was a little tight. Gary waited until all the other EZ Street cars were in the lane, and when no one was looking, put in a little bigger nitrous jet. He told us not to tell anyone, so keep it to yourself.

Later we went to check out Super Street racer Bill May's 8-second '71 Road Runner that had smacked the wall at half-track after hanging a rod out of the block. Gary figured, "It's not as bad as it looks, but I hate to see guys tear up their stuff-I wouldn't wish a crash on my worst enemy." We asked Gary if he'd ever had a close encounter of the guardrail kind: "Nope, and I don't plan to. I don't need to be a hero-if it gets squirley, I'll lift."

Gary didn't feel like doing much more than having a quick look at the plugs, but decided to swap to Flowmaster header mounted mufflers to see if they ran any better than the conventional Flowmasters.

Sunday morning hit and the ladder sheet showed that Gary had a bye run in the first round. We expected a half-pass to save the engine, but he pushed a 9.30. "I figure the fans didn't pay to see me make a 14-second pass." Next round came the stout competition from Brian Waszak, but Gary put him out with a 9.21 to the red Chevelle's 9.89.

After every pass, Gary returns to the pits, then hops on the scooter and comes back to the starting line to watch and help the BES customers in Hot Street and Real Street. He never hangs out for Outlaw or Pro Street: "Those things are out of control."

Even at the final round, we never saw Gary get a serious race face. "I figure I'm here to have fun, and I have to assume I can beat anyone in the lane next to me. If not, shame on me." Sure enough, he spanked Art with a 9.23 at 147.73 to the Nova's 9.83 at 140.23.

Moments later, Brian's dad, Paul Waszak, was in Gary's pit with Tech Director Willie and things got hot, with Gary eventually having to pull Dave out of the fight. Willie put an end to it, declaring Gary's car legal. Our opinion? No one was right. The NMCA should have enforced the rule from the beginning of the year, Gary should have had his car totally legal whether it was enforced or not, and Waszak should have made a legal protest on Saturday (per the rule book) rather than waiting until he got beat by Gary. It's a bummer deal.

Before he even got back to the pits, the crew heard rumors that Gary's exhaust system was getting protested by another racer. They hurriedly got to work changing the header mufflers back to the regular Flowmasters in case that was the problem. In fact, the issue was over Gary's lack of exhaust turn-downs required by the rule book.

Now it was getting serious. The final came down to Gary versus Art Ayala in a '70 Nova that was built purely to beat Bob and Bill Joysey, who had protested Art at Memphis last year and had him thrown out. This year he did beat Joysey with a 9.72. But did the Nova have Mustang-beating power?

Just because the fans go home doesn't mean the race is over. It took about two hours to get through tech, even though Art didn't ask for Gary's engine to be pumped (checked for legal displacement). Gary, Dave, and Dan filled out the contingency verification sheet for Race Director Bobby Cross, then waited out a big argument between Super Street racers Billy Glidden and Jimmy Keen. That was settled by dark, when Willie Benner gave Gary's car a clean tech sheet for the official win.

Finally, it's time to load up and go home-which means drive all night and arrive just in time to go to work Monday morning. After the Memphis win, Gary wrapped up the NMCA season the next weekend with a race in Atlanta, where he blew up the trans and gave the win to Bob Joysey. Still, his season's performance was enough to make him NMCA EZ Street Champion for 1998. So...is he cheating? "I ain't doing nothin' that everybody else can't do. They can protest me any time they want. Is it my fault if I found a combination that works and beat it to death?" Guess not.

The race moved on, and Gary trounced Ernie Parison in the semifinal, ignoring the fact that he'd mooched lunch off Ernie all weekend. Parison retaliated by modifying his official Gary Rohe T-shirt: "I've been beat by..."

It was another brief wait for the winner's circle photo shoot for the NMCA's Heads-Up NEWS. Winnings from sponsors like Comp Cams, Mr. Gasket, and Flowmaster aren't really in the envelope-checks get mailed weeks later.

Dave wasn't completely satisfied, breaking out the official "No Crybabies" shirt that had seen use at many prior races.