A Weekend At NASA

John Lindsey (No. 22), in his ’90 American Iron Extreme spec’d LX, leads Guy Cunningham of Griggs Racing during a National Auto Sport Association race at California’s Buttonwillow Raceway Park. Cunningham later took victory in American Iron with his fuel-injected ’89 Mustang coupe, which makes 315 hp to the rear wheels.

Should there be an oil pressure drop at any time during the incredible lateral g’s, the Accusump (arrow) holds three additional quarts of oil and will provide an extra margin of protection to the motor.

Don’t prematurely dismiss the functionality of Ryan Flaherty’s rear spoiler. Testing has shown that it really does increase stability at higher speeds by producing tremendous down force.

While drivers are allowed to get away with a single stationary fire extinguisher, most go a step further by installing a fire system, which offers the advantage of only having to hit one button to activate an onboard fire suppression system should anything ugly happen.

Per Helldin of Sweden was one of the few GM guys making some noise with his late-model Firebird. The ’97 has a mildly pumped up LT1, a 2000 model front clip, and takes advantage of the Ram Air hood for cold-air ingestion.

Mishaps occur from time to time. In the heat of battle, Flaherty was pushed into the gravel and had the fiberglass front clip ripped off the car. He managed to scavenge the remaining parts off the track, used a lot of duct tape, some carpet molding with sheetmetal screws, and won Sunday’s race looking as good as new!

We were informed by NASA that Ernesto Roco, in his first year of competition, has evolved from a person who wouldn’t put a single sticker on his car to one of the most competitive drivers with his now striped-out ’96 Cobra.

You can forget about creature comforts in American Iron. In order to be as safe and as light as possible, the interiors of these cars are little more than shells. The door guts are removed to allow NASCAR-style doorbars to extend into them and the dashes are usually nothing more than a piece of aluminum housing a minimal number of gauges.

Whoever said beauty is skin deep must have been talking about road course cars. Take this Fox-body outfitted with the Maximum Motorsports suspension. It replaces the factory four-link suspension with a trick three-link design that creates a solid link between the chassis and the rearend to eliminate uncontrolled lateral movement.

Races aren’t won in seconds; they’re won after 30-minute full-throttle sessions, which require lots of fuel and a safe way to carry it. This Fuel Safe fuel cell gets the job done with a 20-gallon capacity and the ability to withstand just about any kind of impact.

You can’t cheat easily in NASA. In order to ensure that everyone is doing their best to comply with the weight-to-horsepower rules, top fielding cars are placed on both scales and a chassis dyno after a win.

If you ever get the chance to check out a field of cars that can turn as fast as they can go straight, don't miss it. And no, we're not talking about an avoid-the-little-red-cones parking lot event. We're talking about intense wheel-to-wheel, bumper-to-bumper, metal-on-metal road-racing action. That's right, open-course road racing!

We took a short trip to Buttonwillow Raceway Park, located two hours north of Los Angeles, to check out the National Auto Sport Association's (NASA) American Iron class. While relatively new in the open-course world, this class is taking off in a big way with divisional races on both coasts. The main reason for its success is that it offers a true entry-level road-racing environment and competitive closed-course racing for cars that are usually relegated to being also-rans in big-dollar classes in other organizations like the SCCA. The rules are simple, with the main emphasis on a strict power-to-weight ratio of 9.5:1 pounds per horsepower (see “American Iron Extreme” sidebar). To be eligible, a car must be a '60-present domestic model with a minimum 100-inch wheelbase, solid rear axle, front-mounted engine, and rear-wheel drive. Also mandated are 17x9 wheels, which ultimately limit the size of brakes to a 13-inch rotor and a four-piston caliper.

We discovered that it doesn't take a lot of horsepower to be competitive. The majority of street machines on the road could probably compete in American Iron with very minor modifications. Most competitive cars are only making 300 hp at the rear wheels, which helps increase engine reliability and deters people from building finicky exotic motors. It also shifts the focus to chassis and suspension modifications and, more importantly, driver skill.

Even with as little power as these cars produce, safety is still a serious issue that cannot be overlooked. You'll need to invest in items such as a NASCAR-style rollcage, an electrical kill switch, belt harness, window net, and personal safety gear. And while we noticed that late-model Mustangs seem to dominate the American Iron field at this point, it doesn't mean you have to own one to have fun. For a schedule of events and complete class details, be sure to check out www.nasaproracing.com.