King of The Street 2

While wives, friends, and family often don't understand why we do it,performance Mustang freaks such as you and I live, breathe, and eathorsepower, e.t.'s, and dyno numbers. It's all we can do to put down ourfavorite car magazine and have a decent conversation during dinner. Butthat's who we are, and people in our close circle of friends and familyhave learned to accept it. We want to drive the baddest Mustang around,and we'll spend countless hours--and our kid's college fund--to achievethat dream. The thing is, once you have your combination dialed in andare making that 450-or-so horsepower, someone else comes around and topsyou with 500 hp. Then it's back to more work on the car. It can be bothfun and frustrating.

What we want to do in these pages is give a bit ofnotoriety to those who have worked so hard seeing their project dream toreality. We're sure as you and your buddies read this article, therewill be lots of comments--so-and-so has a nicer paint job,what's-his-name has a better interior, whatchamacallit has morehorsepower. These statements may be true, but you know what--we neversaw those cars! If you don't enter the King of the Street with thewillingness to drive or trailer to our testing location, then don'tcomplain that your car is faster or has nicer paint. It all comes downto the owners who participated, and we believe we chose a good crosssection of our readership.

This year's King of the Street competitionhad 11 participants--more than double the turnout last year. Instead ofscheduling the competition the same weekend as the NMRA Finals (as wedid last year) and killing ourselves with work, we moved the KOTS tocoincide with our annual trek to Bristol, Tennessee, for the Year OneBristol Bash. The Year One people were instrumental in getting the WerxMotorsports portable-dyno crew to bring a second dyno for us to use (oursister magazine Car Craft and its Real Street Eliminator competition ranthe same weekend). Year One also graciously offered two tickets to theBristol Bash to each KOTS participant. Besides the beautiful countrysidethrough which to take our participants' Mustangs for a spin, the BristolMotor Speedway facility offered plenty of room for photography. With arace track available to us, we even offered our KOTS participants a rundown the 1,320, which for some was their first time doing so in 30years.

The 11 participants were culled from a list of approximately 30entrants. The owners chosen are typical readers of this magazine, andthey drive what we would expect most of our readers would like to. Wesaw dyno figures ranging from the mid 300s to more than 600 hp. Therewere Mustangs on the bottle, Mustangs that were supercharged, andMustang that were stroked--a couple of them incorporate all three! Somehad more suspension and brakes than pure horsepower, while others hadenough "show" to go with the "go." We had Fox coupes, SN-95convertibles, and even a New Edge (an '03 Cobra at that!). There wereowners in attendance who worked for big-name auto shops, while othersbuilt their cars in their own garages. The age of the participantsranged from those in their early 20s to some AARP cardholders (and wedon't mean Publisher Shiver). This great group of participants had a lotof fun and played well together, but unfortunately there could be only one winner. Here are the highlights.

Dewayne Stiles came from Buford,Georgia, knowing he was going to break his Mustang. How's that for apositive attitude! His '91 notch, which he custom painted himself,sports a Twisted Wedge-headed 383 stroker, topped off with a bigold-school Holley carb and seasoned to taste with a serious 250hp shotof squeeze. Fighting head-gasket problems, Dewayne had buttoned up themotor the day before heading out to Bristol. With a best e.t. of 9.62 at143 mph, he believed he could be a contender for KOTS, especially sincehe drives his car on the street several times a month.

The car's racyinterior and lack of creature comforts would have hurt Dewayne's scoresin our driving impression evaluation (though he is run- ning a sweetLentech AOD), but after squeezing another set of gaskets on the Werxdyno during our testing, Dewayne had to sit the rest of the weekend onthe sidelines. He took everything in stride and still had a good timecutting up with us and the KOTS contestants. He says he'll try againnext year, and we can't wait for his submission. For the record,Dewayne's coupe will go down as the first KOTS casualty.