2008 Nitto Tire King Of The Street - Crown Of Treads

Dan Schoneck
Dan "Cornholio" Schoneck was back again for this year's KOTS, but this time, it was with his much-anticipated '07 Shelby GT500-the first to enter our competition. He bought the car as a wreck and clipped it back together. We just featured the car in the Dec. '08 issue ("Shuck and Drive," p. 66) so you can read more about it, but up until the KOTS, we hadn't spent any meaningful time behind the wheel of Dan's Shelby.

First of all, Dan doesn't sleep. We know that, but this car was keeping Dan up at night. The tuning and using all the tricks up his sleeve to try and get everything right on this car was an exercise in patience that not many of us have. It seemed like we heard from Dan on a daily basis on how he was working on this, improving that, and trying to be the first to do this or that. He has some lofty goals for the car, some of which you may have read in our sister publication, Car Craft.

Anyway, Dan basically had the car ripped apart 10 ways to Sunday on 10 different occasions. What he ended up with was a tight car that feels much lighter on its feet than its stock GT500 counterparts. A variety of Racecraft Incorporated suspension improvements with KW coilover shocks and struts are responsible for that characteristic. We noted that the car handled great for such a heavy vehicle. It handled like it was on rails. Furthermore, the brakes were rock solid, which is no surprise given they were stock GT500. We've praised the latest Shelby's brakes here before.

Of course, with an exotic combo like Dan's, the tuning can be tricky. Dan's car shut off on the Ride and Drive, and the driveability was just off when we drove the car. The clutch was grabby, like an on/off switch. If you found the clutch's sweet spot, you were good. If you didn't find the sweet spot, it made you look like an idiot. Of course, we can always look like an idiot with a stock clutch, but Dan's car magnified that issue. But the engine in Dan's car loved to rev. It would rev so quickly and effortlessly in Neutral-or whatever gear the car happened to be in.

Everyone knows Dan's a ProCharger guy, so it was an afterthought that the car had one of the company's F-1Rs under the hood. Yep, gone is the factory supercharger, and in its place is a ProCharger. The engine was a perfect pairing of 5.4 grunt and high-rpm madness. Under boost, the car was ready to get with the program, and it's ready to conquer the goals Dan has set for it.

At KOTS, Dan's Shelby made 870 hp to finish with a 9 in that category. With a troublesome 11.86/126-mph pass, Dan finished with a 7 in the Drag Race category. Tech Editor KJ Jones loved Dan's Shelby, giving the car a 9 in Engineering, while Editor Turner seemed more critical, scoring the car a 7 in the Fit and Finish category. Thanks to the driveability issues it suffered, the car earned Dan a 7 in the Ride and Drive. It seemed all of Dan's hard work went unnoticed in the Popular Vote, where he only garnered a 5. Dan finished with a final score of 75.

What really hurt Dan's finishing mark was the car's driveability, but we feel his pain, and know he'll be back.