With 1,139 hp, daily driver...
With 1,139 hp, daily driver characteristics, and the details to match, Tony Alm's compound-boost Shelby GT500 rose to the head of the KOTS class to win the 2010 crown. Tony's GT500 dominated the Dyno category, and outperformed everyone else on the track to score a 10 in the Drag Race portion. He did well in all categories, save for the Popular Vote, to win the King of the Street. Congrats, Tony.
We're always wary of the King of the Street competition hitting a plateau. After each year's competition, we think there's no possible way it can be better the next year, but somehow Mustang guys always step up and impress us with new cars every year. Last year, we reached several milestones we originally thought unreachable. We had our first 1,000hp car and our first 9-second KOTS competitor. Better yet, different cars conquered those plateaus. In short, last year's event was a tough act to follow.
Fortunately for us, 5.0&SF readers once again dug deep to build several Mustangs capable of equaling and surpassing the performances of the prior year's KOTS competition. I know--we shouldn't be surprised, but each year we wonder how it could possibly get any better. It's lucky our forecasting skills are as reliable as your local weatherman's.
While the competition's basic structure remained the same, we had to shake a few things up. First off, we had a new sponsor in AmericanMuscle.com. You have to know AM is one of the largest suppliers of Mustang parts and pieces on the planet, ascending to this stature in a short period of time. We can't thank the company enough for joining in on the fun.
Yes, more than one onlooker...
Yes, more than one onlooker was taken aback by the Evo II series carbon-fiber wheels on Andrew Greene's Evolution Performance-built GT500. Those are Nitto-shod 20-inch hoops, and the car ran a 9.81 as it sat. That is lunacy at its best. The car even has its own parachute, as well, but I bet if you saw this car at the grocery store you would never even dream it would run 9.80s. Thanks in large part to those wheels Andrew's GT500 won the Popular Vote category.
Because we no longer had a tire sponsor, competitors were able to run any tire they wanted as long it was DOT-approved. Plus, they had to run that chosen tire-and-wheel combination for the duration of the event. Because of this, we were able to see how different tire compounds and brand names would work within the competition.
We also relocated our dyno segment to the scene of the original crime. We held the first King of the Street competition in its entirety at Holley Performance Products; this time around, we returned to Holley for the dyno portion of the competition.
Holley really stepped up and made the dyno segment an event by itself. Besides hosting the dyno portion, Holley reps took competitors on a tour of its facilities to give an up-close look at the daily goings-on inside a performance conglomerate. They even fed the entire motley bunch a pizza lunch.
Holley's in-house Dynojet served as the perfect match for our KOTS cars. In years past, the competition has been plagued by tire spin. Thankfully, Holley's big-roller Dynojet was able to harness the enormous power laid down by our competitors.
So enough about the ins and outs of the competition--let's get down to the business of ranking this year's competitors.
Horse Sense: Is there a changing of the KOTS guard? The KOTS competition has been dominated by '03-'04 Cobras, but as you can see by the latest edition, the S197 Shelby GT500 is poised to put the Terminators out to pasture. Who's going to answer the call for next year?
We kick off KOTS first thing...
We kick off KOTS first thing in the morning with individual photo shoots with each KOTS car. Every car receives KOTS-appropriate stickers and AmericanMuscle windshield banners before going in for their close-up. Here you can see the cars lined up for their close-ups in the Beech Bend Park fairgrounds parking lot. We try to make sure everyone's Mustang is clean and ready for the morning shoot, but inevitably the cars still need a going-over to get them just right.
Have you ever seen a 1,100-plus-horsepower...
Have you ever seen a 1,100-plus-horsepower car at Sonic? If you hang out at the Sonic in Bowling Green, Kentucky, during the first weekend of October, chances are you just might. This is the essence of the King of the Street. We want cars that make a crap-ton of power, but are still able to perform the everyday functions of a "regular" car. With Tony's GT500, Nick Burch's GT, and Matthew Wadel's Mach 1 all at Sonic at the same time, we're sure Sonic experienced a horsepower overload that day. Between the three cars, the combined horsepower was over 2,500. That must be some kind of record.
Holley Performance Products...
Holley Performance Products (www.holley.com) allowed us to totally take over its company Dynojet to document the rear-wheel horsepower of KOTS competitors. We couldn't have been happier with the way the day went. We were able to get some awesome video, as did AmericanMuscle for use on its Facebook page. Holley even treated several of those in attendance to a shop tour and a tasty pizza lunch. Here, Joe Cram's Mustang GT is backing onto the Dynojet. Unfortunately for Joe, his GT didn't exercise the dyno quite like many others in the competition, but it did do well in the Drag Race category.