The class has historically been for cars with stock suspension and an EFI power-adder small-block with automatic transmission only. Now for the first time in class history, you may now run a clutchless manual transmission! In addition, carburetors are allowed but only with nitrous-oxide combos. This class has significant rule changes, so class performance should be wild and unpredictable as ever, and no wheelie bars!
This class should see a handful of new participants with the dissolution of both the Real Street and Pure Street classes. The names and faces will be familiar, but the performance will be considerable quicker—1.5 to 2 seconds, to be exact!
Make sure you have your spot in the stands when the Renegades arrive. Wheelie bars aren't allowed in the class, and at this power level, a 20-degree change in track temp can unexpectedly send an entire round of racers skyward and a dumpster full of bumper covers!
E.T: Brian Mitchell, 8.29 seconds
MPH: Brian Mitchell, 162.96 mph
• Brian “Mr. Wizard” Mitchell and his 310-cube '04 Cobra continued his legacy with as many championship rings as he has fingers on one hand. Consistency serves as the main ingredient in his winning recipe; the competition better hope he doesn't want another!
• After taking home the championship in '10, the Alton Clements took a year off, then returned with a vengeance, taking a pair of photo shoots in the winners' circle in his four visits.
• Bob Cook's slick Fox GT is always a strong contender. He walked away with a win at the season finalé, one of only three events he participated in last year.
No power adders here, just old-school nuts-and-bolts horsepower from ported heads, big camshafts, monster exhausts, and stratospheric rpm! There is no sweeter melody than the sounds of a small-block Ford wound up near 10,000 rpm just before a gearshift! These are the small-block Pro Stocks of the NMRA, the heinous Hot Street hooligans.
Packing a single Dominator carburetor, a cylinder head choice from the permissible list, mufflers, and stock or ladder-bar suspension as the only guideline, this all-motor horsepower class that will have no problem breaking into the low 8-second zone on 28.6x10.6-inch slicks. Especially since, for the first time in class history, wheelie bars are permitted. However, they cannot extend past the bumper, so you will probably never see them. Expect to see lots of wheels-up, bumper-dragging action!
E.T.: Robbie Blankenship, 8.38 seconds
MPH: Robbie Blankenship, 158.87 mph
• There's been a family feud brewing in the engine builders' class for the past several years—'08 champ Robby Blankenship's gorgeous blue '04 Cobra with a nasty 399-cube Roush engine and Kuntz & Company powerplants poster child Charlie Booze Jr., who has been winning championships in both the NMRA and NMCA for nearly 20 years. Robby went four for six in NMRA final rounds and three for five in NMCA competition, meeting Charlie on nine of those occasions! Similarly, Charlie went to every final in the NMRA, going three for seven and three for five in NMCA racing, where he captured the 2011 all-motor championship.
• Don't forget the old fox in the yellow Roush-powered '70 Maverick,Don Bowles.
Street-car racing has reached sick levels of performance and expense, so the NMRA and Ford Racing developed an affordable path called Coyote Stock.
The 412hp, 7,000-plus-rpm Coyote is one of the most potent powerplants to ever roll out of the Ford factory assembly line. It would be ludicrous not to introduce the powerplant to the popular heads-up racing division, especially in these times when speed freaks are searching for the most inexpensive way to feed their need for speed.
Ford Racing aficionados have stacked the deck by offering complete crate engine packages for right around the $7,000 mark, turnkey with wiring harness and computer included. Now any average Joe can order up a new Four-Valve Coyote crate engine from their favorite Ford Racing distributor, drop it in a mild streetcar or racecar chassis and go heads-up racing.