It certainly takes a little something extra to be a champion. In John McGowan's case, it took a year of testing, tuning, building, and finally racing, to become the king of NMRA's Pure Street class.
Based out of North Tonawanda, New York (a suburb of Buffalo), John's P&J Speed Shop [(716) 694-6363; www.pandjspeedshop.com] serves the local power hungry with all the hot horsepower they can handle. It also acts as John's base of action from which he and his better half, Stephanie, have campaigned the most dominant Pure Street Mustang during the last year.
John used to run IHRA's Top Sportsman and NHRA Super Gas, but he sold all the hardware to help finance a chassis dyno for the shop. Something funny began to happen when he opened his doors to local performance junkies. More and more of them were showing up in 5.0 and 4.6 Mustangs at some stage of buildup. And the products-which he still markets to Ford vehicles-were flying off the shelves.
Regarding the start of his Pure Street career, John says, "I wanted to go Pro 5.0 racing in the beginning. But that deal got out of hand real fast. There was a rules change that left the car on which we had started on the sidelines at best. Looking back, I'm glad it happened that way. I couldn't have afforded it." John chose Pure Street for many reasons, the most important being that he could afford to build the car, maintain it, and still get to all the races (a strong message to those of you considering the move to heads-up competition in a nationally run sanctioning body).
John was looking for a naturally aspirated class to show off his engine-building and chassis-tuning skills. He also wanted a class that his customers could relate to since these cars are basically built using mild street combinations surrounded by a hard-core drag-racing mindset. And he wanted a class where he could run a carburetor, since his background is with the nonfuelie set. He also enjoys taking out that extra aggression on the competition with a stick-shifted car, maximizing the fun factor involved in racing heads-up. John estimates that 90 percent of this class runs a stick. If you want to see some talented drivers, just watch these guys work their magic down the track.
By 2000, John had completed the car and competed in the Byron, Illinois, and Bowling Green, Kentucky, NMRA races. But 2001 was his season. He won the points, a handsome amount of prize money from the NMRA, and contingency cash from his various sponsors. He is quick to thank Stephanie, and to acknowledge the incredible support he gets from all the folks at Tremec, Will Baty at Centerforce, Bassani Exhaust systems, Rick Spurling at Air Flow Research, and Cliff Stephen, who helps prepare the car between races. Additional help comes from Hanlon Motorsports, Dyna-blade Air Tools, G-Force Transmis-sions, Jan-Cen Racing, KS Auto, and John's dad.
As John headed into the World Finals, he clung to a scant five-point lead over Gene Hindman. As it turned out, the championship was settled after a legendary burndown session in eliminations. John wasn't able to repeat as champion, but he did prove last season was no fluke.