Elevator Technician Fred Stickovich Hopes To Reach The Top Of The Pure Street Ranks
Every Mustang drag racer we know wants to go faster. Just look at all the racers who moved up a class or two for the '03 season. They want to push the envelope, taking the sum of their cars' parts and converting it into ultimate speed on the track-from a particular combination, that is. Mediocrity doesn't exist in the world of Mustang drag racing. No one goes down the track at three-quarters throttle. Keeping your foot in the water pump all the way to the traps is the name of the game in drag racing. Show us a complacent racer who lacks the motivation to go faster and we'll show you an example of first-round fodder.
NMRA Pure Street racer Fred Sticko- vich is one guy who never rests on his laurels. Mediocrity kept him out of racing for a few years, but he's back and ready to move up the Pure Street ranks.
Fred's bottom-floor beginning was with an '85 GT that he outfitted with a nitrous kit and a few other common bolt-ons. "Then most of my buddies that I run around with started buying '87-up fuel-injected Mustangs," he says. "Once I drove one, I was hooked." Fred realized that in mostly stock trim the fuel-injection system boasted improved throttle response over that of the '85's carbureted combination.
"I purchased the '89 LX that you see today," Fred says. "It started out black in color and I [added] the normal bolt-ons like nitrous, gears, wheels, etc." Fred regularly raced the car at tracks located near his hometown of Misha-waka, Indiana, including Norwalk and Morocco, Indiana. After racing the car for a while, Fred was ready for a color change, so he had friend Calvin Nelson at Denny's Automotive in Buchanan, Michigan, completely disassemble the car and apply DuPont '92 Ford Red.
To simplify the underhood area, Fred went back to carburetion-only to be disappointed in the car's performance. "[That was] after several machine shops swore it would run like crazy," Fred says. "Not the case. I took a couple years off from racing because the car was so slow I would be embarrassed to see what it would run." But a trip to the '99 World Ford Challenge in Joliet, Illinois, got Fred headed in the right direction once again. "I knew I wanted to compete in something like that," Fred says, "and that is where I picked up my first issue of the NMRA's Race Pages."
After having read just a couple Race Pages issues, Fred noticed the silver Renegade coupe of our boy Clair Stewart with SS Performance & Machining graphics on the hood. What's the big deal with that, you say? Well, SS Performance & Machining is in Rochester, Indiana-a convenient 40 minutes from Fred's house. "I called the phone number on Clair's hood and spoke with Shawn Schmal," Fred says. "After talking with Shawn, I realized he knew how to make my Mustang fly-especially after I read that Clair had just won the EFI Renegade class at the Michigan race."
Fred immediately went down to check out the shop and meet Shawn. "A week later, I was pulling my motor and heading to SS Performance & Machining," Fred says. Even though he was leaning toward Windsor power, he decided that building a Pure Street combination would be more within his budget. "Plus, I was able to reuse most of my remaining parts," he adds.
At his first NMRA race at the '01 Bowling Green finals, Fred ran consistent 11.60s. That's what he used to run on the juice, but then he discovered it was time to beef up the rear suspension and look for more traction. He added a Moser spool and 33-spline axles, Ford Racing Performance Parts 4.56 gears, C-clip eliminators, a Competition Engineering antiroll bar, HP Motorsport upper and lower control arms, and UPR spherical bushings. Fred made three out of seven NMRA races in 2002.