While wives, friends, and family often don't understand why we do it, performance Mustang freaks such as you and I live, breathe, and eat horsepower, e.t.'s, and dyno numbers. It's all we can do to put down our favorite car magazine and have a decent conversation during dinner. But that's who we are, and people in our close circle of friends and family have learned to accept it. We want to drive the baddest Mustang around, and we'll spend countless hours-and our kid's college fund-to achieve that dream. The thing is, once you have your combination dialed in and are making that 450-or-so horsepower, someone else comes around and tops you with 500 hp. Then it's back to more work on the car. It can be both fun and frustrating.
What we want to do in these pages is give a bit of notoriety to those who have worked so hard seeing their project dream to reality. We're sure as you and your buddies read this article, there will be lots of comments-so-and-so has a nicer paint job, what's-his-name has a better interior, whatchamacallit has more horsepower. These statements may be true, but you know what-we never saw those cars! If you don't enter the King of the Street with the willingness to drive or trailer to our testing location, then don't complain that your car is faster or has nicer paint. It all comes down to the owners who participated, and we believe we chose a good cross section of our readership.
This year's King of the Street competition had 11 participants-more than double the turnout last year. Instead of scheduling the competition the same weekend as the NMRA Finals (as we did last year) and killing ourselves with work, we moved the KOTS to coincide with our annual trek to Bristol, Tennessee, for the Year One Bristol Bash. The Year One people were instrumental in getting the Werx Motorsports portable-dyno crew to bring a second dyno for us to use (our sister magazine Car Craft and its Real Street Eliminator competition ran the same weekend). Year One also graciously offered two tickets to the Bristol Bash to each KOTS participant. Besides the beautiful countryside through which to take our participants' Mustangs for a spin, the Bristol Motor Speedway facility offered plenty of room for photography. With a race track available to us, we even offered our KOTS participants a run down the 1,320, which for some was their first time doing so in 30 years.
The 11 participants were culled from a list of approximately 30 entrants. The owners chosen are typical readers of this magazine, and they drive what we would expect most of our readers would like to. We saw dyno figures ranging from the mid 300s to more than 600 hp. There were Mustangs on the bottle, Mustangs that were supercharged, and Mustang that were stroked-a couple of them incorporate all three! Some had more suspension and brakes than pure horsepower, while others had enough "show" to go with the "go." We had Fox coupes, SN-95 convertibles, and even a New Edge (an '03 Cobra at that!). There were owners in attendance who worked for big-name auto shops, while others built their cars in their own garages. The age of the participants ranged from those in their early 20s to some AARP cardholders (and we don't mean Publisher Shiver). This great group of participants had a lot of fun and played well together, but unfortunately there could be only one winner. Here are the highlights.
Dewayne Stiles came from Buford, Georgia, knowing he was going to break his Mustang. How's that for a positive attitude! His '91 notch, which he custom painted himself, sports a Twisted Wedge-headed 383 stroker, topped off with a big old-school Holley carb and seasoned to taste with a serious 250hp shot of squeeze. Fighting head-gasket problems, Dewayne had buttoned up the motor the day before heading out to Bristol. With a best e.t. of 9.62 at 143 mph, he believed he could be a contender for KOTS, especially since he drives his car on the street several times a month.