2007 Nitto Tire King of the Street - Battle For The Throne

Ray Orist

'03 Cobra
Wauconda, Illinois
'Horsepower: 4
Ride and Drive: 9
Engineering: 8
Drag Race: 4
Fit and Finish: 7
Popular Vote: 1
Total Score: 42.15

NMRA and Nitto Tire KOTS veteran Mark Magnuson came back this year with Ray Orist's '03 Cobra. When we first saw pictures of the car, we thought he was pulling the wool over our eyes by swapping a T56 into Ben Ripstein's Cobra, the car Mark competed with in last year's KOTS. He assured us that was not the case, and upon visual inspection we noticed differences besides the car being a stick instead of an automatic.

Just like Ben's Cobra, Ray's was subtle on the outside, but a sledgehammer when under boost. Before we get into that, let's go over how it scored in other areas. In the all-important Horsepower segment, on the first dyno pass Ray's Cobra possibly suffered from the same tire spin that hampered Ben's. On the second pass, not such spin occurred, enabling Ray's Cobra to make a corrected 688 hp, but this year even that number placed him in the bottom tier of the segment. He scored a 4 in that category, but Tech Editor Jones gave the car an 8 in Engineering, while Editor Turner wasn't so nice with a 7 in Fit and Finish. Mark was unable to garner many votes for the Cobra in the Popular Vote category, as Ray finished with a last-place finish in that category. Likewise, with a clutch that was rapidly going away, Mark was unable to put up a number in the Drag Race category, and he finished with a score of 4.

One category Ray's Cobra definitely did well in was the Ride and Drive segment. Next to Corey McComsey's Mach 1, Ray's was the easiest to drive, just like Ben's. Clutch pedal effort was light, which might have been a precursor to it going away for the Drag Race category. It featured fully operational A/C and cruise control, but it utilized a stock stereo. The car enjoyed a quiet street ride thanks to a relatively quiet exhaust system. Not only did the car boast a two-step, but it featured a boost controller setup to only allow 10 pounds of boost in First gear, then more boost in each successive gear. Not only that, but the sound from the blow-off valve was mechanical music to our ears.

To finish the Ride and Drive category on Ray's Cobra, everyone read this: Yours truly loves pistol-grip shifters, so when I saw Ray's Cobra with it attached to the six-speed, I couldn't wait to drive it. With a pistol grip in your hand one drives with anger, and this Cobra was equal to the task of going deceptively fast. Since it was so quiet, the easiest way to tell how fast you were going was to look out the side windows to see telephone poles flying by. For all this, Ray's Cobra scored an outstanding 9 in the Ride and Drive segment. Perhaps more power and popular votes in the box would've had the Cobra higher up in the finishing order, but we'll have to wait to see if Mark can get a car ready for this year's KOTS. Just make sure it's not blue, Mark.