All-Steel, Seven-Second, 180mph, Street-Driven Chevelle on Radials Is A Race Car’s Worst Nightmare
Corey Thompson’s beautiful Hot Rod-classed Chevrolet Chevelle is the kind of metal drag-and-drive was made for. It’s stunning from bumper to bumper, and simply astonishing to think that it will run sevens — quicker than plenty of purpose built race machines.
At the heart is a Dart LS SHP Pro block that was machined by Borowski Race Engines and assembled by Corey himself, with a Callies Magnum crank, Callies Ultra Billet rods, and Diamond LS2K pistons. There was plenty of work done on the top end too, as Corey explained.
“TEA ported the Hip’d TFS 245 Cathedral heads with their N20 exhaust port options,” he said. “The heads also have a solid roller option, so it has 1.550-inch PAC valve springs and Comp Ti retainers, Ferrea stainless intake and exhaust valves, and Crower stainless shaft rockers. It also sports a Crower solid roller cam specced by Louis Floquet, and Crower severe duty solid roller lifters with high pressure pin oiling.”
Corey personally designed and machined the billet intake lid on the BTR Equalizer intake. Twin Precision Gen 2 7675 turbos are in place, with 220lb Siemens Deka injectors squirting the gas.
Underneath the body, there are TRZ Motorsports upper and lower control arms all around, along with a nine-inch rear end and anti-roll bar. TRZ also handled the valving for the Afco front and rear DA shocks. All up it creates a street machine that has been 7.79 at 184mph and this year ran into the sevens for the first time in drag-and-drive trim.
“In May I drove the car up to Seattle, a 177-mile drive, for another heads-up race where I clicked off three four-second passes on the eighth-mile, then drove it back home,” Corey said. “I knew I was ready for Rocky Mountain Race Week after that. This was my third year and I was looking to finish a third time in a row, and win my class for a third year.”
Corey certainly achieved that, and then some. In fact, the Chevelle had the third quickest overall average for the entire event, with only Cleetus McFarland’s ‘Mullet’ El Camino and Jason Hurley’s ‘Meltdown’ Firebird — both race chassis cars — finishing quicker.
“Day three was the big one for me. I came this year able to run a much better fuel, Renegade Pro E85, which gave me the confidence to turn the power up like I would back home. Even though track prep was an issue and I had to soften up power a lot for the first two seconds, I was still able to knock out a 7.98/180mph pass at Bandimere. With the density altitude over 8000 feet, I was really proud of that.
“It’s a true all-steel, all-glass car that weighs 3790lb, all stock suspension, and sports a 3.25 rear gear on 275/60s on an eight-inch, non-bead lock wheel. It’s taken many years for me to marry the tune to suspension adjustments and dial it into the track conditions to get the heavy tank moving.”
According to Corey, doing lots of driving before the event is the key to reliability on the road, but even still he had to make some adjustments along the way at Rocky Mountain Race Week.
“My chute mount also does double duty as my hitch. On day two, I noticed the front of my trailer move up and down in a weird motion, but nothing seemed out of place. About 50 miles later I pulled over to reposition one of the suitcases on top of the trailer, and that’s when we saw the trailer hitch dangling near the ground. I have 45 degree gusset tubes that support the parachute bar for stability and these three bars are welded to the main cross bar under the car. It broke at all three welds and the only thing that kept the trailer from taking an off road excursion were the 45 degree gussets, which trapped the the hitch mount behind the bumper.
“Fortunately we were two miles from a town. I called a tire shop in town to see if they had a welder and they told me to call Big Springs Equipment. I then explained to the owner what happened and why I was passing through his town. After getting to his shop and having a quick discussion about my issue, he opened up his shop for me said I could use what ever I needed and left me to it. It was a great experience to have someone I didn’t know help me out and who then would not take any money from me.”
By Luke Nieuwhof. Photos by Povi Pullinen and Luke Nieuwhof. This article originally appeared in Issue 9/10 of Sick The Mag.
