Cleetus and Crew Burning the Midnight Oil to Get ‘Mullet’ and ‘McFlurry’ Ready for Sick Week
With a rigorous testing and racing schedule, along with hosting events at the Freedom Factory track, Cleetus and his crew have a lot on their plate.
After running mostly Rocky Mountain Race Week with Leroy the twin-turbocharged stick shift Corvette, Cleetus took a big step and had a 1986 Chevrolet El Camino with a twin-turbocharged LS engine known as ‘Mullet’ completed. That car/truck combo first hit the track in late May 2021, and clicked off a 7-second pass on only its third run.
Cleetus took Mullet to its first drag-and-drive, Midwest Drags, and won the Modified Power Adder class. Then Cleetus followed it up with Rocky Mountain Race Week, winning Ultimate Radial and finishing third overall.
Starting the 2022 season at Sick Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive, Cleetus wheeled Mullet in the Modified class to a 7.89 average to finish sixth in class. One month after Sick Week was complete, Mullet broke into the six-second zone for the first time during testing at Bradenton Motorsport Park.
Fast forward to mid-May, and Cleetus decided to make the switch from a LS engine, calling Steve Morris Engines for one of their big block Chevrolet builds and bigger 94-millimeter Precision turbochargers. That engine was put to the test on Midwest Drags, and Cleetus put down a six-second pass on the way to a win in the Unlimited class.
Sick Week 2023 Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive will feature hundreds of America’s fastest street cars, racing and cruising through Florida and southern Georgia.
Sick Ward tickets / Individual day spectator tickets are available here.
After winning on Rocky Mountain Race week for the second year in-a-row, Cleetus spent the second half of 2022 working on the tune up, trying to lower his personal-best elapsed time. At FL2K in October at Gainesville Raceway, the El Camino made a best pass of 6.54 at 221 mph in route to winning two class titles. Then Pete Harrell and Dr. Tune Em All combined to get Mullet even faster at the World Cup Finals in Maryland, clocking a 6.47 at 222 mph on a winning final round pass.
If Cleetus can duplicate these times on Sick Week next week, he could become the third car to average in the six-second range on a radial, and possibly reset the Modified class record.
With Mullet refreshed and ready to go for Sick Week, the efforts were shifted to a white Fox Mustang coupe known as ‘McFlurry.’ Cleetus picked up the four-cylinder Mustang from Doug Cook at Motion Raceworks, as well as one of Ford’s new Godzilla 7.3-liter engines, in 2022. After getting a few other cars in the fleet updated, including a revamp on Leroy, team fabricator Tye Braun jumped on the Mustang project in January 2023.
Tye added a SFI 25.5-spec roll cage, mini-tubs to fit the radial tires right, and a Tin Soldiers Race Cars 9-inch rear end.
Cleetus thought the Godzilla engine in as-delivered form wasn’t enough, so upgraded cylinder heads and camshaft were swapped, and a pair of Precision turbochargers in 76-millimeter sizing will add some more power to the mix. A Haltech R5 ECU will control the engine functions.
Can the car be completed in time to make registration day? Cleetus provides an update in his latest video:
- Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of KWS Images and Cleetus McFarland.