World Ford Challenge - Racing To The Power Of X

Jon Huber split his time between the Open Comp ranks and Wild Street. Pulling double duty in two totally different classes with the same car required some tire swapping and hustling, but the Huber Performance crew got it done. The car ran low-9s in Wild Street, slightly off the recent 8.90 runs that the crew ran a few months before WFC X. Huber's ride runs a unique combination in the form of a turbocharged four-cylinder engine. He was also testing Spectre Performance's latest EFI engine-management system.

Damon Dais' '79 Indy Pace Car certainly loved its hometown of Indianapolis. The Stang featured a juiced-up 408ci combination that pushed the pace car to the low-nines. Dais finished as the runner-up in Wild Street.

Dwayne James of Hellion Power Systems debuted his new Street Outlaw car at WFC. It was built by Behind Bars Race Cars to compete on the NMRA Super Street Outlaw tour. The coupe showed off the company's racing turbocharger kit. James' best run of the weekend was a 7.82.

Simplicity best describes Frank Varella's '91 Mustang GT in the Wild Street class. A 331ci mill resides under the hood to which he added a turbocharger. That worked out to a best run of 9.03 at 150 mph in the final round of eliminations.

Don Burton removed a few pounds from his small-tire hot rod. The Street Outlaw racer qualified fourth with a 7.55 at 180 mph in Street Outlaw. He had the engine out of the car a few times to fix some problems but got it working properly by Sunday's eliminations. He lit the red light in the semifinals against Travis Franklin, which was disappointing because Burton had Franklin covered.

Wild Street veteran and noted Drag Radial racer Mile Keenan of New Mexico had some problems during Drag Radial qualifying. The team pulled in on Saturday morning and hustled to make the second qualifying round. The car proceeded to stand straight up on the bumper, came crashing down, blew out the headlight, and roughed up the bumper. What did Keenan do after that? He pedaled the car, got back on the throttle, and finished his run under WOT. Damage was minimal but entertaining nonetheless.

This demented '95 Stang belongs to Jim Mills and is powered by a BB&T 427 with a pair of Precision 88mm turbochargers. It features similar power to the Pro Mod 5.0 and Pro Outlaw twin turbo cars, but Mills runs this car on stock suspension and a pair of M/T Drag Radials. That means wild action, which keeps you on the edge of your seat. We've watched this car do some crazy stuff over the years, and Mills impressed us with 7.90 runs at WFC X. He broke in Round 2. The team is shooting for 200 mph on drag radial tires once the weather cools off and the proper track conditions are present.

"Fast street cars" has always been the motto of Lidio Iacobelli and his Alternative Auto shop. This year, he was on the property with an '07 Mustang GT that ran low-11s on 20-inch, non-drag radial tires and through an automatic transmission. Iacobelli has that type of combination dialed in as it leaves soft and then takes off like a rocket ship. He went all the way to the semifinals in Modular Street. This '07 features a Ford Racing Performance Parts/Whipple blower set at 17 psi, a whiff of methanol, the usual bolt-on parts, and a custom tune from Alternative Auto.

Travis Franklin's '00 Mustang GT has been through many different phases over the years. He settled on running FFW Street Renegade with his back-half chassis. Under the hood is a 417ci engine with Yates heads and a reverse-rotation ProCharger F3R blower. He normally runs a reducer sleeve to make the blower FFW legal, but he was allowed to remove it for WFC competition. Franklin ran a best of 7.67 at 188 mph in the second round and got lucky as Burton went red in the semifinals. He lost to Vincent in the final round when he smoked the tires.

Twin turbos are legal in Outlaw Drag Radial, and Corey Berry decided that was the way to go with his '03 Mustang as evident by the 7.76 qualifying time. The twins offer a ton of power, and Berry fought the proper tune-up all day Sunday, but he made his way into the finals and collected the runner-up money.

Variety runs rampant in the Wild Street ranks, and this is a great example. Canada's Brent Foster hauled a '62 Fairlane to Indy, complete with a ProCharger-blown, 377ci engine.