Naturally-Aspirated Shootout - Natural Causes

Bill Fischer
Hazlet, NJ
'88 Coupe

It was a 1-2 sweep for the Fischer brothers at the N/A shootout, even though Bill's car had some interesting clutch problems throughout the day. Bill got stuck at work, so Dad had to drive the car to the track. Thanks to Mr. Fischer (pictured) for making the drive.

Bill's brother Eric did the racing duties in anticipation of some mid- to low-10-second slips. The best he was able to muster, though, was an easy (if you can call it that) 10.98 at a thundering 131 mph. While the trap speed indicates a car quicker than Eric's First-Place ride, the '88 coupe's clutch slipped badly.

"We have yet to figure out the cause of the problem, but the symptoms were that [the clutch] would slip while under full power," Eric says. "It's a brand-new clutch, so there's no reason for it to slip like it did. The only way I could get it to work was to slowly walk it off the line, and when I did that, it held through all four gears.

"On the first run, I left where we normally would with the car, at 4,800 rpm, and it proceeded to spin through the clutch in all of the gears. I talked to a couple of people who were there, Evan Smith included, and they all said to keep the clutch as cool as possible and to shorten up the burnout and such. I finally got it down pat when we ran the 10.98. I left at an idle and just walked the car off of the starting line. Since I was able to do so without heating up the clutch, I powershifted the rest of the way down track. That was key, because once I got the car off the line, I was able to apply full power."

Regardless of the problem, Bill's car was yet another example of how displacement is king when it comes to N/A motors. Holding the claim to the second-largest displacement engine at the shootout (a 410ci Windsor), the Tremec-backed mill made enough power that, if the clutch problems were nonexistent, should have pushed this flyweight Fox-body deep into the 10-second zone.