Chad McKee's Camaro

Words and photos by Dale Wilson
11/7/03

had McKee made a clean sweep of the Twin 20s bracket races at last year's B&M Million Dollar Race, and he nearly did the same this year (he won Friday's portion of the two races, a $20,000 payday, but lost Sunday's in the fourth round).

That's a pretty good feat considering that, No. 1, McKee's choice of race rides is not a tricked-up $60,000 dragster but a veteran '87 Camaro he and dad Jim bought 10 years ago; and No. 2, McKee also went a bunch of rounds at the 2002 B&M Million (imagine winning every race at the October Million weekend this past season except for the Thursday gamblers race!); and No. 3, McKee races, not with a $25,000 big block Chevy engine, but a stroked small block with a single carburetor backed by a powerglide.

Now, we DO have to allow Chad one caveat -- his Camaro is somewhat of a lightweight, weighing in at 2,300 pounds with him in it. That's a fairly light fighting weight for any full chassis door car. It had to be -- the McKee family's Camaro was originally built for the ultra-tough Competition Eliminator.

McKee, of Milton, Tennessee, could very well have been running Comp Eliminator at the B&M Millions, held for the past two years at Memphis Motorsports Park -- his Camaro was bought from a man in Virginia who bought it from a man in Louisiana who had the car built by Pro Star Racing in New Jersey as a legal C/Altered. No wonder the McKee's 427-inch small block was such an easy fit into the Camaro. No wonder, too, that the engine/trans/rearend/chassis setup works so well together.

"That's all I've raced my whole life, small blocks," says Jim, the crew chief of the pair and a trucking dispatcher who also lives in Milton. "I'm used to them. I know what they'll do. This car just seems to like a small block Chevrolet engine." The McKee's engine was built by Mike's Speed Shop in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and it gets freshened up "whenever it needs to," says papa McKee. Meaning the 427 can go a lot of rounds each season and still bring the Camaro in on the 5.40-second elapsed time numbers.

They carry a spare, identical-to-the-first 427 small block in their well-outfitted enclosed trailer.