According to VanMeter, much of the credit for his car’s early success also should go to acknowledged turbo guru Steve Petty, who built the 449 cubic incher boosted by two 88 millimeter turbos that resides between the ‘Stang’s front frame rails.
“We hooked up with Steve at an NMRA race three or four years back and he and I have become real good friends. He does all my work and the plan is with this car that we’re going to run a lot of races together and we’re going to share data,” VanMeter said.
Petty, winner of the Orlando Outlaw 10.5 event for the second straight year with his own 2002 Mustang piloted by Tim Lynch, provided a lot of the initial set-up for VanMeter’s car. He also attended the car’s initial two outings to lend advice and support, as well as learn a few things to apply to his own machine.
“We can try different things in one car and apply it to the other if it works, so it’s kind of a two-car team,” VanMeter said. “We’ll cross paths and have to go up against each other at some of the races and when that happens it’ll be just like any two-car team where the best man wins on that day.
“It’s just a good opportunity to run two cars and gain a lot of information from twice as many laps under your belt in half the time. It’s working out good and Steve’s been a helluva’ big help with this car and is a big reason for the success we’ve had at the races we’ve been to so far.”
Also helping in the information-gathering realm is the car’s sophisticated Racepak data acquisition system.
“We just have a lot of hi-tech stuff on this car,” Matukas said. “Justin on our camera crew has a great camera that we can focus on the rear tires and we can download that camera to the actual Racepak data and watch the actual footage of the tire and keep it in sync with all the engine rpm and driveshaft data that we gathered. It’s an invaluable tool for tuning.”
