Notes & Quotes from Orlando

Words and photos by Ian Tocher
10/24/05

he 13th annual World Street Nationals is in the books now, with Shannon Jenkins, Tim Lynch, Wade Hopkins, and John Schroeder each taking class wins at the most prestigious “street car” race in the country. With 260 total entries there were a lot of other stories at Orlando Speed World Dragway, though, from record-setting crowds to new car debuts to wild on-track action.

While staging his 2005 Mustang for the second Outlaw 10.5 qualifying round on Friday night, Joel Greathouse suffered an underhood fire later attributed by car owner Mark Van Meter to a transmission pressure line that touched the headers, burned through, and sprayed tranny fluid all over them. Van Meter also said his team tested a pair of Goodyear slicks in Saturday’s first session, but went back to tried-and-true Mickey Thompsons for the final qualifying round because they “were looking for a six-second pass.” Greathouse wound up 5th with a 7.063/208.57 effort and went out in the second round on raceday against eventual finalist Brian Carpenter.

With a 408 c.i., small-block Chevy boosted by a single 101 millimeter turbo under the hood of his ’64 four-door Rambler Classic, Brian Anderson had one of several true street cars competing at Orlando. Although trailered to the World Street Nats, Anderson said he drives the car at least once a week on the streets of his hometown in Warner Robbins, GA, and sometimes fills it with friends for long interstate runs to car shows. “It does it all,” he said proudly after qualifying 25th in Heavy Street with an 8.170-seconds pass at 172.87 mph. Earlier this year at Memphis, Anderson finished 7th of 49 entries in HOT ROD Magazine’s Pump Gas Drags for street-driven cars.

Marino Cintron made the long tow down from Philadelphia to debut a brand-new ’68 Camaro built by Cressman’s Race Cars in Westchester, PA. “Our qualifying runs were the first three passes on the car,” Cintron said, which made his number-three start with a 7.549 in Heavy Street all that much more impressive. Motivated by a fuel-injected 632 Chevy built by Long Island, NY’s David Kogan and featuring two stages of nitrous, the Camaro was “found in a Philly backyard,” but all that remains of the original is the roof and front cowl. Despite narrowly losing to John Schroeder in the semis, Cintron said he was “more than happy” with his result. “This was more of a test-and-tune for us than a race. We know there’s more in it, but we didn’t want to touch it because it was getting down the track,” he said. “We could’ve stepped it up, but we just wanted to put a footprint out there to show it could run the numbers.”