A Three-Way Test for Challenge Bragging Rights

Words And Photos: Jeff Smith

The whole point of owning a Pro Touring car is to show off your build skills. Outdoor car shows like the O’Reilly’s Street Machine Nationals in St. Paul, Minnesota offer the perfect opportunity to cruise around in a great state fairgrounds atmosphere, but sprinkling in a three-way test of Pro Touring mettle is even better. That’s what the O’Reilly Street Machine Nationals offered within the grounds of the Minnesota State fairgrounds. We tested horsepower, acceleration, braking, handling, and driver skill as part of the enthusiasm generated by the Borla Street Machine Challenge. We started by testing the horsepower potential on Powerhouse Dyno’s Lucas Oil Dyno Challenge, then punished tires on the Hotchkis Performance autocross, and finally tested driver skill with the Stop Box – a short, 150-foot straight shot drag race funneled into a small, one-car garage-sized cone box. Don’t be fooled by its short distance, this little contest that is far more difficult than it appears. Vehicle control is what it’s all about.

To make it fair while also attracting a broad diversity of cars, we split the Street Machine Challenge into three classes of Late Model, Muscle Car, and Corvette-Viper. With a 1982 year break for the Late Model class, that corralled all the ABS brake-equipped cars into one class, we also offered the Corvette and Viper guys their own sandbox just so they could beat up on each other as opposed to abusing the Late Model guys. Let’s dive into the competition starting with the Lucas Oil Dyno Challenge.

Lucas Oil Dyno Challenge

Talk to any gearhead and horsepower is most often the first query. Gary Ubert brought his inertia chassis dyno to the fairgrounds and we instantly pushed the Borla Challengers to see who could deliver big numbers. The format was simple enough, the car with the most horsepower was awarded the top points and power adders like turbochargers, superchargers, or nitrous are completely legal. Oddly, nobody came braced with nitrous, but there were plenty of turbo cars to kick the power numbers to a new high.

Brandon Brambilla’s ‘11 Camaro came in at the top of the big dog list in Late Model spooled up to 871 rwhp using a pair of low-mounted turbochargers on an otherwise stock LS3. This was good for the overall top number for the Challenge. In the Muscle Car, Justin Nall returned to St. Paul with his ’66 Chevelle equipped with a used truck 5.3L motor that made an impressive 722 rwhp on E85. Eric Hoekensen also used a pair of turbos to crank 623 rwhp with his summer daily driver ’63 Impala. Honorable mention goes to Ryan Buck’s ’63 Chevy II with a normally aspirated 412 hp and Mark Gruetzman’s ’64 Ford Galaxie that pumped out 406 hp from a stroked, big-block Ford.

We expected big numbers from Nick Abernathy’s supercharged LT4 direct-injected Corvette and it didn’t disappoint with 565 rwhp. In second in the ‘Vette class was Nate Smith with a respectable 451 rwhp. These numbers may seem tame compared to 1,000 rwhp numbers you read in the magazines all the time. But as you will see – big horsepower doesn’t guarantee big performance when it comes to driving events where controlling tire spin and managing four-digit power make those big numbers nearly as much of a burden as a benefit.

MUSCLE CAR CLASS

Position / Owner	HP / Points
1.    Justin Nall, ‘66 Chevelle	722 / 30
2.    Eric Hoekensen ‘63 Impala	623 / 20
3.    Ryan Buck ‘63 Chevy II	412 / 10
4.    Mark Gruetzman, ’64 Galaxie	406
5.    Mark Billig, ’68 Camaro	394
6.    Andrew Chenoweth, ’70 Challenger	302
7.    Kurt Chenoweth, ’70 Challenger	302
8.    Garrett Carlson, C10 pickup	270
9.    Tom Webbe ’70 Chevelle	270

LATE MODEL CLASS

Position / Owner	HP / Points
1.    Brandon Brambilla, ’11 Camaro	871 / 30
2.    Caron Turnquist, ’03 Mustang Cobra	571 / 20
3.    Donald Froemming, ’98 Firebird	367 / 10
4.    Mike Proulx, ’86 Camaro	359
5.    Bill Irwin, ’00 Camaro	353
6.    Chris Green, ’99 S10 LS1	332
7.    Kerry Dubbleden, ’10 Camaro	322
8.    Clint Sova, ’05 Mustang	281
9.    Travis Frederick, ’93 Mustang	206
10. Joe Hawkins, ’02 Mustang	204
11. Justin Hirschuber, ’94 Mustang	168

CORVETTE VIPER CLASS

Position / Owner	HP / Points
1.    Nick Abernathy, 2015 Corvette	565 / 30
2.    Nate Smith, 1999 Corvette	451 / 20

Hotchkis Autocross

This year’s Borla Showdown included an impressive new twist with the move to brand new pavement at a larger parking lot that created the opportunity for a much longer and challenging course. John Hotchkis, Rob Byrd, Dan Weishaar and company took on the task of herding nearly 100 cars a day through a 40-second undulating course that demanded negotiating not just elevation changes but also the task of avoiding those 2-second penalty cones.

By the first laps on Saturday, it was obvious that Friday’s fresh pavement times would not stand. It took until Sunday to really see the result of the rubber laid down on the track when Ryan Buck put his ’63 Chevy II on the line with an amazing 40.996-second lap time. That is incredibly impressive when you realize that for a short time, this Chevy II, a little help from a TCI suspension and burdened with small tires could knock down a killer lap time like this. Only Nick Abernathy’s digitally-mastered 2015 Corvette bested Buck’s lap with a 40.136 that survived as quickest time of the weekend.

Among the most improved cars from previous years was Justin Nall’s ’66 Chevelle with its big turbo which made putting the power down very difficult. Despite that handicap, Justin nailed a respectable 43.10-second lap time that was good enough for Third place in the Muscle Car just behind Andrew Chenoweth’s 41.73-second push in the father-son team abusing their ’70 big-block-powered Challenger. Even Nick Billig’s 44-second pass in his newly-minted LS-powered ’68 Camaro would have been good enough to steal the top spot in the Late Model class as surprisingly, the newer cars struggled to approach the Muscle Car times.

Unlike rear wheel horsepower, autocross lap times have as much to do with driver skill as it is about the car. This is best illustrated by Justin Hirschuber’s taking fast time in the Late Model class with his under-powered Mustang. Despite producing the least amount of rear wheel horsepower of any car in the competition, Justin was able to pound out a strong enough lap time to best even Brandon Brambilla’s ground-pounding ’11 Camaro. But turbochargers and an expansive autocross course rarely work well together. So here’s evidence that even modest horsepower can be made to perform on an open autocross course in the hands of a good driver.

MUSCLE CAR CLASS

Position / Owner	Lap Time / Points
1.    Ryan Buck, ’63 Chevy II	40.996 / 30
2.    Andrew Chenoweth, ’70 Challenger	41.730 / 20
3.    Justin Nall, ’66 Chevelle	43.100 / 10
4.    Kurt Chenoweth, ’70 Challenger	43.660
5.    Nick Billig, ’68 Camaro	44.047
6.    Mark Gruetzman, ’64 Galaxie	46.769
7.    Garret Carlson, ‘69 C10 Pickup	49.365
8.    Tom Webbe, ’70 Chevelle	67.855

LATE MODEL CLASS

Position / Owner	Best Lap / Points
1.    Justin Hirschuber, ’94 Mustang	45.198 / 30
2.    Mike Proulx, ’86 Camaro	45.474 / 20
3.    Brandon Brambilla, ’11 Camaro	46.031 / 10
4.    Carson Turnquist, ’03 Mustang Cobra	46.218
5.    Donald Froemming, ’98 Firebird	46.644
6.    Clint Sova, ’05 Mustang	47.975
7.    Joe Hawkins, ’02 Mustang	48.086
8.    Kerry Dubbleden, ’10 Camaro	48.234
9.    Chris Green, ‘99 S-10	51.963
10. Travis Frederick, ’93 Mustang	52.643
11. Bill Irwin, ’00 Camaro	DNS

CORVETTE / VIPER CLASS

Position / Owner	Best Lap / Points
1.    Mike Abernathy, 2015 Corvette	40.136 / 30
2.    Nate Smith, 1999 Corvette	44.604 / 20

Stop Box

Think of Stop Box this way – “It may be slow, but it sure is difficult!” For our 2015 version, we added a bit more excitement to kick off the inaugural Borla Street Machine Challenge. Rather than single runs, we widened the Stop Box into two lanes for side-by-side action. The rules and the goal, however, remained the same. The idea is to accelerate from a dead stop and put the car into the Stop Box 150 feet away without blowing through the end of the box or mashing the cones on either side or the end of the box. This looks much easier than it really is and while most observers focus on the quick stop at the end, the real key to running a quick time is the launch.

An additional tweak called for the entire field to qualify both on Friday and Saturday. We then created an NHRA-style single elimination ladder to declare separate class winners for both days. These two then battled it out on Sunday morning for their class win with second place points awarded to the runner-up. The car with the overall quickest time either in qualifying or eliminations (who wasn’t in First or Second) would be awarded Third place points.

Friday’s participation was lighter than expected, but Ryan Buck went on to Sunday’s final with a win in Muscle Car class over Andrew Chenoweth while Clint Sova’s Mustang defeated Chris Green’s S-10 for Late Model. Since we only had two cars for the Corvette-Viper class, we held them off until Sunday. For Saturday, the rest of the field belatedly realized they only had one last chance to get in and the younger Chenoweth defeated his dad for the Muscle Car class win to move on to Sunday. In Late Model, Joe Hawkins took on Mike Proulx and his ’86 IROC Camaro. While Mike made Joe work for it, Hawkins took the Saturday class win. This set the stage for Sunday’s shootout.

Our new rules made it a little more challenging for the finalists with a best three-out-of-five format for the Sunday final. In Muscle Car, Ryan Buck put on a clinic on how to drive a non-ABS car to quick times by defeating Andrew Chenoweth in three straight rounds with Buck’s final run an awesome 2.982-second time that was not equaled over the entire weekend by any car – Challenge car or not. In fact, Buck’s average for the three passes was an incredible 3.07 seconds – and remember – this car doesn’t have ABS. Few competitors ever approached those times. Not that the younger Chenoweth didn’t give it his all. In the last run, Andrew put down his best pass ever with a 3.174 in his losing effort.

Late Model was up next with Joe Hawkins bested Clint Sova in an all-Mustang final with Hawkins taking all three rounds. For the Corvettes the finish wasn’t much of a surprise. Nick Abernathy just put his ’15 ‘Vette into launch mode and easily outlasted Nate Smith’s efforts although Smith did win the first round. With Stop Box complete, it was time for us to tabulate the points to extrapolate a winner.

MUSCLE CAR CLASS

Position / Owner	Lap Time / Points
1.    Ryan Buck, ’63 Chevy II	2.982 / 30
2.    Andrew Chenoweth, ’70 Challenger	3.174 / 20
3.    Kurt Chenoweth, ’70 Challenger	3.140 / 10
4.     Justin Nall, ’66 Chevelle	3.177
5.    Nick Billig, ’68 Camaro	3.417
6.    Mark Gruetzman, ’64 Galaxie	3.655
7.    Garret Carlson, ’69 C10	DNS
8.    Tom Whebbe, ’70 Chevelle	DNS

LATE MODEL CLASS

Position / Owner	Lap Time / Points
1.    Joe Hawkins, ’03 Mustang	3.316 / 30
2.    Clint Sova, ’05 Mustang	3.580 / 20
3.    Donald Froemming, ’98 Firebird	3.135 / 10
4.    Brandon Brambilla, ’11 Camaro	3.267
5.    Carson Turnquist, ’03 Mustang	3.339
6.    Justin Hirschuber, ’94 Mustang	3.450
7.    Kerry Dubbleden, ’10 Camaro	3.465
8.    Bill Irwin, ’00 Camaro	3.529
9.    Mike Proulx, ’86 Camaro	3.565
10. Travis Frederick, ’93 Mustang	3.631
11. Chris Green, ’99 S10	3.787

CORVETTE-VIPER CLASS

Position / Owner	Lap Time / Points
1.    Nick Abernathy, ’15 Corvette	3.165 / 30
2.    Nate Smith, ’99 Corvette	3.257 / 20

The Winners

The key to winning Street Machine Challenge is consistent performance. With points awarded to the top three finishers in each of the three performance categories, it becomes clear that you have to do well in all three to control the class. But if you dig a little deeper, it soon becomes apparent that if you do well in all three but do not win –you still have a shot if your competition only shines in one venue and underperforms in the other two. For the Muscle Car class, Ryan Buck’s Nova clearly had it his way. He not only commanded the Hotchkis autocross but also the Stop Box besting the hard charging Andrew Chenoweth. But Justin Nall made it a race by winning the Lucal Oil dyno challenge and then adding points with a third place finish in the autocross. That produced the first of two ties for overall position with Andrew Chenoweth and Nall both amassing 40 points. Our rules use horsepower as the tie breaker so the Chevelle’s big horsepower number awarded him second place over the Chenoweth Mopar. We expect we’ll see a much stronger and even quicker effort next year from this father-son team.

In the Late Model run-offs, Brandon Brambilla came out strong in his twin-turbocharged Camaro, knocking down the big horsepower number for the entire Challenge. While he was eliminated early in the Stop Box shootout, he was able to drive his way to a third place finish on the Hotchkis autocross which was enough to best the rest of the field with only 40 points. A great example of never give up was Justin Hirschuber, whose Mustang produced a mere 168 hp on the Lucas Oil chassis dyno but more than made up for it by besting everybody else on the autocross. This gave him enough points to tie with Joe “Mr. Enthusiasm” Hawkins for Second place overall, but Hawkins’ Mustang cranked out more horsepower which elevated him to second overall for a great podium finish.

The Corvette-Viper class never was really much of a contest since we only had two competitors. With a 2015 ZO6 Corvette with a supercharged direct-injected LT4 engine, Nick was a shoe-in although his competition was a strong but outclassed 1999 Corvette. The outcome was easy to predict. Nate Smith gave his friend Nick Abernathy a good run for the trophy, but Abernathy frankly never let up.

Overall, the event was an unqualified success. The only thing that could have made it better would have been even more entries. So if this sounds like the kind of event that is tailor-made for you and your machine, then there’s only one thing to do. Circle the dates of July 15-17, 2016 on your calendar and make sure your car is prepared. Your competition will certainly be ready.

MUSCLE CAR CLASS

Position/Owner	HP / Points	Autocross / Points	Stop Box / Points	Total Points
1.    Ryan Buck, ’63 Nova	412 / 20	40.996 / 30	2.982 / 30	80
2.    Justin Nall, ’66 Chevelle	722 / 30	43.100 / 10	3.177 / 0	40*
3.    Andrew Chenoweth, ’70 Dodge	302 / 0	41.730 / 20	3.174 / 20	40*

• Tie breakers for class position are determined by peak horsepower

LATE MODEL CLASS

Position/Owner	HP / Pts.	Autocross / Pts.	Stop Box / Pts.	Total
1.    Brandon Brambilla, ’11 Camaro	871 / 30	46.031 / 10	3.267 / 0	40
2.    Joe Hawkins, ’02 Mustang	204 / 0	48.086 / 0	3.316 /30	30*
3.    Justin Hirshuber	168 / 0	45.198 / 30	3.450 / 0	30*

• Tie breakers for class position are determined by peak horsepower

CORVETTE-VIPER CLASS

Position/Owner	HP / Points	Autocross / Points	Stop Box / Points	Total Points
1.     Nick Abernathy, ’15 Corvette	565 / 30	40.136 / 30	3.165 / 30	90
2.    Nate Smith, ’99 Corvette	451 /20	44.604 / 20	3.257 / 20s	60

Thanks

We’d like to acknowledge the help of Borla Performance who stepped up to sponsor the overall competition. John Hotchkis and his crew created an outstanding autocross while on the other side of the fairgrounds, Gary Ubert and his Powerhouse Dyno gang ran dozens of cars across the Lucas Oil Dyno Challenge and for the Stop Box, we could not have pulled this off without help from Doug Eisberg, Eric Rosenthal, and Eric Schmiege. These guys flew all the way from San Diego, California to man the Stop Box facility for all three days. Where would we be without you?

We’d also like to thank the Neon Sign Shack for donating cool time pieces for all three of our class winners.

Sources

Borla Performance Industries
borla.com

Hotchkis Performance
hotchkisperformance.com

Lucas Oil Products
lucasoil.com

Powerhouse Dyno
(218)766-1810