Words And Photos: Jeff Smith

One of the best things about the Pomona Street Machine & Muscle Car Nationals is this event is more than just a power-parker’s paradise. At this Nationals, anyone who enters can also compete on the autocross, test power on the chassis dyno, and also try out the new Stop Box competition. With all three events at Pomona, the folks at Family Events asked me to stage a West Coast version of the Street Machine Challenge that brought out a great field of 16 cars for two classes in Late Model and Muscle Car.

The Street Machine Challenge (SMC) is a simple test of driver skill and car setup offering points for the top three finishers in each class. All three challenges are weighted equally with horsepower being the tie-breaker. This places a bit more emphasis on engine power mainly because the other two events do not require power for a car to be successful.

You would think that with 10 fifth-generation Camaros in Late Model that statistically you’d be safe to say Chevy had the upper hand. Right away it seemed that way when Jason Walker posted an impressive 726 RWHP with his 2011 supercharged Camaro. His closest competitor was Jason Flaherty’s 2014 Camaro that twisted 522 hp, but as is often the case with SMC, it wasn’t horsepower that carried the day.

Andrew Nier was one of only three Mustangs trying to hold off the Camaro onslaught and he did a masterful job by first duking it out with Don Gonzales’ 2010 Camaro for ownership of the autocross top spot. At the Stop Box, Rick Andrade and his 2015 Camaro put on a great battle for the quickest time with Nier just squeaking ahead with a 3.330-second shot versus Andrade’s 3.389. That’s five hundredths of a second! With Nier’s combined wins in Stop Box and the autocross, he took the Late Model class win.

We had surprisingly far fewer entries on the Muscle Car side with only three competitors, but what they lacked in numbers they more than made up for with great competition. Doug Norrdin’s ’65 GTO is a true Pontiac-powered A-body with tons of Global West parts and driver Tom Berry had his hands full with competition from Evan Dalley driving one of TCI’s ’63 Chevy II sprinters along with Casey Cronin’s sleeper ’72 Corvette.

Cronin quickly laid down a 33.802 autocross lap time that was among the quickest times of the entire weekend in the small-block, four-speed C3 Corvette. Dalley wheeled that little Nova to a very quick 34.39-second blast but then broke the Muncie four-speed on a subsequent lap, which ended his day before he could put the car on the chassis dyno. Berry spent some time on Sunday morning on the Stop Box and eventually bested Cronin’s time so the contest came down to the chassis dyno. Cronin suffered tuning issues on the dyno which allowed the GTO to power through to win the Muscle Car Class with the tie-breaking horsepower.

Overall the event was a great competition among some great cars and very talented drivers and we expect that next year the field will be even more crowded. So we’d suggest highlighting Pomona’s Street Machine Nationals 2017’s date as a must-do event. We’re getting our car ready now.