November 2020

Let’s be honest, we’ve all been suffering a little cabin fever lately. TorqTalk has been fortunate, however, to have been invited to some really cool events, even if they have had limited attendance and participants. One such event was the 2020 Street Car Super Nationals (SCSN), at the Las Vegas Strip. For the weekend of November 19-22, it was home to some of the world’s fastest street cars for the Pacific Street Car Association (PSCA) Street Car Super Nationals 16.

The PSCA has been around for many years providing a venue for some of the fastest street cars in the world. The term street car is pretty vague but most of the cars that race here had their origins on the street. Unlike pro drag racing, the PSCA welcomes pretty much every kind of car with a variety of power adders from NA to blown, injected behemoths.

Although nothing can compare to a 10,000 hp, nitro burning Top Fuel dragster, the SCSN’s top class, the Precision Turbo Pro Mod, comes pretty close. In my opinion, a 5-second Pro Mod is a lot more exiting to watch than any Top Fueler or Funny Car. I don’t want to see 16 similar looking cars make a pass down the track with almost identical times—even if they do make a lot of noise. I personally love seeing the diversity of the Pro Mod class, especially when they make mid-5 second passes at over 250 mph.

Pro Mod might be the king of the hill at the SCSN, but there are 15 other classes being contested with a few classes making as much power as Pro Mod. One class that was heavily contested was the Vortech Supercharger Outlaw 8.5. The main rule in this class is that every car must run an 8.5-inch wide tire. Imagine driving a 3000 hp chassis car with only two 8.5-inch tires to put all that power to the ground and still exceed 150 mph in the 1/8-mile.  Let’s just say, this was probably one of the wildest classes on the property. Another small-tire class was the Magna Fuel Outlaw 10.5 that saw some respectable 6-second passes.

For the first time in a long while, fans were allowed on-site to enjoy all the tire-smoking action. The Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LMVS) staff was there to make sure all the social distancing and face covering guidelines were being followed. Also on site were a handful of vendors providing track support with spare parts and swag.

With four lanes at their disposal, the SCSN staff kept the action rolling all day long with very little downtime. The LVMS crew kept each lane prepped to ensure maximum traction for every single pass. It’s probably a bold statement but the SCSN was by far one of the most action-packed events of the 2020 calendar. There was definitely a lot of tire smoking, engine banging, high revving action all weekend.  Once all the tire smoke had cleared the class winners were:

• Precision Turbo Pro Mod: Steven Summers: 5.628/264.39 mph (1/4 Mile)
• Vortech Superchargers Outlaw 8.5: Jason McLean: 4.723/153.35 mph  (1/8 Mile)
• MagnaFuel Outlaw 10.5: Gilly Bobby: 3.93/198.64 mph (1/8 Mile)
• Magna Fuel XDR: Sergio “FLACO” Gonzalez: 4:184/177.04 mph (1/8 mile)
• Ross Racing Pistons Limited 235: Wendy Gonzalez: 5.266 /135.20 mph (1/8 Mile)
• Mickey Thompson tires X275: John Urist: 4.299/169.83 mph (1/8 Mile)
• Nitrous Outlet Super Index: Mark Laeger: 9.60, 8.60 & 7.60 sec. Index
• Red Tide Canopies Triple Index: Joe Cox Jr.: 12.60, 11.60 & 10.60 Index
• MMR Open Comp: Kevin Stokesberry: 9.598/140.58 mph (1/4 Mile)
• Morrow Bros Mustang Maddness: Chris Holbrook
• Unlimited Prod Electronics: Peyton Januik
• Calvert Racing Non Electronics: Brandon Umberger
• Hughes Performance Big Tire No Time: Guiseppe Gentile
• Addiction Motorsport Limited Small Tire No Time: Brandon Kersey
• Holders’s AC Small Tire No Time: Marty Stinnett
• SMC Customs Pro 275 No Time: Flaco

With a class for just about any flavor of racecar plans are already in progress for the 17th Street Car Super Nationals to be held once again at The Strip in Las Vegas, November 18-21, 2021.

More info can be found at http://streetcarsupernationals.com/