With that in mind I called up some good friends of mine, Mary and David Pozzi. Mary is a demon on the autocross course and has 11 Solo National championships under her belt. David is a farmer by day, but for fun he likes to compete in fender-to-fender road racing events. They’ve both been helpful with getting the car set up right and I knew they would squeeze every ounce of performance out of the ’68. I was to drive the 0-60-0 event and, much to my neighbors chagrin, had been practicing my hole shots in anticipation.

The Event

The two months before the event flew by, and before we knew it, the time had come to journey to Vegas. The Camaro was running—not great, but good enough and it seemed to smooth out more at wide-open-throttle. So, we loaded up our gear and drove it the nearly 300 miles east through the desert to Sin City. Driving the car did a few things. It gave us a chance to break in the new Centerforce light metal clutch and scuff up the fresh 17-inch Toyo R888 tires. It also gave us some bragging rights. Besides, if the car was incapable of driving to the event, so how could it be expcted to do well in the event?

On Saturday morning we caravanned with a group from pro-touring.com and lateral-g.net the 60-miles, through the mountains, from Vegas to the Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada. When we arrived in town it was dark and cold, so we filled up the car with gas, grabbed some coffee, and waited for the festivities to begin.

With the first timed track sessions set to start at 9:30, the morning was pretty frantic. There was a driver’s meeting to go over the rules and all the cars had to go through tech inspection and be judged for styling and build quality. At around 8:30 all of the cars got a chance to go out and drive around the 2.2-mile track and get to know it a bit. This was a good thing for us since David had never sat behind the wheel of our ’68 before.

I’m competent, but I get far too little practice to be really good. Besides, a wise man, Bret Voelkel, once told me that if you want your car to be really fast then you need to give it to someone that doesn’t care as much about it. While an owner is worried about going off track a driver is more concerned with setting up for the next corner and shaving seconds off the lap.

 Fresh off the SEMA floor James Shipka’s ’67 One Lap Camaro still smelled like wet paint. It was amazing that with only a few hundred miles on the clock he was beating it around the track. Our kind of guy! The ’67 is fitted with the best of the best in regards to performance parts including an LS7 engine, Three-link rear suspension, and ATS modified front subframe. Plus, it’s nice enough to win any car show. Transmission and brake problems haunted James throughout the day and kept him out of the running, but he had a blast and can’t wait to get the car sorted out and back on the track.

With our oil issues resolved David was eager to get back out on the track. So far he had turned in some of the fastest, and most consistent times of the day, but he thought he could do better. We sure weren’t going to argue with him.

If we didn’t have pictures nobody would’ve believed that this ride was actually flogged around the track. Winner of the GM Design Award at the ’08 SEMA show this ’71 Camaro was built by Jesse Greening of Greening Auto Company in Cullman, Alabama. Most people wouldn’t even think they drive it on and off the trailer, but these guys don’t coddle cars, they drive them! Fitted out with a DSE suspension and Bear brakes, the guys at Greening even managed to make the LS1 under the hood look pretty. With almost no miles on the brand new car they didn’t put down any stunning times, but they get a big thumbs-up for coming out and really pushing the high-end Camaro. To top it off, Jesse was one of the cars that came directly from the SEMA floor and had no advance notice of the event. If you want to see more visit www.greeningautocompany.com and look in their “projects” section.