Hot Rod Drag Week is one of the most talked-about events on the drag racing calendar each season. Each year, contestants sit at their computers and prepare for the mad rush to sign up and be a part of the limited entry, week-long extravaganza known as Drag Week. Then, the dirty work begins of preparing high-horsepower cars for one of the most intense and grueling challenges in all of racing.

In previous years, Lutz wheeled the ’69 Camaro to numerous wins in Pro Modified competition.

One of the most well-known Drag Week competitors and the reigning champion in Unlimited, Jeff Lutz, is on the property at the Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Illinois today all ready to rock with his famous hot rods for another year. But, when the trailer door dropped and the wondering eyes looked inside, they didn’t see what they were expecting.

After a quiet offseason, Lutz has transformed his twin-turbocharged Pro Modified ’69 Chevrolet Camaro into an all-out, Drag Week Unlimited-legal, piece of amazing machinery. For a couple of seasons, Lutz campaigned this car in the NMCA Pro Modified ranks and other Pro Mod events, finding the 3-second range in the eighth-mile right out of the box in the 2013 season. In February of 2013, Lutz and PTP Racing dipped into the 5-second range in the quarter-mile with a 5.91 in an early season test session in Florida.

Now, the big question is on the table.

Can the Pat Musi-powered, twin-turbocharged ex-Pro Modified terror take over Drag Week and give Lutz the win two years running? Can the famed fabricator silence the critics and take a true Pro Modified race car, put it on the street, drive to five race tracks in five days and come out victorious? Last season’s champion has pulled out all the stops and in a video posted on Facebook earlier today, Lutz mentioned his goal of “going to all of the tracks and running in the fives.”

Ever seen a street car with wheelie bars and a trailer hitch?

After an in-depth conversation with Jeff, the car was converted to street legal trim fairly easily. Lutz fabbed up a separate set of wheelie bars with a trailer hitch and a 26-gallon fuel cell to house his street-legal fuel in a way that it doesn’t hamper his on-track performance with the extra weight of fuel. Lutz also shared another secret of his strip-to-street conversion, using an HEI distributor on a Mag drive paired with a BigStuff3 box with the pre-loaded tune to go directly to the street after dominating on the strip.

If anybody can do it, Jeff Lutz can, as he’s dedicated to making those dreams and goals reality. Stay tuned to Dragzine throughout the week to keep up with Lutz’ progress and his quest to be back-to-back champion at Drag Week.