Summer repairs for Kenny Markwich’s Mustang

After traveling with the Fun Ford circuit for several years in the mid late nineties Gary and Kenny Markwich, then just seventeen, decided to take some time off to regroup. First step was a job for Kenny, who went back to school and became a Paramedic/Firefighter, certainly a respectable career by any one’s standards. Once he was established in the field the racing urge began to take hold again and the rise in popularity of Drag Radial locally including the Orlando World Street Finals had Kenny eyeing the class, due in no small part to his friend and fellow racer Will Stevenson who already had a car under way.

The decision was made early on to abandon the nitrous combo they had used previously in Pro 5.0 for something more reliable. The team started out with a 403 cubic inch small block Ford using a single turbo from Precision, using the Yates heads and Hogan sheet metal intake they already had. Jason Fields at RJ Performance got the nod for the engine work, filling the block with a Lunati crank, BME aluminum rods and Venolia pistons. A steep learning curve would be in order for them in the swap to fuel injection, while they had been as fast as 8.09 @ 172 on the bottle, turbo’s were a new ball game.

When they started the build, radial cars were running in the 8’s at Orlando, by the time it was finished in 2006 tire technology had improved substantially and ET’s had dropped into the seven second zone. The original cage was done by The Race Car Factory and has been subsequently updated by Dan Neumann Race Cars in Ocala, Florida to 25.3 spec. Dan is also responsible for the piping and exhaust on the swap to a twin turbo set up performed in the short off season at the end of 2009.

Since the swap to twins the performance has really stepped up, running into the low 4.80’s at the last event. Kenny would like to thank Joe and Pete at Precision Turbo, Kevin Fiscus and Josh Klugger at Hurricane Performance and Steve Petty, whose help has been instrumental to the team.

This type of repair is a bit more tricky but should prove no real problem. The Father and son team plan to be back to racing in September at Sunshine where they trail Troy Pirez by just eight points, and of course at the Outlaw Radial Tire Championship finals on October 23rd at SGMP.

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