Despite its shoddy appearance — including a functional bottle opener screwed to the C-pillar — it’s easily one of the most popular race cars in the pits at any race. Beer Money’s legend was born on the set of Horsepower Wars Season 1, a reality show drag build-off where four teams had 10 days and a $10,000 budget to create the fastest car they could. “We all worked 12–14 hours a day, and poured our heart and soul into this,” driver Lyle Barnett says.

Beer Money earned its name and personality during those frantic 10 days. It was built on beer, bargain parts, and sheer willpower. Originally, it was powered by a 5.3L junkyard LS engine (an iron-block LM7) with a used 75mm turbo off a semi truck. The block was filled with Home Depot concrete for strength, and a switch panel was fabricated from a repurposed pencil box. Despite the slapdash nature, Yost and his crew applied every trick they knew. The Mustang’s Holley HP EFI system was the only standalone ECU in the competition – a strategic splurge that controlled fuel, spark, boost, and even the bump box for staging.

When the clock ran out on Horsepower Wars, Beer Money was the last car standing. The result: an 8.51 at 164 mph pass and a $10,000 prize, along with the rights to keep the car. Beer Money’s scrappy triumph made it a fan favorite almost overnight.

From Reality TV to Real-World Racing

Victory on the show was just the beginning for Beer Money. Netflix’s show “Fastest Car” came calling at about the same time, looking for sleeper hot rods to race supercars. At first, Barnett told them he didn’t have a car that fit the bill but, “If we win this show, I’ll have the perfect car”. Sure enough, after winning Horsepower Wars, Beer Money starred on the next season of Fastest Car. “That’s where Beer Money got most of its fame,” Barnett said of the Netflix appearance. Suddenly, the scruffy budget racer – still unwashed – was recognizable far beyond the hardcore drag racing crowd.

Back on the local scene, Beer Money was making a name for itself the old-fashioned way: winning at the track. Team Bigun didn’t leave the car in its Horsepower Wars trim for long. In the months after the show, Yost and company addressed the parts they’d compromised on due to budget. The stock-bottom-end LM7 was pulled and fortified: Harrell rebuilt the 5.3L with better internals – K1 crank, Molnar rods, Wiseco pistons – to handle more boost. A larger Precision 85/88 turbo replaced the junkyard unit, and the fuel system was fed a steady diet of VP Racing M1 methanol. Two of the most important pieces of the winning puzzle came from Davis Technologies. Beer Money got a Davis Technologies Profiler and VPS unit. Not everything changed; the heads and intake remained essentially the same, and the team even kept the trusty old TH400 transmission but did add a Greg Slack torque converter for better repeatability on the track.

By 2020, the once $10k-budget beater was winning big money in no-prep races across the Southeast. Barnett – a seasoned small-tire racer even before Beer Money – used the little Mustang to pick off win after win. For all its ragtag looks, Beer Money became a drag-strip bully in no-prep and street-style events where traction is scarce and driver skill matters as much as deep pockets. Barnett relished the role. “In general, we make more horsepower than we can use,” he explained of the 1,700+ horsepower setup, noting that on sketchy surfaces, managing power is key. “As long as the tire doesn’t spin, you can basically go as fast as you want to go,” he said, crediting tuner Pete Harrell’s wizardry in dialing the car.

 Broken Parts and a Beer Money Resurrection

Success in no-prep racing didn’t come without a price. Beer Money may have been winning, but it was still fundamentally a budget-built car being pushed to its limits. Eventually, things started to give. The original iron block broke and was replaced with a real-deal race engine constructed with an aluminum LS block. Likewise, the transmission was upgraded after a catastrophic failure. Also, the original doors were getting hard to open — which is never a good thing in a race car when you may need to get out fast –so they were replaced with lightweight fiberglass skins.

The last straw was when the factory Ford 8.8-inch rear end, which had been hanging on since the Horsepower Wars build, finally gave up enough under the strain of hard launches on unprepped surfaces. “I’m not sure how much money that old junkyard 8.8 won, but I bet I could about pay my house off with it,” Barnett jokes, emphasizing how many races (and payouts) they had survived with the stock rear axle. But after that failure, Beer Money was put into storage. Yost says with all the improvements required to keep winning, the Mustang had simply gotten too fast for its rollcage, and they didn’t want to risk Barnett’s safety.

That all changed when the crew decided they wanted to go Lil Gangsta racing. Now, if you haven’t heard, the Lil Gangsta class is exploding in popularity. It is no-time, 1/8-mile racing where all models and years of American vehicles are permitted, along with any engine and power adder you’d like to throw in the mix. It’s heads-up drag racing, but there is a 5.30 index, and to top it off, the scoreboards are turned off and no time slips are handed out. Fun, right? We think so too.

With a 5.30 breakout, Beer Money was easily back in its “safe to race” range. So Yost brought Beer Money into his Customs by Bigun race shop for a well-earned update. Really, it all boiled down to a new bulletproof Ford 9-inch rear end to replace the wounded 8.8. Thanks to Team Z Motorsports and Strange Engineering, the Mustang got a new fabricated housing and stout 35-spline axles – no more worrying if the next hard launch would scatter the diff across the track.

Yost also discovered while tearing out the old rear end that all those hard launches had practically destroyed the old stock torque boxes where the control arms mount to the chassis. So, as part of the install, Yost also welded in a set of Mag’s Fab Worx torque boxes and a TRZ Motorsports anti-roll bar.

So it wasn’t a complete rebuild of the old four-eyed Mustang, but it was definitely enough. The very first outing after the rebuild proved the new Beer Money setup was on point. The crew hauled Beer Money to Shadyside (NC) Dragway, and Barnett promptly put Beer Money back in the winner’s circle. Any worries that the time away racing NHRA Pro Mods and other classes had dulled Barnett’s connection to the Mustang were laid to rest as he consistently nailed the lights and clicked off consistent passes thanks to tuner Pete Harrell’s tuning. Yost’s careful resurrection had worked, Beer Money was back, ready to continue its unlikely reign.

Beer Money may have started as a one-off TV project, but today it’s a living piece of drag racing folklore. Hardcore fans see it as the embodiment of why they love the sport: ingenuity over checkbook and passion over polish. It’s been blown up, patched up, and now reborn with the help of friends, a few sponsors, and true believers. And, it’s worth noting, it’s still never been washed.