Image credit: Scott McCabe

On the evening of July 7th, the spirits of Massachusetts-based Outlaw 10.5 runner Jason Enos were about as low as could be. During his semifinal round matchup with Scotty Guadagno at the Ultimate Outlaw Shootout Series event at Milan Dragway, Jason lost control of his jaw droppingly immaculate 1967 Mustang at the finish line, slamming into the guardrail at a high rate of speed. The incident caused extensive damage to the car, leaving what was once a show quality machine a pile of parts and pieces for he and his crew to survey.

The Mustang had been more than three long years in the making, and just weeks earlier had rolled out of the chassis shop for the first time and made it’s initial shakedown laps with impressive results. Jason admits following the crash that he could’ve easily walked away and gone fishing, but crew chief Jamie Miller simply wouldn’t allow it. And now, after a six-month and rather costly setback, Jason and his Mustang are back on the track and better than ever.

Image courtesy: DMCRacing.com

“Everything on the driver’s side of the car had to replaced: the quarters, the tail panels, the door, the lexan,” stated chassis builder Dennis MacPherson of DMC Racing. “We had to remake the wing and the wing sides and we also went with a different style tail light to try to lighten stuff up. The car had factory tail lights, reverse lights, and stuff like that, and so we eliminated a lot of that stuff and lightened it up. We also got a nose from SunCoast [Race Cars] and ended up cutting that in half and grafting one of our Fox body hoods into it for the bubble. We took the factory headlights and grille out and airbrushed that all in to lighten it up.”

Said Enos, “There were a lot of people that were involved in this thing, that’s for sure. A lot of the bodywork and custom fiberglass work was actually done by my uncle, Dennis Plogger. He and I both actually did a lot of it. And the whole thing is really a crazy story. When I crashed the car, my uncle was actually diagnosed with cancer, so he had a couple of months out of work and it was kind of therapy for him to get his mind off things. So he went down and actually repaired most of the bodywork on the car.”

Aside from the repairs to the body and chassis, many of the damaged components were upgraded or changed based on what was learned the first time around. Among those changes included enlarging of the exhaust from 4″ to 4-1/2″, the addition of a smaller 9″ Mark Williams housing to achieve a desired gear ratio, along with a new wishbone, new lexan, newer Santhuff rear shocks, a 2″ Jerry Bickel anti-roll bar, new four-link bars, and brakes. The very same Proline Race Engines-prepared, 600-inch, twin turbocharged mill remains the motivating source behind Enos’ incredible machine.

The nose of the has seen a slight decrease in ride height, while the rear has been raised minutely for tuning purposes.

“Jamie Miller doing all the setups on the car and we actually found something that really worked with the setup on the car and kind of changed it around, and I thought it actually made the car look better too. Before, it seemed like it always sat higher in the front and kind of sagged in the back,” Jason stated. “There were actually a lot of things on the car that I didn’t like, so when i crashed, I thought, well, I guess I can fix all the other crap I didn’t like. We did a lot of refining on it.”

Image credit: Scott McCabe

Enos and company wasted little time in putting the car in the beams once it rolled out of MacPherson’s shop in Halifax, MA, heading straight for the warmer climate of Florida for some eighth mile shakedown laps at Bradenton Motorsports Park. And in it’s second coming, Enos narrowly avoided another disastrous incident.

“On the very first hit down the racetrack, I thought we were going to crash it again. It had such a bad transmission explosion that it blew fluid everywhere. Four seconds into the runs I lifted to make sure it’d stop because everything was fresh and it was like a grenade going off in the car. Parts blew up so bad it actually dented the roof of the car. It was bad. And the car was sliding all around and I’m going, you’ve got to be kidding me. First pass after crashing the car and I feel like I’m going to crash it again. The entire windshield was covered in red transmission fluid; it was like a horror movie inside the car,” exclaimed Jason.

Image credit: Scott McCabe

A local shop was able to assists Enos and crew in replacing the damaged driveline components, including the construction of a brand new driveshaft in just a days time. On the very next pass, the car ripped off it’s best eighth mile effort to date with a 4.32. “The car was really soft and it was just kind of a  toned-down pass to get me behind the wheel again – to get the bugs worked out of me. To have the guys tell me it went a .32, I was just like ‘really?’ I never thought it was going to go that fast right off the bat.”

“Our goal is to get the thing into the 20’s. That’s been our personal goal was to get back and get it there and then go from there.” Look for Jason and crew and their stunning ’67 Mustang this season as they campaign throughout the Northeast at venues including Cecil County and Atco, along with all of the major Outlaw 10.5 shows across the country as time allows in their schedules.