Manny Alvarez is by no means new to driving, tuning, or even to the “Street Outlaws No Prep Kings” circuit, but this season, he was a rookie of sorts all over again, joining the series’ “Futures” (or Future Street Outlaws) category with a very striking and fan-favorite Shelby GT500 Mustang.

Alvarez, along with his brother Ozzie, owns and operates HPP Racing, a tuning and fabrication facility in Garland, Texas. The business was founded in 1999, out of the brothers’ shared love of high-performance cars and racing, particularly the blue-oval brand of automobiles. Manny has a long history in the sport, having competed in the early days of the BFGoodrich drag radial movement, up to X275 in the early and mid-2010s. In recent seasons, he’s been out of the driver’s seat, focusing on his business and the tuning and support side of racing. HPP has been involved with and done work ‘for the likes of Robin Roberts, Jerry “Monza” Johnston, Shawn Wilhoit, and James “Doc” Love in the “Street Outlaws” universe.

A deal with Tony Foulkes to trade an X275 small-tire car for Foulkes’ split-bumper Camaro big-tire car a handful of years back set Alvarez’s own no-prep racing venture in motion. After campaigning the car with Eric Bain at the wheel for a couple of seasons, Manny and friend Cody Sanders, along with Sanders’ wife, Janna, partnered to construct the 2020 year-model Shelby for “No Prep Kings” competition. 

“Cody told me he wanted me to build it, tune it, decide who I want to drive it, and we’re gonna’ go race it in No Prep Kings. At that point, I thought about it and I really wasn’t tuning on a bunch of people’s cars and I had time, and thought, ‘what if I want to drive it?’ I hadn’t known Cody long enough for him to have even seen me drive, because it had been a few years. He asked me if I even knew how to drive,” Manny shares with a laugh.

Sanders, a cattle rancher by trade, has taken to the sport with great interest, and the bond between not only he and Alvarez, but the entire HPP Racing group, is immediately evident.

“Cody raises cattle and loves racing, and cars, and helping people, so he decided to go on this venture and see what we could do together. A long time ago, one of his buddies’ sons, that now races professional motocross, Cody sponsored him and took him all over the country and bought him new bikes and gear. He took him to the pro level, and he’s kind of taken me on like his adopted child, in a way. He wants to be competitive and have the fastest car,” Manny tells.

Sanders and Alvarez began the project with a Tim McAmis Race Cars welded chassis kit, and with the help of Ricky Wilson, cut up an original, wrecked Mustang and fit the body panels on it. HPP did all the fabrication and the turbo system, using Vibrant Performance components, along with the paintwork, and leaned on support from Pro Mod racer Clyde Scott to help set up the suspension. The pair bought a carbon-fiber nose from Larry Jeffers Race Cars, and Francisco “Shorty” Quiroz cut the GT portion out and rebuilt it as a GT500 fascia. Earl Holder wired the whole car, and Kenneth Montoya did all of the welding and worked with Manny on the turbo kit fabrication. What began in the late fall of 2021 was nearly ready to race by late spring of 2022.

The car is powered by a Steve Morris Race Engines SMX (481X-style) big-block, with a big 140mm Hart’s turbocharger out front. The combination, Alvarez admits, comes at a bit of an initial disadvantage to the more mainstream and popular setups, but he and Sanders went that direction, both out of familiarity and a desire to prove a point.

“We’ve run this combination on all of our cars before, so I knew it well,” Manny says. “I also really want to win with that combo. I think it can win. A lot of people nowadays say that it can’t, because others haven’t been successful with it. So I want to prove the combo can win. It’s a little bit of a personal challenge for me. I know a Hemi with a ProCharger would probably be easier, but I have a point to prove. We know it’s competitive with other people, and I always try to get my grudge races with the guys that are high up in points, and some of them won’t even race me.”

A FuelTech FT600 manages the race car, which features an FTSpark ignition system and FuelTech injectors. A Rossler three-speed Turbo 400, Boninfante flexplate, and ProTorque converter transfer the power through a Dynamic Drivelines carbon-fiber driveshaft to a Merillat Race Cars 11-inch rearend housing with Quick Performance center section and gears. Ron Galbreath’s Afterworks shocks and struts are located all the way around.

Alvarez and Sanders debuted the Blue Angel at the Tulsa, Oklahoma race in August, and made all but one of the remaining eight races on the schedule. They won at the Rockingham, North Carolina stop, and made the final round three times and the semifinal at another.

Alvarez will take on a more prominent role in upcoming “Street Outlaws” programming, as he will serve as the captain of team Texas in the new season of “Street Outlaws: OKC” with a twin-turbo Ford F-150, and will also appear on the small-tire “Mega Cash Days,” driving a borrowed twin-turbo Camaro. That, he and Sanders hope, will segue into an opportunity to race their way into the “No Prep Kings” Invitational in 2023.

Judging by the interest the “Blue Angel” already has garnered in its short time, it will be a fan-favorite if or when it gets an opportunity to star in the starting lineup at “No Prep Kings.”

Alvarez (front center) and Sanders (front right) with their team.

“So many people come over and look all over the car. The thing we hear the most is, ‘I don’t like Fords, but this car is beautiful, or I don’t like Mustangs, but I love this thing.’ If anything, it made me realize how many people don’t like Fords and Mustangs,” he says with a laugh.