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Action Photos Courtesy: Dave Rocheleau, Angry Spider Photography
When a racer like Brian Wolfe decides it’s time to build a new car for a category, the rest of the class should be on notice that things are about to change — in a hurry.
That’s exactly what happened when the Pro 5.0 pioneer, former head of Ford Racing, and current Ford Motor Company Powertrain Engineering Director – Europe set his sights on the Milan Dragway All Motor class in 2013. The chassis, which originally belonged to your author and was a Race Pages Magazine project car called the “Bionic Banana”, had found a home in the corner of the Team Z Motorsports shop in Taylor, Michigan, after Team Z’s Dave Zimmerman purchased it back in 2011.
Zimmerman had plans for the car himself, but booming business growth forced those plans to be put on the back burner – until Wolfe called looking for a new car. A deal was struck, and the Banana found its way into the hands of the capable Team Z crew once again, as Wolfe had big plans to return himself to his former glory atop the racing world. It’s no longer the Bionic Banana as Wolfe has completely revamped the car from front to back, adding a new Lamborghini-sourced hue and dozens of upgrades and enhancements in an effort to place the car at the top of the heap in All Motor.
The car itself is a 1999 Mustang that features the Team Z-built 25.3 spec chassis and has been modified to be one of the sickest stock-suspension cars in the world. Since Wolfe is running the big-block engine, he needs to cross the scales north of 3,300 pounds. Wolfe was intentionally vague with the details of the engine program, but he did reveal that the Holbrook Racing Engines-built Boss Ford engine displaces 695 cubic inches through the use of an aftermarket aluminum engine block, Bryant crankshaft, aluminum connecting rods, and Diamond pistons. Holbrook also designed a custom-ground camshaft to control the valve timing events.
Left - The car as owned by your author. Right - The car on its first day of competition. Big difference!
Boss Hemi cylinder heads sit atop the engine sucking through a sheetmetal intake manifold. Wolfe also stepped into the 21st century with the use of electronic fuel injection, which is controlled by a Jason Lee/PTP Racing-tuned Big Stuff 3 engine management system. There’s trick stuff happening here; with a single 4500-style bolt pattern required for the single throttle body under the EFI rules, Wolfe selected one of Visner Engine Development‘s Big Dual throttle bodies. A nine-inch rearend receives the power through a Joel’s on Joy three-speed transmission and A1 torque converter. Gears are from Dewco, axles are from Strange Engineering, both front and rear suspension arrangements are considered ‘stock’. The crew consists of Wolfe’s wife Nancy, Tom Kline, Chris Hodyka, Larry Ferrin, and Paul Rodgers.
Those are the details, but what about the car’s performance, you ask — right? Well, in its very first event, the car debuted as the number-one qualifier with a stout 7.829 at 177.14 MPH, then repeated with a 7.831 in the first-round win over Todd Reiter’s ’55 Chevrolet before shaking the tires in a second round loss to Van Geibel. During the second round of qualifying, along with class standout Butch Kemp, Wolfe was part of the first side-by-side 7-second passes in the class.
Zimmerman says, “The car’s absolutely beautiful, and works phenomenally. How often do you see a brand-new car come out and be the number-one qualifier within two days at its first race?” The performance is a testament to the skills of the Team Z crew, and we have been waiting for Wolfe to reveal it at a race before we showed it to you. Now we’ve had the chance to interview him and talk about his plans, the car’s construction, and other fun stuff. Read on after the jump!
Dragzine: Why All Motor, of all the classes you could choose?
Brian Wolfe: As you may know I raced in the early days of Pro 5.0, and really loved the naturally aspirated racing, with our red ’86 GT being the first fuel injected car in the 11’s, 10’s and 9’s naturally aspirated in the very early 1990’s. I of course had to add nitrous to that combination to compete in Pro 5.0, but always loved the NA stuff. Fast forward to about 2008 when my wife and a longtime friend, Chris Hodyka, wanted to enter a car in Autorama. My wife has a very artistic side, and wanted to do something very cool, with “real flames” and also show off her art capability. I offered my black ’87 coupe as the project car, and knew the old 347 with the GT 40 intake and heads would not cut it for the car show, so we built a big small block with D3 heads and a custom intake. Living only six miles from Milan Dragway this seemed all to point to only one thing — Heads Up All Motor — and a chance to kind of re-live those early days of Pro 5.0. After running in the class in 2012 and part of 2013, it really seemed to me that if I wanted to be a top dog I needed to do a big block. I talked to Dave at Team Z Motorsports, who did a lot of the chassis work on the black ’87, and we decided it would be better to do a new car targeted at the class rules and make the change to a big block. I will say Butch Kemp has proved me wrong that you needed a big block to be one of the top dogs, he is really getting it done with this small block Ford.
DZ: How much of a challenge was it for you to oversee the car build when you’re not even in the country most of the time?
BW: You would think this would make things impossible, but Dave at Team Z Motorsports really built the complete car, including enlisting the help of Tom Frayer at High Voltage Automotive to do the wiring and his team to do the rest, even installing the motor, trans, third member, interior and arranging to get the car back and forth from the painter, Gary at Advance Custom Paint. Chris Holbrook at Holbrook Racing Engines had the motor done on schedule to support completion of the car as well as Joel at Joel’s on Joy for the transmission and center section.
DZ: Why not build a brand-new car from scratch?
BW: With the yellow car already started at Team Z and being a body I really liked, it was an easy starting point for this project.
DZ: Was the stability of Milan’s Heads Up program the reason you chose to build a car to race there?
BW: From my point of view Milan has the best All Motor class in the country; look at the diversity of cars and engine/transmission combinations that are competitive. If you look at this last race, the number one qualifier was a big block stock suspension car, number two was a small block ladder bar car. They have a great program and most of the time have more than sixteen cars trying to qualify.
DZ: Hitting your very first race and qualifying at the top of the field — how rewarding was it to know you’ve got a player right out of the gate?
BW: I still have to pinch myself to check that it really happened. But, when you think about it, the car did so well, not because of what I did, but because of those that really made it happen. First my wife Nancy, who never complained about one dime we were spending to build the car, and is just as excited about the car as I am. The largest part of making the car a reality was Team Z Motorsports; I have the very best chassis guy in the country building and tuning the chassis. The engine was built by Chris Holbrook who I believe everyone knows raced these motors in IHRA and was the IHRA Pro Stock champion a few years back. Joel at Joel’s on Joy got the transmission, converter and third member ready to rock. We had Jason Lee up here tuning the Big Stuff 3 from the first hit. I think Stevie Jackson said it best “Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance”, and when you have the very best working on your program, it should work!
