Before he was one of the Street Outlaws universe’s most beloved stars, veteran racer, and chassis builder Jeff Lutz was one of the leading forces of the drag-and-drive movement, battling year in and year out with Larry Larson for street car supremacy in his iconic 1957 Chevrolet and later, his “Mad Max” Pro Modified-style 1969 Camaro.

As his involvement with the Discovery Channel reality program evolved, his drag-and-drive efforts took a back seat. Lutz last officially contested Drag Week in 2016, a banner year in which he won the Unlimited and overall title and recorded what was — and remains to this day — the quickest five-day average for a drag-and-drive event in history at 6.191 seconds and an average speed of 240.01 mph. It was his second overall victory at the sport’s premiere drag-and-drive event. In the years since, he’s hung on to Mad Max, utilizing its 540 cubic inch big-block Chevrolet powerplant at times in his newer ’57 and Pontiac GTO in the Street Outlaws No Prep Kings series. Fans often ask him when or if he’s going to return to drag-and-drive competition, and unsure of his intentions and not willing to commit to it, he would always tell them “no.”

But the answer, he tells us, has for the last three years been not a matter of if, but when.

“I always told people no just to stop them from asking anymore, but it’s been on my mind for about three years,” Jeff says. “With my schedule with No Prep Kings and all of the filming, I could just never get it together. I wanted to switch this car to FuelTech … Jeffrey’s been bugging me to do that for years, and he finally got it all switched over and we just got it running. This car’s been sitting collecting dust since 2016. We’re working on the wheelie bars and we’re putting the new RC Components R5 rear wheels and the Impulse fronts on it. The car’s dirty as hell, but we’re dead-serious about coming back out.”

With the Street Outlaws franchise on hiatus from filming this winter and the No Prep Kings series in the midst of it’s offseason, Lutz and his son, Jeffrey, found themselves with a rare two full months of time on their hands — and that proved the perfect time to get Mad Max ready for its return.

The combination is virtually identical to the GTO he campaigns in No Prep Kings: 540 cubic inches, twin 88mm turbos, a Rossler Turbo 400, and FuelTech managing everything.

Jeffrey, who handles all of the tuning chores on his father’s cars, switched the car over to the FuelTech FT600 ECU, and the pair has been burning the midnight oil preparing the car for its grand return to Sick Week, which kicks off in two weeks in Orlando, Florida. Scott Murray will ride shotgun with Jeff in Mad Max, but Jeffrey won’t be far away, as he’ll be racing as well, in an LS-swapped pickup truck. “Jeffrey’s the brains behind this car, I just get to drive it,” Jeff says.

Lutz stunned the sport in 2015 when he clocked a booming, then-record-setting 6.05 to open Drag Week, but dropped out of competition with a fuel pump issue and didn’t make it to the second stop. He returned in 2016 on a mission, clocking a best run of 6.10 and a top speed of 243 mph on his way to a decisive victory.

One might assume that that elusive five-second run in competition that he never achieved would be the goal, but Lutz is more conservative and idealistic with his intentions for the week.

“A five doesn’t really matter to me at this point,” he says. “It’s been so long, I’m more nervous about finishing. Going fast is easy, making the trip is the hard part.”

Weeks after winning that Drag Week in 2016, Lutz took the car to Orlando and clocked a series of runs in the 5.80s, going as quick as 5.85. That mark for an all-out street car run stood for four years, until Tom Bailey recorded a 5.77 in 2020.

“What’s funny is that year that we won with the 6.19, we had it on the street just before that and we had a timing curve in it that I forgot all about. I couldn’t go fives to save my ass that year at Drag Week, and I was sitting here in the shop talking to Jeffrey one day and realized, ‘Oh my God, we forgot to take the timing curve out of the car.’ We took it out and went down to Orlando and never went any slower than 5.90.”

Sick Week 2024 will race through Orlando, Bradenton, and Gainesville, in Florida, as well as the South Georgia Motorsports Park, wrapping its sun-shiny tour up back in Orlando.