Kevin Mitchell Rebuilds After Crash At NMCA/NMRA Super Bowl In 2012

Almost three full years later, Mississippi’s Kevin Mitchell is ready to let the world know that he’s coming back with his 2002 Camaro — many things are different, including trading in the 33×10.5W bias-ply slicks for the competitive 315 Drag Radials.

After his nasty, fire-filled crash at the NMCA/NMRA Super Bowl of Street Legal Drag Racing in June 2012, Mitchell was unsure of rebuilding. He turned his attention to all of the shop cars at Southern Speed Racing in Tupelo, Mississippi, where Kevin works as shop manager. In the meantime, the Camaro sat at his home in the Mitchell Motorsports garage as Kevin pondered his return to competition.

As Kevin and his father, Randy, cut the mangled body off the chassis, they uncovered minimal damage to the main bars of the chassis. Kevin took many days and weeks to plan out this rebuild before going any further. Over the past two years, Mitchell has worked on the Camaro in the back room of the shop at Southern Speed on his days off and weekends away from the track with customer cars. We’ve had the pleasure of seeing this build come together over the months and there isn’t one detail left unturned.

Kevin built the car to meet SFI-25.2 standards and features a double framerail chassis to withstand all the horsepower this team plans to throw at it. Lambert’s Auto Salvage donated the Camaro body shell for Mitchell Motorsports’ latest rebuild. While Kevin took his time rebuilding the chassis, making sure each weld was as nice as possible, the parts bolting onto the chassis are going to put it over the top. Sitting on all four corners are custom Santhuff shocks and struts, custom tuned in-house at Southern Speed Racing. One of the main things the crew wanted was a mean looking car, which all starts with ride height and stance.

SSR took their time to ensure that this car was sitting as low as possible and tucked around the Mickey Thompson 315 Drag Radials wrapping Weld V-Series wheels. Burkhart Chassis has helped with the build, sponsoring in a carbon fiber wing along with a smoking deal on a custom VFN carbon fiber hood.

A great chassis is definitely the beginning to a top tier car in any class — but the one thing that gets you to the top, is horsepower. Jeff Burns Racing Engines, based in Tupelo, MS, is currently assembling Kevin’s 481X powerplant, which will be pushing over 3,000 horsepower. Precision Turbo & Engine supplied Mitchell Motorsports with a set of twin 94mm turbochargers after his crash. Backing the engine is a Proformance Racing Transmissions Turbo 400, destined to propel this car deep into the low four-second range in Pro Drag Radial/Radial Wars/Radial vs. The World trim.

Currently, the car is at Booneville Collision, where Randy “El Rando” Mitchell, Kevin’s father, just completed painting the chassis, with the body panels up next. Stay tuned for more updates and pictures on this build here on Dragzine and on Southern Speed Racing’s Facebook page. The sport of Drag Radial racing is steadily growing and the team of Mitchell Motorsports is looking to make their presence known during the 2015 season.