Veteran no-prep and street racer Scott Taylor is set to debut a brand-new 1969 Camaro this weekend at the Speed Promotions Racing season opener at Famoso Dragstrip in Bakersfield, California, where it made it to the final round. The car, built by Bad Habitz Fabrication, located just down the road from Taylor’s Petal, Mississippi home is called Little Goldie — a tribute to Taylor’s late father, who raced a gold ’67 Camaro under the same name in the 1980s. “Ever since my dad passed away, for years and years, it’s been on my mind to build a tribute car,” Taylor says. “Bad Habitz knocked it out of the park. It turned out exactly how we wanted it. And the cool thing is it looks like an absolute bracket car — if we weren’t pushing it around the pits with a car, you would think it was a bracket car.”

The build features a Pro Line Racing Hemi paired with a 141-1 ProCharger, receiving direction from a FuelTech FT600 ECU with Aeromotive fuel system and Billet Atomizer injectors, backed with an M&M transmission. Taylor and his team soft-launched the car last weekend at Gulfport Dragway in Mississippi to shake it down before loading up to head to the West coast. Instead, he found himself unexpectedly hoisting a big check and a winner’s trophy.

The Gulfport test session doubled as a Pro Modified event, and the Camaro made clean, competitive passes straight out of the box. “It made a three-second rip right out of the trailer. We didn’t touch the suspension all weekend from start to finish. Bad Habitz built us such a great car,” Scott Taylor says. Adding to the sentimentality of Little Goldie’s first outing, the victory came at the very track Scott’s father won a track championship in the 1980s with his Camaro.

The car rolls on 18-inch-wide wheels from sponsor Race Star, and fits a 36-inch tire. Despite the loosening of rules in the Speed Promotions series — including no weight minimums and no engine restrictions — Taylor is confident in his ProCharger combination. “It may not have the outright horsepower of the high-overdrive screw blowers, but it’s consistent, and I think it can be done and I think we can win with it. The ProCharger is consistent, and week in and week out, I’ll pick a ProCharger every day,” he says.

Taylor plans to run all seven Speed Promotions points races this season, along with select small-tire events and possibly a Pro Modified show or two at year’s end, with this car if the performance is there to compete.

The popular Mississippian has created a formidable tuning duo with Triangle Speed Shop’s Daniel and Craig Pachar in recent seasons, propelling his 2021 Camaro to a pair of Street Outlaws No Prep Kings/No Prep Elite main-event victories last season and tying a career-high championship points finish of third.

With a fresh platform beneath him and support from his wife, Heather, and backing from Isky Cams, American Pride Golf Cart Services, Burromax, MTX Audio, Keith’s Superstores Filling Station & Country Store, and a host of other sponsors, Taylor sees this as a chance to chase a long-elusive title.

“We’ve been close before. We made a really good run at the championship last year — we had an O-ring issue at the finale that caused us to get some oil under the tires and we got loose in the middle of the track, and it was just enough to lose in the second round,” Taylor explains. “We had a very good road to the championship, and it just didn’t work out for us. But I’m hoping we can redeem ourselves this year and pick up a championship. We just need to be a little faster and a little more consistent. The championship is the whole goal.”