Will GM join the factory drag package wars?

Over the last couple of years, Detroit’s Big Three have staged what is well and truly a modern muscle car war that has brought performance back to the forefront for each manufacturer.  While the Mustang never went anywhere, it also didn’t any direct competition for much of the last decade.  Rumors were abound for several years concerning the return of the Camaro, and Chrysler sort of beat around the bush with their Charger and 300C before finally giving its diehard followers the car they wanted, the Challenger.

The great byproduct of this modern version of the classic muscle car battles for drag racers and drag racing fans has been the Big Three – or at least two of the three, thus far – returning to their roots with factory race cars that are purpose built for Stock and Super tock competition.  The Challenger Drag Pak has been a complete home run for Chrysler, and all indications are that the Cobra Jets have been much the same for Ford.  The question now is, will Chevrolet follow suit?

Anyone that has been paying attention to automotive and political headlines over the last year would be completely remiss if they didn’t consider that with GM’s financial troubles, a Camaro factory drag car probably isn’t anywhere near the top of their to-do list.  It may even keep them from ever entering that arena.

Over at the ClassRacer.com forums, talk has been going on since late 2009 amongst the Stock and Super Stock racers about interest in such a car and the verdict has been fairly positive.  The Z28 Camaro that is being widely rumored is said to have a supercharged LSA engine under the hood, which would bode well against the supercharged Cobra Jet and the HEMI Challenger. There are currently bodies-in-white being sold – clearly an indiction that GM wants racers to get their hands on them – but whether they go all out with a complete car remains to be seen.  However, the interest being shown from the racers is definitely a plus.  Like anything business is business, and GM won’t even think about building a factory race car if they don’t think they can sell them.