Ziff Hudson’s Awesome Zephyr Sets Single Turbo 275 Radial Record

The 2014 season is now underway, with the season-opening U.S. Street Nationals hitting the track at Bradenton Motorsports Park this past weekend with stellar performances from a number of competitors. One of those competitors, North Carolina’s Ziff Hudson, came loaded for bear in the Pro Drag Radial class. He qualified sixth in a tough field of fourteen competitors, running a strong 4.53 at 168 MPH during the qualifying sessions. But the pass in this video, a 4.47 at 170 MPH is his quickest to date, and is also the quickest on a 275 tire with a single turbocharger by anyone, anywhere.

Hudson’s badass Outlaw X-destined 1980 Mercury Zephyr relies on a 531 cubic-inch big-block Chevrolet engine from Pete Harrell at Harrell Engine & Dyno to go with the single 118mm turbocharger. 

“The engine is actually our old X275 nitrous engine from last year that Pete repurposed for the turbo. This is the fastest pass so far, but there’s still more left in the tuneup. I think that was the 23rd pass on the car with the turbo setup, and I think we can go mid-4.30’s with it. Kevin Mullins has been a big help – he helps me tune the car some,” says Hudson.

IMG_9485

The team was in Bradenton at the beginning of last week, working with Mickey Thompson Tires doing some tire testing, and decided to stick around to see how they could do at the race. “We were having some converter troubles, and Chris Tuten actually stopped at Torque Converter Services for me on his way down and brought me a new converter. We just jumped in that class to get some more test time. The .47 run was actually a pretty mild tuneup,” he explains.

Hudson tells us his performance wouldn’t be possible without the help of his sponsors, who include Torque Converter Services, Racecraft Inc., Mickey Thompson Tires & Wheels, Torque Converter Services, Dave at Proformance Transmissions, Stainless Works, and Todd Buckner at T&T Fabrication, who built the headers and exhaust. The team has plans to run all of the local events and anywhere else they can get to where they’ll fit in. From his North Carolina base, there are plenty of events Hudson can hit within a day or so, so we’ll expect to see much more of Ziff Hudson in 2014.

(Video by Hans Pierre Jr/FreeLifeFilms.com)

About the author

Jason Reiss

Jason draws on over 15 years of experience in the automotive publishing industry, and collaborates with many of the industry's movers and shakers to create compelling technical articles and high-quality race coverage.
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