Musclepalooza IX: the action on the strip and the show field

F.A.S.T. racer, in repose

I always take a couple thousand photos at Musclepalooza, partly because I have diarrhea of the shutter finger, but mostly because there’s so much happening at the event. You have the show field, the drag race action, the staging lanes, the F.A.S.T. guys, the awards ceremony for the show cars. You even have the go-karts for a little sideshow. And even with a couple thousand photos – I’ve culled out a dozen or so here – you only get a small slice of the total action.

William and Mary Lou Valentine came up from Somers, Connecticut, with their 1971 Corvette Can-Am GT

This A-body Mopar, with its taped-over headlamps, had more of a road-race look, but still ran hard on the dragstrip

Peter Cambrola, whose SC/360 and Rebel Machine appeared in the pages of Hemmings Muscle Machines, brought out his SC/Rambler for some tire frying

The owner of the shop where I came across the barn-find front-engine dragster brought out his El Camino

The staging lanes often looked like a car show unto itself

Quite a few Chrysler LX cars showed up, including this Challenger SRT-8 with some unique R/T-style side stripes we’ve not yet seen

The bumperless Spirit gang continues to grow. McGean said later that he saw more Spirits that day than he had seen since 1982

Stickers!

He ran in the 16s, if I recall correctly

Is this what you’d call an Alcohol Funny Car?

And finally, I love this photo, not just for the aesthetic quality, but for the story behind it. The guy in the Pro Mod Corvette broke right off the line, but look at the board behind him – he still got the win. In bracket racing, apparently a breakdown trumps a breakout.

Look for more Musclepalooza IX coverage in the August 2009 issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines.