RACING
Super Stock
RACING
EUROPEAN RALLIES
In America, marketing the 1965 Mustang to the public took priority over racing. Overseas, however, the Mustang needed to earn respect by competing in European road rallies. When Ford built the earliest preproduction Mustangs in February 1964 for the New York World’s Fair and other promotional purposes, several of those first cars were shipped to Britain’s Alan Mann Racing for testing as rally cars.
Mann’s race team was uniquely suited to prepare Mustangs for the grueling, multiday European rally events. In 1962, Mann campaigned Ford Zephyrs and Cortinas, catching the attention of Ford’s Holman Moody race shop. For 1964, Mann landed the contract to race Falcons and Mustangs. Notably, Mann would enter eight Falcons at Monte Carlo, finishing first in class and second overall.
Mann also took delivery of six Mustang hardtops for rally preparation, which included replacing the original engines with 289s prepared by Holman Moody. Two of the cars entered Belgium’s 6,000-kilometer Liège-Sofia-Liège Rally in August 1964, representing the first time the Mustang saw serious competition. Unfortunately, both cars crashed.
The following month, Mann arrived in Lille, France, with a trio of red Mustang hardtops for the Touring class in the Tour de France Automobile rally, a seventeen-stage race that started in Lille and ran through the French towns of Reims, Le Mans, Monza, and Pau. At the end of the grueling ten-day competition, Mustang co-drivers Peter Procter and Andrew Cowan took the checkered flag for a first-place finish in class and eighth overall. It would go down in history as the first professional race win for Ford’s new Mustang.
RACING
SCCA B-PRODUCTION
When the Thunderbird abandoned its original two-seater configuration to become a four-seat luxury model in 1958, Ford no longer had direct competition for Chevrolet’s Corvette. While the Cobra stuck a bandage over the situation starting in 1962, Shelby American was not capable of building enough of its hybrid two-seaters to match Chevy’s production capabilities for the Corvette. With the 1965 Mustang, Ford recognized an opportunity to compete with Corvette by transforming the fastback into a “sports car” for Sports Car Club of America road racing.
Not surprisingly, Ford tasked Carroll Shelby with the job. Shelby called John Bishop, SCCA’s executive director, and learned that the Mustang would fit the sanctioning body’s definition of a sports car after removing the rear seat, installing larger brakes, improving the suspension, and increasing horsepower to at least 300. With those changes, the Mustang would be classified in the SCCA’s B-Production class, which included the Jaguar XKE, Sunbeam Tiger, Lotus Elan, and—most importantly—Corvette.
By January 1965, Shelby had the required one hundred two-seat GT350s built and ready for SCCA inspection. A number of those cars were competition models equipped with a race-prepared 289 High Performance engine, 32-gallon fuel tank, stripped interior, and a plexiglass rear window with a 2-inch opening at the top to vent air from inside the car.
In 1965, Shelby GT350s won the B-Production class in every SCCA region except one. At November’s American Road Race of Champions, which would determine the national champion, eight of the qualified fourteen entries were GT350s. Shelby driver Jerry Titus won the race, with Bob Johnson second in his GT350, to capture the B-Production national championship for Mustang.
RACING
TRANS-AM
The SCCA created the Trans-American Sedan Championship in 1966. There were two classes: Group I with under-2.0-liter engines for predominantly European cars and Group II for cars with over-2.0-liter (305-cubic-inch) engines, a class that was perfect for the emerging American pony car segment that included Mustang and Barracuda. Camaro and Firebird would join the fray in 1967, followed by Challenger, Barracuda, and Javelin in 1970. The Trans-Am glory years were 1966 to 1972, a time when manufacturers built special models, including Ford’s Boss 302 Mustang, to homologate engines and race parts.
Trans-Am rules required four seats, making the Shelby GT350 ineligible because it had been homologated as a two-seater. So Ford asked Shelby American to prepare a batch of 1966 Mustang hardtops modified to the GT350 competition specifications. These “Group II” Mustangs battled the Plymouth Barracudas and Dodge Darts throughout the 1966 season. Shelby driver Jerry Titus won the final race at Riverside to overtake Dodge and deliver the 1966 Trans-Am manufacturer’s championship to Ford.
Mustang would be a dominant force during Trans-Am’s first seven years, winning three manufacturer’s championships and finishing second in the other four seasons.
In 1967, Mustang won the championship in the hands of Shelby American, which campaigned a yellow “Terlingua” hardtop driven by Titus. After Penske-prepared Camaro Z/28 domination in 1968 and 1969, Mustang reclaimed the Trans-Am title in 1970 with Boss 302s prepared by Bud Moore Engineering and driven by Parnelli Jones and George Follmer.
Ford pulled out of racing following the 1970 season but returned to Trans-Am in the 1980s. In 1989, Ford captured the season championship with rookie driver Dorsey Schroeder winning five out of fifteen races in a Roush Mustang. The 1997 Trans-Am season was totally dominated by Roush Mustangs, which won all thirteen races, including eleven straight by driver Tommy Kendall.
RACING
FUNNY CAR
While Mustangs were racking up SCCA road-racing championships from 1965 to 1967, over at the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), a new class of altered-wheelbase drag cars was gaining popularity. By shifting the center of gravity rearward, more weight was placed on the rear tires for improved traction. By 1964, these ultra-quick and fan-favorite vehicles had front and rear axles moved forward, set-back fuel-injected engines, and long-nose fiberglass bodies, all of which combined for a strange-looking vehicle and the resulting “funny car” description. Over the years, they would evolve into today’s Top Fuel drag cars with one-piece, lift-up fiberglass bodies.
The Mustang joined the funny car movement in 1965 with a batch of Hi-Po fastbacks converted by Holman Moody for the NHRA’s Factory Experimental class. The following year, the A/FX Mustangs were purpose built with stretched frames and fiberglass bodies, with several distributed to Ford Drag Council members, including Gas Ronda, Hubert Platt, and Dick Brannan.
By 1969, funny car popularity among fans led to the creation of Funny Car classes in both the NHRA and American Hot Rod Association (AHRA). That year, Mickey Thompson led Ford’s Funny Car charge with a pair of flip-top Mach 1s built on dragster-style chassis and powered by SOHC 427s. Driver Danny Ongais would win ten of eleven national events.
Along with Top Fuel dragsters, Funny Cars evolved into a top draw for professional drag racing. In 1997, driver John Force switched from Pontiac to Ford and went on to win nine of his fifteen championships in Mustang-bodied funny cars. For 2018, Ford Performance announced a sponsorship for the Mustang funny car driven by Bob Tasca III.
RACING
PRODUCTION RACING
Over the years, Mustang has been put to the test by competing in race series that allowed limited modifications.
Steve Saleen brought Mustang to the forefront of Showroom Stock in the 1980s. In 1987, Saleen campaigned a two-car team with an impressive list of drivers that included Saleen himself, Rick Titus, Desire Wilson, and Lisa Caceres. Trailing Porsche by a few points heading into the 1987 season finale at Sebring, Wilson made a daring move to pass the leading Porsche on the last turn of the last lap, winning the race and securing both driver and manufacturer championships.
In 1995, Ford SVT produced a limited number of SVT Cobra Rs. During the 1996 race season, the 351-powered Mustangs took on the Firebirds in the IMSA Grand Sport class. The Steeda-prepared No. 20 Mustang driven by Boris Said and Shawn Hendricks nabbed the Cobra R’s first race victory. After a season-long battle with the Firebirds, the Cobra R teams came up one point short of taking the manufacturer’s championship.
By 1990, the Showroom Stock series had evolved into the World Challenge. In 1995, Saleen made news by forming the Saleen/Allen “RRR” Speedlab team with Tim Allen, the popular comedian and actor from the TV series Home Improvement. Saleen and Allen co-drove to win their first race at the end of the 1995 season, then went on to secure World Challenge manufacturer championships for Ford in 1996, 1997, and 1998.
Looking for a race heritage for the 2012 Boss 302 Mustang, Ford Racing supplied race-ready Boss 302S Mustangs for World Challenge and other road-racing series. During the first year of competition for the Boss 302S, driver Paul Brown nabbed five victories and three second-place finishes in the twelve races, dominating the season and nailing down the 2011 manufacturer’s championship for Ford.
RACING
5.0 DRAG RACING
Inexpensive, lightweight, fast from the factory, and easily modified with aftermarket speed parts, the 5.0-liter Mustang ruled US streets during the late 1980s and 1990s. Soon, red-light-to-red-light bragging rights weren’t enough, leading racers to sanctioned drag strips to prove their Mustang’s capability with time slips. Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords editor Steve Collison reported on his 13-second “Mean Mr. Mustang” project, while Super Ford put together an invitational race that pitted a variety of modified Mustangs—naturally aspirated, boosted with nitrous oxide, supercharged, and turbocharged—on the same track on the same day. The publicity spawned even more enthusiasm as builders/drivers such as Brian Wolfe, Gene Deputy, “Stormin’” Norman Gray, and Pete Misinsky became national heroes in their quest for more power and quicker elapsed times from their 5.0 Mustangs.
For Bill Alexander and Gary Carter, the timing couldn’t have been better when they founded their Fun Ford Weekend (FFW) in 1989 as a quarter-mile venue for Ford drag racers. FFW would soon create the first true classes for heads-up 5.0 drag racing, from grassroots categories to the wild, wheel-standing Pro 5.0. The popularity inspired the creation of the National Mustang Racers Association (NMRA) and the World Ford Challenge, designed as the “Super Bowl” of Mustang drag racing.
As Pro 5.0 racers found more power and speed through combinations of twin turbocharging and nitrous, leading to sub-9-second quarter-mile elapsed times at over 180 miles per hour, the sanctioning bodies began allowing wider rear slicks and tube-frame chassis setups in the interest of safety. After Ford’s switch to the 4.6 modular engine for the 1996 Mustang, the strictly 5.0 classes slowly disappeared as they evolved into Outlaw and Renegade categories.
GLOSSARY: RACING
B-Production: A popular SCCA road-racing class in the 1960s for production two-seat sports cars, including Shelby GT350s and Corvettes.
FR500CJ: The part number for a series of turn-key Mustang drag cars from Ford Racing Performance Parts. Also known as Cobra Jets, the CJ Mustangs came from Ford with a race-prepped supercharged engine, special drag racing suspension, 9-inch rear axle, and roll cage.
Funny Car: The description coined for full-bodied, altered-wheelbase drag cars in the 1960s, which evolved into today’s NHRA Funny Car class with supercharged, nitromethane-fueled Hemi engines and lift-off fiberglass or carbon-fiber bodies.
Homologation: By definition, “to approve or confirm officially.” In racing, most sanctioning bodies required that special equipment (engines, suspension components, spoilers, etc.) be available on production cars. Generally, a set number of cars (100, 500, 1,000, and so on) had to be built and sold to the public, resulting in Mustangs like the 1965 Shelby GT350 and 1969–70 Boss 302/429s.
Pro 5.0: The top class of 5.0-liter Mustang drag racing during the 1980s and 1990s. It evolved from grassroots street-racing activities, typically with supercharger, turbocharger, or nitrous-oxide power-adders.
Rally, Rallye (European): A type of road racing, popular in Europe in the 1960s, typically run in segments on public roads and highways, sometimes over the course of several days.
Trans-Am: Short for the SCCA’s Trans-American Sedan Championship series at race venues across North America. Created in 1966, Trans-Am originally incorporated modified production sedans, including pony cars like the Mustang, and evolved into purpose-built tube frame cars.
Super Stock: A drag-racing class for stock vehicles with approved modifications