Rocky Mountain Drag Week, like Hot Rod Drag Week, is a whole lot more than just elapsed times and multiple passes; vehicles must be able to drive from track to track and perform at least one pass per track. Plus, at Rocky Mountain, if you don’t arrive before 3:00 PM local time at each track, you’re automatically disqualified.
As a result, many drivers with major vehicle breakdowns are forced to pull out of the competition. But not the driver this 1955 Pontiac.
According to LSXTV, the car made a slow pass due to a part that caused it to run excessively lean, which caused the junkyard 6.0L LS2 V8 under its hood to destroy a piston. The search for a replacement piston proved fruitless, but the crew did the unthinkable and decided to hunt for an engine instead of simply calling it a week.
The team explained the situation to the crew at the track in the hopes of finding a cherry picker or forklift to help remove the Pontiac’s lifeless heart. Luckily, the staff proved extremely helpful and a forklift soon arrived.
The driver quickly found another junkyard engine, this time a smaller, 4.8L LSx V8, and somehow managed to install it in just four hours with the help of his pit crew, two thirteen-year-old kids.
Miraculously, the car managed to make the 330-mile trek in time for the race the next day at Kearney Raceway in Kearney, Nebraska and pulled a healthy a 9.30-second pass.
That, folks, is racing at its finest.
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