Even before the well known STREET OUTLAWS reality television show made its debut on the Discovery Channel, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has had quite the reputation for having some of the most unique and fastest street cars in the nation. Strolling around the Midwestern city it’s not at all surprising to see a massive drag radial-equipped Mustang at a stop light or an aluminum wing-equipped vintage muscle car filling up at a gas station. We’re not sure what it is, but Oklahoma City has a thing for fast street cars. Recently, STREET/RACE Magazine had a chance to sit down with Blake Gordon, an avid OKC-based racer and owner of a 1,000-plus horsepower, supercharged GT500, and talk with him about his car, recent racing experiences, and thoughts on the fast-growing trend of roll racing.
Give us a brief rundown on your car – what modifications you’ve made and what was your purpose in building a 1,000-horsepower street car?
The car is a 2014 Ford Mustang GT500. When I purchased the car it had a hurt engine, so was the perfect starting platform. I have built many Mustangs for customers and have often been asked why I didn’t have one of my own. The answer was simple, I have watched how much money the friends/customers have given me over time to build theirs. Getting the car with hurt parts that would have been replaced anyways was the best possible situation for me. I really wanted to build a standing mile car – same idea as quarter-mile with going as fast as you can in a set distance, but time doesn’t matter – due to it not being as hard on drivetrain and chassis components.
After deciding where I wanted to go with the car, I got in touch with Michael Rauscher at L&M Engines and had him build me one of his engines since he has proven he can make them hold together for the mile. We decided to stick with the factory blower so it got sent out to Billet Pro Shop in Canada to be ported for a little extra power since we were already gonna be the underdog as we weren’t going with a huge aftermarket supercharger. I finished off the build by getting with Weir Racing and having them send me Injector Dynamics fuel injectors, Fore Innovations complete fuel system, American Racing headers and exhaust, and an ATI balancer. We went back to Billet Pro Shop for the lightweight pulleys and idler bracket to make sure we didn’t have any belt slip. I turned to MGW for the shifter that has kept the bone stock transmission alive. BMR Suspension has basically every part they make for a GT500 on the car, and makes the car so consistent. Qa1 coilovers and shocks all the way around with double adjustment to make sure it works in every style of racing we do.
The car spends most of its time on Weld Racing wheels with Mickey Thompson tires for the best traction possible. Safety was not over looked by installing a full 8-point roll cage, safety harnesses and a removable parachute mount with couple different parachutes specifically designed for the car for the various events we run by Bob Stroud at Stroud Safety. After putting the complete car together myself in the garage, I turned to Jon Lund Jr. at Lund Racing to tune the car remotely. On the first start up tune it ended up being safe and made 959-horsepower on its first full pull. We estimate that with the small upgrades that have been made that the car should be right around the 1,050-rear-whee-horsepower area now. The car has gone 221.5mph in the standing mile which is the second fastest supercharged Mustang ever in the mile, and taking on cars with much bigger superchargers.
How important is it to you that you keep your car a true street car that you can take for a drive anywhere?
I really have no interest in owning a car that I can’t jump in and take out on the street. It doesn’t exactly have to make a 100-mile road trip, but if I want to take one of my vehicles to dinner or go hang out with friends it better be able to do it. This car is very streetable and we drive it all over Oklahoma City as often as possible.
We recently bumped into you at the Texas Invitational – one of the biggest roll-races in the world – and then saw you a week later competing and ultimately winning in the RWD and King of the Bakery roll-racing classes at the Street Car Takeover in Noble, Oklahoma. You’re getting pretty serious about this roll-racing stuff. Thoughts?
The Texas Invitational was an absolute blast. It is insane to see the power those cars put to the ground and the speed they can reach in just 1500ft. Although we had some technical difficulties that kept us from making more than a couple passes, we still had a great time getting to watch the fastest street cars in the country battle head to head at the Texas Invitational.
We got over our technical difficulties and headed to Street Car Takeover this past weekend. Obviously, we go to every race with the hope to do well, but winning both classes never even crossed my mind. Street Car Takeover does an amazing job of consistently attracting some of the fastest cars in the area, and this event was no different. I didn’t think it out very well, though – the whole entering two-classes thing, as the elimination rounds were back-to-back. Luckily, I had my amazing fiancé Lauren and good friend Kong there to help in the pits and get the car ready between rounds.
I would make a pass, get back to the pits and they would be waiting on me – ready to change out the water and ice in the intercooler while I packed the parachute. There wasn’t a lot of time for cooling the car down due to the rapid-fire nature of the event. In the final of the RWD class we had to take on a lightweight Fox Body Mustang that had been completely ruined by putting a turbocharged LS-engine in it [laughs] and take the win with 100-percent Ford power. It felt good. Then we had to take on Robby Mcatee’s seriously-fast single-turbo C6 Corvette in the final of the King of the Bakery shootout and we were able to squeeze out the win. Pretty amazing weekend, to be honest. I don’t think any of us will be forgetting it anytime soon.
On the subject of the Texas Invitational and Street Car Takeover Roll Racing Classes, what are your thoughts on roll-racing?
I’ve become a huge fan of roll-racing due to the fact that you can have such completely different cars and builds, and still be competitive with each other. It is also much easier on the drivetrain and chassis, which keeps the costs of racing down. The head-to-head competition makes is so much fun and gives you something to push for and makes it enjoyable for spectators to come out and watch. The roll-racing cars are usually more of a street vehicle which makes it easier for “non-car enthusiasts” to relate to and still enjoy watching them race. Also gives your street racers a place to race safe and legally which is a win for everyone.
You mentioned the car has been 221.5mph in the standing mile, what does the car trap in half-mile and typical quarter-mile roll-race competitions?
Yes the car has been 221.5mph in the standing mile, which is still an amazing feat for me, personally. It has been 183mph in the half-mile with horrible traction issues due to the event location. As far as roll-racing classes, at least the ones that are around quarter-mile long, my fastest pass is 155mph. All of the speeds are still with the factory supercharger sitting on top of a built engine.
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