Pontiac Heaven Drags & More VII Opens the Southwest Pontiac Show and Race Season With a Bang
My, how quickly a year passes. It seems like yesterday that HPP was heading out to Speedworld Motorplex near Phoenix to cover Steve Barcak's premier Southwestern Pontiac event. Last year the threat of rain kept attendance lower than usual, but this year, despite slow arrivals on the morning of April 2, both Pontiac Heaven Drags & More VII and Musclecar Heaven Drags & More 3 (the following day) enjoyed record attendance, confirming their mainstay status in the Southwest.
As you may imagine, there were quite few show cars to ogle and plenty of racing action to cover. HPP even put on a Pontiac Pavement Pounders shootout as part of Saturday's festivities. You can check out the shootout coverage in a future issue.
If you are not familiar with Pontiac Heaven Drags & More, it's for traditionally Pontiac-powered-only vehicles up to 1981. There are no late-model, corporate-powered Pontiacs allowed. The rules are broad enough, however, to allow non-Pontiac vehicles with transplanted pure-Pontiac motorvation to participate.
Pontiac Heaven draws racers and show cars from all over the Southwest, including many from Southern California. Racing is a huge component of this event, and though some competitors cited traction issues, others were pulling the front wheels and pointing arrow-headed noses to the sky on launch. Since this was bracket-style racing, consistency was key, and racers like Old Man Jim Taylor kept a close watch on the changing weather and track surface conditions. He was rewarded with a runner-up spot in Bracket 1. Taylor is also in our SoCal Shuffle shootout in this issue. In fact, many alumni of our California shootout series competed on the dragstrip at Pontiac Heaven, but competition on the show field was intense as well with some racers even participating in the show.
The Pontiac Heaven staff and sponsors judged the show, and this year the classes were streamlined to provide a better representation of the vehicles on the show field. Though there may be fewer Pontiacs than you are used to seeing at bigger national events like POCI, Pontiac Heaven still draws many quality originals, restored Pontiacs, modifieds, and weird stuff.
After a day of primping, polishing, and judging in the show area, the awards were presented to the car show winners by lining them all up on the racetrack. It was a great way for the crowd to actually see the cars that won rather than just gather around a tent to watch trophies get handed to the owners. This was also a nice touch for racetrack-based events, which are smaller than those where this system would possibly cause a huge traffic jam. Steve Barcak is very astute when it comes to formulating new ideas that will work well with his particular venue.
Part of handing out show trophies was presenting the Editor's Choice award for HPP. And, as you saw on the cover of the October '05 issue, Kurt Kenobbie's '66 LeMans was well deserving of the honor. With a powertrain that will blow the doors off plenty of street rats while cruising comfortably at highways speeds thanks to its overdrive trans, this LeMans makes an impression. A suspension, brake, and wheel/tire combo that forces many a late-model performer to run and hide just seals the deal.