Pontiac Pavement Pounders Shootout: Part 1 Texas

Welcome to the 2003 Lone Star edition of the Pontiac Pavement Pounders series. Today we bring you Version 1.0 as our shootout extravaganza at the Texas Motorplex produced not one, but four groups of torque-twisting track terrors that will tread upon the pages of High Performance Pontiac magazine in the near future.

As one might expect of Texas in June, the sun was out in full force. Though not as bad as in past years, at times it raised the track temperatures to something that felt like the blast furnace at your local steel mill. Only hydration and sunblock got us through the day as we didn't have the hot rides to wring out on the quarter-mile like the participants did.

Lawrenceburg, Tennessee's Larry Anderson was slaughtering the time clocks with his Pontiac-powered 505ci, nitrous-sniffing '90 Trans Am, while Hugo, Oklahoma, native Shawn Pergande's LS1 rocket was ablaze with its custom paint scheme. Right off the street and onto the track were Norman, Oklahoma's Tom Ausdenmoore and his Solar Gold 403 Olds-equipped '79 T/A, and Randy Kuchinski, of Plano, Texas, whose 455-powered Cinnabar Red '80 Grand Prix was knocking on the 12-second door all day. And last but not least, Princeton, Louisiana, native Jeff Burian rode in from the road course with his 400-equipped '75 Trans Am.

Despite the Texas heat, elapsed times were impressive. Although the track surface was not quite optimal for ultimate hook, the Texas Motorplex crew did a good job at keeping it from getting greasy, which is a fairly common occurrence when baking in the summer sun. The Dallas Area Pontiac Association, as has been the case for the past few years, provided the participants and the organization needed to pull the whole thing off. Now on to the Pavement Pounders.

Owner Bio
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That's how the old saying goes and that's exactly what Larry Anderson did. Previously running a tube chassis '79 Trans Am to the tune of high-8-second passes, Larry realized that his car needed to lose some weight to run the with fast crowd. In order to shed some pounds, Larry moved over to this '90 Trans Am, which he purchased as a rolling chassis.

The newer body style was a welcomed addition to the racing program, but he also stepped up to an Indian Adventures big-bore block. This and a little help from the Blue bottle has propelled Larry to high 7s at nearly 180 mph. You'll find Anderson at just about all of the Pontiac events, competing with the big dogs and having fun with his pit crew, which consists of his sons Tyler and Kevin.

Owner Bio
Jeff Burian calls Princeton, Louisiana, home and there you'll find his '74 Firebird drag car and this '75 Trans Am. "I wasn't even looking for a car when I saw it, but it called out to me and the next thing you know," said Jeff talking about his bright red Bird.

Its motor was rebuilt to be competitive in road racing but even with a stout powerplant like that, care was taken not to go overboard as this is Jeff's daily driver. He's also not afraid to take it on the highway, as he drove some 480 miles round trip to come to our event, and he has plans to attend an open road race in Nebraska--a hefty 3,500-mile journey.

The "Iron Horse", as Jeff refers to it, features a lot of innovative parts like the custom leaf springs and the Ford Cleveland intake valves. Burning nothing but pump gas, the motor made a corrected 510 hp at 6,100 rpm and 480 ft-lb of torque at 4,900 on a Superflow 901 engine dynamometer.

Owner Bio
By 1978, the Grand Prix had lost its 400 Pontiac motivation, but that didn't stop Randy from building his GP the way it should have been built. "I bought it new in 1980 and it had the 265 Pontiac V-8 engine in it," said Randy. His friends in the car club convinced him to shoehorn a 455 in it, which later led to the hot-to-trot rebuild, which currently propels the Pontiac. With just 89,000 miles, the coupe's transformation from mundane to muscular began, and now Randy's Grand Prix can hold its own both on the track and on the street.

Owner Bio
Tom Ausdenmoore's father was a Pontiac factory rep from 1965-1979, and when Tom was 15, they ordered a Trans Am that was nearly identical to this one. Sadly, his father passed away before taking delivery of the Bird. The Pontiac was going to be Tom's first car, but without his father to keep an eye on him and his right foot, his mom thought it would be best not to buy it. "We all own these cars as a way of recapturing our youth," noted Tom, "this is mine."

Ausdenmoore's children have been involved in one way or another with the Solar Gold Bird. He used it to bring his son William home from the hospital in 1997, and his daughter Sara got behind the wheel for a few quarter-mile blasts at our shootout.

Owner Bio
After catching one of the two commercials that Pontiac created for its Ram Air Firebirds (arguably one of Pontiac's best ideas), Shawn headed on down to the local Pontiac dealer and picked up this '99 WS6 Trans Am.

In stock trim, the Bird bested Shawn's brother's SD-455 Bird at the track, which was a sign of things to come. After claiming victory, you would think that would be enough, and Shawn told himself that he would only throw an aftermarket airbox on the car, but things didn't stop there. "Arlington Motorsports had a Christmas special on head and cam packages so I got one of them," noted Shawn. After tuning, the Poncho has produced 410 hp and 396 ft-lb of torque at the rear wheels. Most recently, he had Twin City Collision in Texarkana add the Dupont Chromalusion flames to spice up the jet-black road rocket.

At The Track
Although the temperature topped off around 83 degrees, it felt much hotter. The barometer stayed pegged around 29.8 and the wind was gusting to 10 mph or less. When the sky became overcast on frequent occasions, the 50-60 percent humidity squeezed the moisture out of your pores, but who are we kidding? An 83-degree day in Ennis, Texas, in June could practically be considered a cold front. In past years we saw temps rise to 100 degrees or better, so we weren't complaining too much.

We came for hot Pontiacs and that's exactly what we got. The track didn't have the teeth of a sabertooth tiger, but it held good enough for even the fastest Pontiac to make a good showing. And the street tire-equipped crowd did really well.

Larry Anderson:
Amid the heat of Texas and the battle at the Pontiac Southern Nationals, Larry piloted his '90 T/A to an 8.05 run. For our shootout, he chose to run sans the giggle gas and still pounded the pavement with a best elapsed time of 8.56 seconds. "The track hooked better than I thought it would," said Larry. "They didn't seem to spend a lot of time on it but it was good. It's a very nice track." Anderson's elapsed times were very consistent, and launching harder to reduce the short times paid big dividends at the top end.

Jeff Burian:
With a tall 2.73:1 gear ratio in the '75 T/A, it's often hard to cut a decent 60-foot time. But the low first gear in the Richmond 5-speed should help. Jeff's best run of the day came in the morning when the air was slightly cooler, and the track had a bit more rubber for traction. Lowering the tire pressure consistently improved the short times, and Jeff managed to get down to a 13.02, but he was never able to duplicate his earlier 12.83 pass. And with 111 mph trap speeds, you know there are lower e.t.'s to be run, but let's not forget that this T/A's suspension is setup more for road courses than drag racing. "I think all of the cars with street tires were tearing up the rubber at the starting line, so I just tried to keep it to a controlled spin," noted Jeff.

Randy Kuchinski:
Randy's Pontiac-powered, red '80 Grand Prix was definitely something you don't see every day. On the track, the best performances were had with Marty Parker behind the wheel. "The track worked well for us," noted Randy, " but the times really dropped when Marty drove."

Tom Ausdenmoore:
It's a common perception that cars from the mid-to-late '70s were underpowered and overweight. While Tom's '79 T/A is quite portly, its warmed over Oldsmobile 403 powerplant propelled it to some respectable times.

"Considering the heat, I thought it ran pretty quick. I liked the relaxed atmosphere and being able to run as many times as you wanted." Tom made changes to the timing, and removed the air filter. His best two runs had more to do with cutting good 60-foot times than any of the other changes. "I think the best part was letting my daughter Sara drive. We loved it," said Tom.

Shawn Pergande:
A high-powered stick car on radial tires is not the most ideal combination for consistency, but no one told that to Shawn or his '99 LS1 Bird. His first three runs were near identical, which is even more amazing given the used up nature of his drag radials. "If I had the ET Streets that I ordered, I probably would have done better, but I'm still pleased with what I ran," said Shawn. The only tuning that Shawn did was changing tire pressure and shift points, and judging from his times and the weather conditions, his best time came earlier in the day when the air and the track surface were not as hot.

Conclusion
When the track wasn't being barraged with low elapsed times, the participants as well as the HPP staff stuffed their faces. As in years past, DAPA provided lunch and for the first time we had a sponsor for the food with Arriba Salsa getting us sustenance. Kadin Betts and Thom Reaves were our chefs du jour grilling burgers and hot dogs for everyone. Special thanks also to Randy Allen and Bob Cook of DAPA for organizing the event and to Saadallah El Jundi and Sewell Pontiac, who provided the HPP staff with a '04 Grand Prix GTP, a.k.a. the cooldown area. We'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the rain for finding earth elsewhere, thereby allowing for a great day of drag racing and general gearhead mania. Keep an eye out for the other 3 pavement pounding Pontiac shootouts that participated this weekend, as they too proved that the Pontiac hobby is alive and well and pretty darn fast, too.

Arriba Fire-Roasted Mexican...        read full caption Arriba Fire-Roasted Mexican Salsas and its parent company Riba Foods chipped in big time when it came to feeding our group at the track. David Dudley is both an HPP shootout alumnus with his early Bird pictured here and he is a representative for Riba foods. He's also a DAPA member and was able to swing a sponsorship deal that gave us a host of salsas and sauces to savor during our lunch break.

Sewell Pontiac of Dallas couldn't...        read full caption Sewell Pontiac of Dallas couldn't have hooked us up with a cooler ride for our weekend at the Pontiac Southern Nationals. This '04 Grand Prix GTP Comp G was just what the doctor ordered when it came to traveling in style. Getting acclimated to the car's new interior design left us hunting for the trunk release, experimenting with the tap shift and wishing it was ours to keep so that we could utilize its XM Satellite capabilities. Smooth as silk, the GTP's supercharged engine would have gotten us to the track in fine time if it weren't for the wonderful Texas signs that had us going in circles.