For the past few months, HPP has shared the stories behind the drag-racing Pontiacs that participated in our Shootout at Virginia Motorsports Park. To update new readers of this series, HPP was invited by Jim Zeek of Chief Pontiac Productions and Virginia Motorsports Park (VMP) to use its NHRA-sanctioned track in Petersburg, Virginia, the day before the Fifth Annual Pontiacs in the Park event. In the final installment, we present to you two '69 Firebird race cars. Keep in mind that they were paired for this story but are not competing against one another for low e.t. They're together simply because we were intrigued by the fact that their individual combos are very different, yet they share the same body.
Marc King of Sunrise, Florida, has become well known in the South Florida racing communities with his '69 Firebird. It features a super-high-compression 455/462 engine, Turbo 400, and 4.33 gears. For our Shootout, Marc will compete on motor only; his 210hp shot of nitrous is disabled.
Brian Hedrick of Newark, Delaware, also has a '69 Firebird. It packs an IA-II block, a Turbo 400 trans, a 3.73-geared rear, and a ProCharger F-2 supercharger running 22 psi of boost.
Weather Report
The temperature at Virginia Motorsports Park was in the low-60s at our first reading and rose to 75.2 degrees by midafternoon. Barometric pressure was 30.24 hg, and the dew point was 46.4 degrees. The track sits at 98 feet above sea level, and density altitude ranged from 995 to 1,784, so we will use a factor of .9809 for e.t. and 1.0199 for mph for 1,700 feet to chart the theoretical best performance at sea level. This will be done on the best pass only, based on e.t.