Let me start out by saying I DID NOT DO IT! I swear. And, despite a crazy deadline, the Wally’s World GTO made it to LSFest. It looked bitchin, sounded insanely pissed off, and it hauled ass. And it stops like you tied a chain to it too. Remember, with only weeks until Holley’s LS Fest in Bowling Green Kentucky the Wally’s World GTO project was launched. Plans included upgraded suspension, brakes, exhaust, engine, clutch, interior, safety equipment, a cool vinyl wrap, and new wheels and tires to round it all out. Well, unlike most project cars with insane deadlines, this one made it with each and every planned modification done and looking great. And then it was time to drive it. And drive it they did. I say they, because I never got my turn since Mike Norris broke it before I could get behind the wheel. Read on.

On Thursday afternoon before LSFest, Brian Lohnes and I rolled into Beech Bend Raceway Park and immediately went over to check out the Wally’s World GTO. It looked awesome in it’s new orange, black, and silver scheme thanks a a really cool wrap. Wally was beaming, as he told us all about how great it drove and how fast it was. He had already been out for some shakedown runs through the countryside and was loving it. For the weekend’s racing events Mike Norris, one of the esteemed builders of the car, was going to drive it as Wally had Operations duties to handle at LSFest since he and Jimi Day own FM3, the company that organizes LSFest with Holley.

He fired up the car so we could listen, I got in and played with the cool Hurst Shifter, and Wally went on and on about how well the Ridetech Tiger Cage turned out. Oh, and the Weld Wheels look amazing on this car. Great choice Wallyt. To say that the car turned out well would be an understatement, as you will see in more of the upcoming stories about all the parts going together.

We won’t tease you with that alone, so here are some shots of the car in action on the autocross where it performed admirably during the Friday and Saturday’s rounds of competition.

Unfortunately Saturday evening, when Mike took the car into the staging lanes for the drag race portion of the event, thing went horribly wrong. And not the kind of horribly wrong that ends up with cool carnage shots with fire and smoke and sparks. No, the kind of carnage that looks like a car pulling into the water box to do a burnout and then just not doing one. In fact, the starting line crew kept trying to tell him to smoke the tires. That wasn’t going to happen because when Mike had dumped the clutch in the water box to start his burnout this happened.

Yep that’s what it looks like when you break the pinion off in the case and it gets to decide where it wants to sit or not. Those teeth look that way because it decided it wanted to be somewhere it shouldn’t have been. Oooooppppsssss. Good job Mike. Well at least he found the weak point, which in all fairness was sort of a known quantity in these things. But, thanks to the guys at GForce Engineering a whole new, way stronger, rearend is going in the car as we speak and will be one of those cool updates we show you in the coming weeks.

Now for all you guys who though it had to be my fault, you owe us an apology. We did not break the car,  although we will admit that had we had the chance, we would have been the guys with our fists in the air claiming victory because of our ability to make pinions snap like twigs. Just sayin’.

Look for another update on the Wally’s World GTO coming early next week as we put the Whoa in stopping thanks to the guys at Wilwood. After all, this big 4000 pig also needs some way to stop good now that it has all these ponies to push it forward. Stay tuned.