(Words and photos by Doug Gregory) – I will state again for the record that I am not a Mopar person. I’ve been playing with Chevy for a long time so its what I know, but I like virtually anything done well. For some strange reason I am drawn to Mopar muscle whenever we are at an event. Maybe it’s a fascination with something I don’t understand. Whatever my problem is, this feature is a result of it. We first met Omer Fowee at Thornhill Dragway back in September at the Battle of the Bluegrass event. The whole family went to pretty much enjoy the race and not have me running around snapping pictures and talking to folks all the time (my normal routine). We still managed to take some pictures and chat. My 14yr-old son and I noticed this sweet-looking, wheelie-launching Dodge Dart making passes and decided we wanted to find it in the pits to ask questions and get a few still photos. Before we took a short walk to find it the car spit out a u-joint and had to be pushed off the starting line. When we finally found the car it was already loaded up, but Omer was kind enough to chat with us as he vacuumed the moisture out of his alcohol-fed monster. We let him know we’d try to catch him another time to shoot some photos of it and he told us of a ’70 Coronet R/T he had sitting at home as well. Note that.

Fast-forward to November 22nd and our picture date with the cars and Omer. Omer warned us not to bring the Nova because the roads were slick. I was sure it would be okay and really wanted to drive the car since it hadn’t been out in a few weeks. Likely I should have listened. We hit several patches of black ice on our way up to Williamstown to make a stop at Lilly’s Auto Care to chat and pick up some goodies. We found out from Larry (Lilly) that some roads had even been closed and it was clear they were still out salting the roads trying to make it safe. So the car got a white coating of stuff on it. It washes.

We arrive at Omer’s and he is super happy to see us and more than a gracious host. He’s already got the Dart out of the trailer and the R/T out of the garage. After chatting a bit I’m looking around the garage and see all kinds of die-cast muscle cars covering the shelves. Most are Mopars, but Omer is an equal-opportunity muscle car guy like me – all of them have a place. Omer’s owned a bunch of different makes too – from an early pony mustang (first car) to a Buick Special to a handful of Road Runners. His most-recent Road Runner was a blue dragstrip beast of a 1970 vintage. Omer campaigned the car for 9 years before is was sold to a guy in Switzerland via a cold Racingjunk ad. There’s a picture included of how the car looks today in its new home across the pond. When Omer herded the barge it carried a 515-inch stroker in its round-tube, 4-linked chassis. The car was all steel and tipped the scales at 2,640lbs. It used a tried-and-true 727 trans with a 5,500 stall. Between the huge slicks spun a 4.10- geared Dana 60. This combo was good for 1.20 sixty-foots and regular 5.70s in the 1/8th mi. From some video I’ve seen it hiked the front tires up pretty good.

Omer has had some health problems and not long after one particularly-long stint in the hospital he went looking for another drag car and found this sweet, unassuming ’73 Dodge Dart. He’s had lots of fun with it and has had some pretty good success as well – such as his win on the last night of racing this season at Thornhill. The car sports a ’68 vintage 340 stroker with aluminum rods. Its got a .620 lift full- roller valve train. He runs it on alcohol in the warmer months through an 850cfm carb then switches to gas via a 1050 dominator when it turns a bit cooler. All the fuel is pushed upstream through a pair of Holley black pumps. If the alky ever gets some heat in it the CSI water pump and aluminum radiator are sure to keep that in check. The potent small-block is backed by a 727 and 5,500rpm converter sending torque to a 8 ¾ rear filled with 4.88 pro gears. All that twist gets sent to the track through gummy MT 29.5×12.5 ET Drags on some cool, throwback Centerlines. It regularly hefts the front tires a good bit pulling 1.4x 60ft and zips to the 1/4mi stripe in 10.88 seconds pushing 122mph. The car runs in box and no-box classes all while still retaining all its street-legal equipment. This is not some stripped-down lightweight. It came with an old-style stereo and a Kraco (remember those…?) equalizer/Amp combo straight out of the ‘80s. The fiberglass, lift-off Hemi-style hood is the only real weight-saving measure which also helps in the servicing arena. The car is bathed in 70s-80s era-correct stuff and really couldn’t be much cooler than it is. I’m thinking drag week daily-driver candidate.

The car that has been in the Fowee stable the longest is this pristine, numbers-matching ’70 Coronet R/T. Its one of only 109 said to leave the factory with a u-code, 833 four-speed. Omer picked this car up in 1989 and started the spit-and-polish routine right away. It was painted Rallye Red in 1995 and every piece of the under-carriage was removed, blasted, primed, painted and replaced as good as new or better. The car features its original 440-4 and still runs its stock bore after the rebuild. The only deviation from stock is a mild camshaft and a 3” exhaust system. The rear is a 3.54 gear Dana 60 with the Sure-Grip limited-slip. The interior is nearly 100% original to the car and it sports a lot of neat options including the in-dash 8-track tape player. The car rolls on Coker repop Goodyear Polyglas tires that never see the rain. Omer shows it and drives it, but it doesn’t get beat on too hard as this is one gem of a musclecar.

When it was time for us to go I asked Omer if he knew the owner of the recreated ‘Instant Karma’ Duster. We’d ran into him at Thornhill and I got a ton of details about the car, but somehow misplaced the owner’s name. Not only does Omer know him (and he owns a Road Runner too), but they are buddies and wrench each other’s cars. Additionally, they are friends with the folks who still own the original Instant Karma Duster. Add to that another pair of guys that have two Dusters (one of which was purchased from Omer) and it looks like I will be busy shooting pictures of Mopars for a while. I’ll need to take some Chevy pills to keep from getting infected with this stuff. Maybe its something in the water around here….