(Editor’s note: This originally ran back in 2010, but in honor of the March Meet coverage this week, I dug it up!) – I have a soft spot for 1964 Pontiac GTOs. My dad restored one when I was a little guy and drove the wheels off it while I was growing up, and now it sits in his garage while the Nova bracket car gets most of the attention. I’ve got lots of great memories of being pressed back in the seat when dad dropped the hammer on the 389.

Anyway, this series of photos was taken at Atco Dragway back in the 2003/2004 timeframe at a nostalgia race the track was hosting. There was a Nostalgia Super Stock class and this car was driven by a guy named Charlie Baesch.

This car is wickedly awesome. It’s powered by a 421ci Poncho motor that just sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard and it’s hooked to a stick box. The car was leaving very hard all day and when it came to the line on this particular pass I was able to get to the center of the track to claim my spot.

The cool thing about the photo of the car nearly vertical is that I was the only one who got it out of a bunch of people snapping photos (including legend Dave Milcarek). The other guys put their cameras down about the time I got the second snap. Then I followed the car and got the third as it tried to launch into low Earth orbit. This was before digital cameras were the order of the day (at least for broke guys like me), so I had to wait to get home and develop the film to see what I had.

Needless to say, I was stoked at the results.