In just over two weeks, the new Ford Racing Cobra Jet will debut in competition at the NHRA Winternationals at Pomona. This is a bright spot in an otherwise dim period for Ford and all the domestic manufacturers. We’re going to be tracking the results that these cars lay down with a trained eye as an event win would be an epic coup for Ford.
There are going to be four cars in competition, all four are running in Stock. Two are stick shifts, and two are slush boxes. All four cars are owned by uber collector, and farmer, Brent Hajek. Driving the automatic equipped cars will be Jim Waldo, and Gary Stinnett. In the row boats will be John Calvert, and Jimmy Ronzello.
When the first Cobra Jets came out, at the 1968 Winters, Al Joniec drove his SS/E entry to the event win in Super Stock. The cast that Hajek has assembled to drive these cars, this time, is impressive. All four guys have been at this drag racing game a long while and, after class eliminations, Stock is essentially a bracket race. Guess what all four of those guys are incredibly good at doing. You guessed it, handicapped style racing.
The cars are powered by blown, 5.4L OHC engines and are factory rated at 425hp. These cars, known as FR500CJs can be purchased from Ford, but this year’s run of only 50 examples is sold out. Hajek bought 11. Ford is keeping the batch sizes small to keep demand up. The company does not want to have a glut of factory built race cars sitting somewhere, and with the way things are today, we can understand that. Frankly, it’s a miracle they saw this program through. We can’t wait to see the results.
