John Hunkins, the editor of Popular Hot Rodding sent us a note the other day, letting us know that the application period for the Popular Hot Rodding Muscle Car of The Year competition is open and rolling along. When we saw the note we immediately thought that we should pass it on because it would be really bad ass to have a BangShift reader enter the deal and kick everyone’s tail all the way home! If you are not familiar with the competition, it requires a well built car that can really handle, has power to get out of its own way, and can pass a basic safety inspection. Pretty straight forward, right? The competition takes place during the month of July at an undisclosed location in the middle of Ohio. Ok, the location is National Trail Raceway in Columbus, but the whole undisclosed location sounds way cooler.
The competition consists of three events. There’s quarter mile drag racing, a speed stop challenge, and a high speed autocross. If that sounds like one hell of a lot of fun, that’s because it is. Do you have a hard running, great handling street machine that would be perfect for this contest? Think we should send in some photos of Buford T Justice and see if they laugh us out of the place? Always wanted to stack your car up against some other iron? This is the ticket. You need to read the release below for information and deadlines. If you get in, you have until July to get your junk tuned up and ready! DO IT!
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE WHOLE RELEASE AND THE DIRECTIONS TO APPLY TO BE A PART OF THE POPULAR HOT RODDING MUSCLE CAR OF THE YEAR SHOOTOUT!
We’re looking for a few good cars for our annual Muscle Car Of The Year competition, which will take place Monday, July 15, at our secret test location in central Ohio. The May 15 deadline to get your car to us for consideration is rapidly approaching, so if you’ve got a serious handling muscle car, now’s the time to tell us about it. Here’s some details: You’ll have the opportunity to strut your stuff in front of our cameras in three test regimes: the drag strip, the speed-stop challenge, and a high-speed autocross. The car with the smallest combined elapsed time in all three events will be declared the Muscle Car Of The Year on the cover of our December 2013 issue—plus you’ll get a really cool one-of-a-kind custom embroidered winner’s jacket! If you’ve got a rear-wheel drive domestic muscle car that is well versed in all-around performance (translation: this is a car you drive hard and you’ve got some track miles under your belt), we’d like to hear from you!
This MCOTY casting call covers a wide selection of pro and home-built iron built at all budget levels; our selection process will take into account appearance, as well as how well you used your available resources. (Translation: You won’t be penalized if you aren’t rich.) All 20 competitors—win or lose—will be featured in our December 2013 issue. MCOTY is pretty wide open, and there are only a few rules. You must pass an NHRA safety
inspection (for a given car’s performance ability), and tires must have a UTQS treadwear rating of 180 or higher. There’s no cost to enter—all you have to do is send us a brief email with a rundown of your car’s equipment, a couple of good photos, and any questions you may have. Selected invitees will be contacted no later than Monday, June 17. Interested parties should email PHR editor Johnny Hunkins at [email protected] with the subject line: 2013 MCOTY.
I was in this last year. It was a ton of work and worth every moment to see the looks on the big boys’ faces when our rag-tag group made the fastest speed stop time. I rented a U-Haul car trailer while everybody else showed up with stacker trailers and hired hands.
You can do this.
It needs to be said that the other racers were very friendly and nobody (that I could tell) brought any attitude. This was probably driven by Hunkins’ approach. He tries hard to include EVERYBODY. He gets the sportsmanship thing and is a good guy to hang out with. Instead of autographing my lounge chair like I asked, he burned it with his cigar.
“Think we should send in some photos of Buford T Justice and see if they laugh us out of the place?”
Probably too “late model” for the snobs at not-so-“Pop Rod.”
“[W]e need your muscle car photos! Specifically, we need domestically manufactured rear-wheel-drive V-8-powered cars built between 1955 and 1981.”
(PHR Photo Contest definition of “Muscle Car”)