Judges

[StealthBird]

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You Poncho boys had better get your act together! I wanna say the quickest Pure Stock RAIV A-bodies have been in the 12.90-13.00 range...while a few of the LS6 Chevelles have gone 12.40s. The quickest Pontiacs to date are a couple of RAII 'Birds, which have gone 12.3s...I believe one of them was Jim Mino's old car.

[/ QUOTE ]

But Rob, you have to remember, Mino's RAII Firebirds ran mid-12's way back in the 1980's during these shootouts, when LS6 cars were running 14's, COPO's were running 13's. These RAII's are still running the same times, yet the LS6 cars and COPOS have suddenly started running low 12's and high 11's! There's also a certain W-31 Olds that was running 15.2's a few years ago, and now runs 13.0's. I guess if someone can explain this, they can also explain Barry Bonds gaining 50 pounds of muscle and hitting 70 home runs at age 40 without illegal drugs.

The Mino's never invested in high dollar extrude honed stuff, or had the big bucks to use dyno facilities whenever they wanted. The Mino's cars were always dead stock, as was seen in the lengthy article in the late 1990's where they tore the RAII down. Didn't even have ported heads. Just careful assembly, careful blueprinting, and attention to detail.

So what took the Chevy guys so long to catch up?