Over the weekend the 56th annual NSRA Street Rod Nationals took place in Louisville, Kentucky at the Kentucky Exposition Center. Ridetech has been a long-time vendor of the show over the decades, and we were excited to get back down to Kentucky.
If you’ve never been, Street Rod Nationals is a huge event, with anywhere from 8,000-10,000 registered vehicles and even more spectators in attendance. It has long been THE place to go if you’re interested in seeing classic cars and trucks from decades gone by.
And while the term ‘street-rod’ is in the name, don’t let it fool you into thinking that the show is limited strictly to vehicles that fall within that definition alone. Show organizers are doing their best to accommodate later model classics. Any make and model car or truck is eligible to attend if it is 30 years old or older. That makes for quite a wide range of vehicles in terms of the decade they hail from and vehicle condition. Anything from rat rods, original survivors, and mild to wild restorations are easily found. Not to mention, some of the best custom street rod and muscle car builds in the Featured Builder’s Showcase are on site for all to drool over.
We were excited to head back to Louisville and share what we have been working on in secret for quite some time. That’s right, we chose to unveil our latest product line, our MOMENTUM Chassis Series, at Street Rod Nats. The first chassis we’ve designed and released is for the 1968-1972 GM A-Body, with a 1964-1967 GM A-Body chassis soon to follow. You can find out more information about MOMENTUM chassis HERE.
Our display chassis was front and center at our outside booth display and we also had our (super clean) R&D mule, a 1970 Chevelle, on hand running laps at the autocross for folks to get an idea of just how well the MOMENTUM chassis allows an A-Body to negotiate an autocross course.
While autocross has been a part of NSRA for a while now, the organization has placed greater focus on that event as the automotive discipline is equal parts fun and challenging. Additionally, it gives those who tend to enjoy driving their car instead of occupying lawn chairs beside their passion project something to participate in. NSRA Autocross Coordinator Kevin Webb and team put together a fun an engaging course for participants to enjoy and Ridetech was pleased to be a participating sponsor to further promote fun and learning better car control at the limit.
Our good friend and customer Chris Ryan from Ryan’s Rod and Kustom, brought up his Ridetech equipped 15th Anniversary Hust/Olds Cutlass to put it through its paces on the autocross. Powered by a lightly breathed on Texas Speed LS3 crate engine and Ridetech’s full G-Body suspension suite, it navigated the course in a respectable 44.2 seconds.
Our initial runs in the MOMENTUM chassis Chevelle were positive, with a 42.7 lap right out of the gate, indicating the car felt positive on course. From there though, our luck ran out as the car suffered a serious oil leak from the valve cover area that coated the passenger side of the engine bay. All signs pointed to a leaky valve cover gasket, so we found another gasket set to get things buttoned up for additional runs.
After sourcing a set of gaskets, we re-installed the passenger side valve cover and went back out for a couple of additional runs. Those runs ended up being slower as luck would have it as the leak was not resolved.
After spending additional time diagnosing the issue, we discovered there was a hairline fracture in the front of the valve cover which was allowing oil to pass by even at idle. Sadly, this was discovered too late to make it into the Saturday afternoon Shootout, so we parked the Chevelle back at the booth for the remainder of the weekend.
The G-Body on the other hand continued to improve lap after lap. The first lap out was a 47.6 second run. The car was driven to the show, meaning the tire pressure pretty needed to be lowered to an acceptable pressure for turning laps. After doing so, the rear of the car stuck to the track much better, allowing a 46.8 run.
After adjusting the rebound settings on the front and rear of the HQ single adjustable coil-overs we dropped even more time out of the car, getting down to a 45.2. Those changes alone along with getting more familiar with the course improved a total of 2.4 seconds. Before the G-Body’s battery tie-down decided to exit the chat Jason Brady hopped in the car and blew that time out of the water, seizing a 44.2. Chris was happy to see that the car he drove to the show, with a far less sticky tire than other competitors put him mid-pack for the day.
Back at the trailer, we had an exciting time meeting new customers and getting to catch up with those that had joined the #ridetechnation before and wanted to update us on where they were with their project. We also got the opportunity to weight around 20 vehicles that were curious what their vehicle currently weighed.
We made sure to capture some great images from the event in addition to our event recap video of the event. Enjoy and we hope to see you at our next event (Triple Crown of Rodding) in early September!
