Texas Mile There and Back Again

Texas Mile held at the Goliad County Airport Southwest of Huston Texas is a 1 Mile Top Speed event held twice a year. March 2009 MTI Racing attended the event as support for a customer for whom we had built one of our C6Z06 TVS cars. After attending the event in March as spectators MTI Racing decided the October event was a MUST, especially considering the release and MTI Racings purchase of the 2010 Camaro. While most of our testing on our 2010 Camaro has been at the road course and on the street, the Texas Mile was going to be a GREAT test of the HIGH speed stability and the overall power of our 2010 Camaro package.



Here are a few of our high powered cars:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

MTI Racing has done high speed events is the past, twice attending the Maxton Mile in NC, with our C5 World Challenge car. Having run over 200mph at our second event at the Maxton mile we decided it was time to our C6 program the next level, 200mph in the standing mile. To help with motivating the MTI C6Z06 in the standing mile is a new engine package under the hood. Working with RHS a division of Comp Cams, MTI Racing has built a 500ci engine with the new RHS tall deck LS block. We decided the Texas Mile would be a great first in car test for MTI Racings NEW 500ci Dominator Engine Package.

During MTI Racings wind tunnel testing and on track testing we have found that what works for the Road Course is not always best suited for top speed runs. So this lead to some late nights at the shop trying to prep The MTI Racing C6Z06 and 2010 Camaro, to run as fast as we could get them. The C6Z06 had the most work of the 2 cars, because a week before the event the 500ci Dominator engine was on the engine Dyno and still had to be transplanted into the car. With the 500ci Dominator in the car making GRAEAT power, 660rwhp and over 600rwtq NA, it was time to get started on making the car as slippery as possible through air.

For both cars all Aero work needed to be as reversible as possible especially the 2010 Camaro with only 1200 miles on the clock. So mostly the recipe for the day was to include lots of plastic paneling and duct tape. With the 2010 Camaro the plan was to tape up as much of the car as possible, get the front as low as we could(thanks to MTI Racings Coilover kit), and to run the car with and with out the MTI Racing Rear Track Spoiler. On the MTI Racing C6Z06 we have a better working knowledge of the aerodynamics of the car having taken it to the wind tunnel numerous times. We were able to make some parts and pieces that would work for top speed running and road course racing.

Time to head for Texas, plan was to trailer both of the MTI Racing cars, but the plan doesn’t always work out (but it can be for the best), A Texas Customers C6 ZR1 ended up being ready to be shipped back to him in Texas, so we had three cars to be trailered to Texas in a 2 car trailer. But were we worried? Nope opportunity. The new plan was to drive our 2010 Camaro to Goliad Texas from Marietta Georgia. Time for some GREAT durability and drivability testing of Various MTI Racing 2010 Camaro packages. We have our NEW coilovers front and rear, an 8 rib belt system to go along with our TVS1900 super charger system, along with the rest of our full line of 2010 Camaro products.

Travel plan was to leave Wednesday, drive a couple hours, spend the night and spend all day Thursday driving to Texas. Leave Wednesday we did but at about 9:30 pm instead of earlier in the evening, but at least we made it out of GA Wednesday night. Thursday was the Long day of driving across I-10 which included a stop for breakfast/lunch for some great fried seafood, then later 95 degree weather in Louisiana which of course is where the Trailer decided to blow a tire. So hottest and most full stomach part of the trip so far and we are on the side of the interstate changing a trailer tire. But all ended well, got the tire changed and back on the road. While the trip across I-10 felt like FOREVER there was some nice scenery with some AMAZING bridges that we had to cross, at least one being over 10miles long, over some pretty wild looking swamp land. Thursday night made it to a friend’s house south of Huston Texas were we stopped to the night, which left just over 2hrs of driving at 6 in the morning Friday. Finally after 1009miles in the MTI Racing 2010 Camaro I had made it the Texas mile Friday at about 8am, which left us 45 minutes till drivers meeting.

The plan for the day Friday was to start out easy, running both cars down the track at about 75% to see how they felt. First car we were to run was the C6Z06; only prep work left that it needed for a first run was to remove the rear wing and tape up some of the nose of the car. First run for the 500ci Dominator engine felt GREAT, this power plant is THE NEXT BIG THING. Chassis wise on the C6Z06 we had some work to do to get the car over 200mph. Next up the Star Attraction for us for the weekend The MTI Racing 2010 Camaro, first few run we did nothing to the car it was exactly how I drove it 1009 miles to the event. Car ran over 170mph and was very stable at speed and easy to drive.

Time for some aero changes to the 2010, first round of changes was taping up the lower grill, lowering the front of the car and removing the MTI Racing Rear Track spoiler (made for down force). Last run of the day in the 2010 after the aero changes 181MPH and this is with the motor exactly the same as how I drove it to Texas, not even tuning changes. This engine package make over 600rwhp and got over 20mpg on the trip.

Friday night was spent at the track hanging out with all the people that spend the night at the event (mostly in RVs). Among those was MTI racing Customer Bob Grisoff who was at the event with his MTI Racing TVS power C6Z06. However he was unable to run Friday to a tire that he damaged unloading the car, but was exited about Saturday because he was having a new tire shipped in. Even though Bob was disappointed in not being able to run Friday he was still gracious enough to provide Dinner and beverages for the MTI Racing crew.

Saturday was to be the day of accomplishments for the MTI Racing cars, the 2010 Camaro had more than exceeded our expectations with the 181mph run on Friday but we had a couple more tweaks we wanted to try. After heavily taping the front of the car to make it as aero as possible and lowering the car even more, it was time for one last pass in the 2010 Camaro. Even with the little bit of headwind Saturday there was more Speed, 182 MPH, this is quite a bit of difference over the mid 150’s mph that the stock 5th Gen Camaros were running at the event.

Saturday at the Texas mile is an AWSOME day for spectators due to the much higher number of cars running compared to Friday and Sunday. However it limits the number of runs that each car can make, so only 2 were made in our C6Z06. First Pass of the day after some chassis tweaking and tapping, 199.3mph, SO close. This was also with a slight head wind. After hanging out for most the day, talking with all the great folks that were there and watching lots of sweet cars run, we decided it was time to make one last run. Going back and studying wind tunnel data there were a couple more areas on the car that we thought with the correct application of duct tape could make the car even faster through the air. So prep time for last run was mostly talk about the launch, try to heat the tires a little and if they still want to spin in first and second, short shift to third and get some power down. And BAM 200.1MPH.





Originally we had aspirations of over 205mph with the MTI RACING C6Z06, since we had already run 200mph at the Maxton Mile with out C5 World Challenge car, but as we found out there are 2 different animals. When you build the car the Run a little faster up top we found out it makes it that much harder just to get to 200mph, but we didn’t give up when after our first full run we were almost 10mph away from 200mph. We kept at it and worked the car till we found our Speed. Now at 2 different Event MTI racing hold the Fastest speed Records for NA Corvettes, Maxton mile in our C5 World Challenge car and Texas Mile in our C6Z06. For the March event at the Texas Mile, MTI Racing will be back with a vengeance, with a NA and forced induction corvette to see what records we can break next time. Thanks everyone for a great trip and great event.