My son is a hardcore vintage hot rodder. He started a Vintage Hot Rod eMagazine (www.jalopyjournal.com) several years ago that has a very active message board. Recently this very select group of guys got together at a small, very old timey drag strip outside of Joplin, Missouri and spent the day drag racing. As it was a mere 800 miles, my wife and I decided to drive up from Texas and surprise him.

Unless you know one of these gearheads, it is difficult to understand how they think. On the surface, they like suffering and misery, but actually they just don't appreciate anything automotive that wasn't original to the 1950's or '60 latest. Mostly they like the old style rods of the 1940's and '50's. These guys drove to southeastern Missouri from all over the United States in UNAIRCONDITIONED cars. You could look all day long and not find one piece of billet aluminum or eproms on their cars. Much to my son's distress, old Dad shows up with his shiny 2003 Mercedes Benz S55AMG wanting to RACE! ****! What's his friends goin' ta think?

Ryan has a really nice 1938 Ford Coupe that is really a gorgeous automobile. This car has been hand built and looks it. It is also an authenic hot rod and runs a Munice rockcrusher tranny with a Bowtie high nickle Chevie block displacing 388 cubic inches, solid lifters and high compression heads that was built, balanced and blueprinted by a little engine shop in Texas named Rherer-Morrison Engines. I have seen the dyno sheet on this engine and it does not give an inch to the MB supercharger 5.5.

I got to the track (Mo-Kan Dragway) fairly early in the morning. Ryan was already there but since he was the host, had to register all the racers (about 100 cars) and make everyone feel at home. Most of the guys had been talking on the message board for years and yet had not seen each other face to face, so there was a great deal of hand shaking and back slapping going on. There was even one lady who had reportedly driven in from Bonneville Speed Week at the Salt Flats in Utah topless without a windshield in her '48 Chevie convertible hotrod, but that is another story for another day (damn, I bet those things were sore!).

Finally, at about 11:00 am the gate traffic lefts up a little and he knows I am not going to go away. He is big time concerned that the real racers and hotrodders there are going to get aggravated that a late model car is allowed on the track, but I AM his father. So finally, he says, "Okay Pop, lets go run'em."

We started them up and I followed him onto the track. He selected the left lane and did a burn out for about 200 feet. I thought, what the hell, I'll give'em a show too. I turned off the ESP system and laid into the accelerator. That track was hot from the sun and oily as hell from 60 years of drag racing and it was slick. I gave them my 200 feet as well. I actually had to "drive" to keep the smoking rear wheels behind the car. As I backed up to the starting lights, the crowd was cool with what was happening. Evidently, the annoucer had let everyone know that it was Ryan and his old man racing. We both moved into the starting lights and I turned on the ESP. When I saw green, I again nailed the accelerator. The car sounded as though it laid scratch for about 5 feet then it just went. It went straight and fast with no obvious effort or wheelspin. I guess I should mention that since it was hot (91 degrees), I did not turn off the air conditioner. I also had our luggage in the trunk and all of my wife's "stuff" in the backseat. The only thing I did special for the race was put on my special "Southern Cal Speed Shop" leather Aviators hat. Ryan had that '38 Ford wound up tighter than a tick and laid rubber for a quarter of a mile. He actually got off the accelerator just after the 300 foot mark. I turned a 13.3171 at 105.28 miles per hour. The biggest comment after the race was "holy ****, that big Merc is fast." Ryan let the air out of his street slicks and after a few runs, pulled out a mid 12 second pass. He still smoked'em up for a quarter.

Could I have made a faster run? Sure. How fast? I don't know. I think I could have run under 13 seconds, but in an S55 with all my wife's stuff, that is just not real life.

 

Very nice ! The real world is what counts !

 

Under 13 for sure if you lighten the load and improve the reaction time. Regardless, VERY impressive!

 

awsome should have taken some video I love the S55 Roar. We gotta have a video thread full of all the AMG's.

 

Reaction time doesn't effect 1/4mile time. He could stay at the line for 30sec(reaction time) and then go and still run a 13.

 

Yeah, but it is the difference between winning and losing races. I should have said that.

Grandpa's 1977 Winnebago cut a .531 light and crossed the line in 42.468 seconds at 50MPH for the win against him.

 

Niice

I would've loved to see the look on people's faces when they saw that big sedan take off like that.

 

Cool story, I do belive you could've easily broken into the 12s, but with a full trunk and wife stuff it was an ok time.
You could've lowered the pressure on your rear tires to get more traction, emptied the trunk, run with 1/4 gas tank, etc.
Nontheless congratulations

 

Awesome story! I love how the big four door sedan is at the track with lotsa hot rodders ripping off the doors in 13 seconds or less!

 

Great photo

Excellent time bet you didn't even spill your coffee

It is really impressive ESP on, luggage etc.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by oaktree5 B]

Could I have made a faster run? Sure. How fast? I don't know. I think I could have run under 13 seconds, but in an S55 with all my wife's stuff, that is just not real life.>>

I'd like run my S55 through the traps in several modes. First in the D-s setting with ESP on. Then with ESP off. Last in manual mode with ESP off. It would be interesting, to me, to see what the time differences would be if any.