2026 Race Season — Are We Ready?
2026 Race Season — Are We Ready?
The 2026 race season starts at Woodburn in just over a week.
Are we ready? Are racers ever really ready?
We didn’t get as much done over the off-season as we planned, and I’ll take full responsibility for that. Life had other plans this winter. In short, my brain and nervous system had a bit of a short circuit and I spent some unexpected time in hospitals, including the ICU. I’m still not 100%, not even really road worthy, but if you know me, I’ve driven sketchy stuff on the road for years and done plenty of sketchy things. Now apparently I’m the sketchy thing my wife has to deal with.
So we’re going racing.
Off-Season Upgrades
Even though the off-season didn’t go as planned, we still made some progress.
Sitting in the trailer ready to go on the car:
New sticky Mickeys
New AFR heads
New guides, studs, pushrods
Roller tip rockers
Already done:
New C4 transmission installed — the AOD is gone
Toolboxes installed in the trailer
Small workbench in the trailer
Seating area finished
Still waiting:
Camshaft is sitting at my brother-in-law’s place waiting to go in
So we’re not where we wanted to be, but we’re also not starting from scratch.
Race Log Spreadsheet
While I was stuck in bed recovering, I spent some time on the computer and built a race log spreadsheet for the season.
The idea is that it will work like a normal log book, but with formulas that will:
Break down each run
Calculate what the car should have run
Predict what the next pass should be
If it works the way I want it to, it’ll be a really useful tool. But for the first few races, and probably most of this season, I’ll still be doing things the old-fashioned way and using the spreadsheet as a backup until I trust it.
Racing and spreadsheets — that pretty much sums up bracket racing.
Performance Goals for This Season
Last year the car was running high 14s with the current “thrown together” combination. With the C4 transmission alone, the car should be running low 14s right away.
After the first race, we have two weeks until the next race, which is a double-header weekend. In between those races, the plan is to install:
Tires
Heads
Cam
Possibly a carburetor (still undecided)
If everything goes according to plan — which it never does — the goal for races two and three is to be running 12.0s, and I would really like to see that Mustang dip into the 11s this season.
We were almost there once already. On the last hard push before the old engine died, the Mustang ran a 12.03, and that was after it popped a head gasket at the 1,000 ft mark and finished the run on six cylinders. I’m convinced that would have been an 11.98 pass if it had held together just a little longer.
Not long after that run, the engine completely self-destructed and racing was done for the season.
The Current Engine
The engine that’s in the car right now was never supposed to be a long-term build. It was a combination built from parts I had sitting around the shop just to get the car running again.
That “temporary” combination has now lasted over 16 years, so I really can’t complain. But it’s probably time to start getting serious again.
If everything goes well this season, there’s a good chance that at the end of the 2026 season we’ll be building a stroker motor. Or focus on the suspension? Interior? Body? No, no body, the vintage patina is fine, people recognize the car from 20 years ago. I like that, the racing history of the car.
We’ll see what happens. That’s racing.
