The GL Club Car is a Canadian 1987 Dodge Shelby Charger which was originally a parts car owned by Craig St.Pierre. As you can see from the photos below it was missing a few things and wasn't it great shape. The engine was mostly there but partially disassembled. We wanted this to be a real team project and started the planning for the car at Chase The Winter Blues Away in March 2002. The car was towed back to Michigan and stored at Bill & Mara Gamalski's new house in Waterford, this became the worksite for the next couple of months.

The goal for 2002 was to get the car running, reliable and light. The event for 2002 consisted of only bracket racing and a 60 ft. team push. The car did not need to be fast, just light and consistent. As you can see from some of the photos below we ran into some typical L-body problems.

The engine and trans were pulled and separated and the engine torn down the rest of the way to the short block. The block looked good with nice cylinder walls, so the decision was made to use it as is (also we were running against a very short time frame). When the engine went back in the car, it was mated to a freshened automatic trans for drag race consistency. The car had a lot of work done in the short time we had to prepare it. New floor pans were made and welded in, new brakes all around, different struts installed, and complete new wiring harnesses were made (only a partial list of the work that was done).

The clock kept ticking and the days and weeks went by and to me it looked like it wouldn't even make it to Memphis. We planned a trip to Lapeer dragway to try to dial the car in, but it rained the whole trip up there and most of the time we were there. We went to lunch and when we went back out to the strip, the gate was locked, but hey, it was clearing up and we had a partly cloudy sky for the trip home. With our back against the wall time wise, we decided to dial it in on Monday at SDAC-12 during the road course driving school.

We managed to get the car running and cleaned up for SDAC 12 in Memphis. While the car sounded good on the trailer we never had taken it down the track until the day of the event. Was that a mistake? Probably, but we ended up winning the event before we got kicked off the track for leaking coolant all over the place with a cracked piston. During some tryout runs in the paddock the car went into uncontrolled boost and we hurt the car. No matter, GL was the first ever SDAC Chapter Challenge Champions beating out competition from the Chicagoland, New England and Lonestar Chapters.

That morning Tim Costello drove it over to the club tent and informed me that it was making 20 psi boost, uncontrolled, with no overboost shutdown, but he said it felt strong, I guess it should! The car also had codes indicating charge temp sensor and throttle position sensor faults. We knew that to drive it making that much boost on stock injectors was very dangerous but the only way to see if the problem was fixed was to try it.

Well it must have hit that magic boost mark one time too many and by early afternoon, Tim was back at the tent saying it had a miss and they were going to do a compression check. The compression check confirmed our worst fears, we either cracked a piston or destroyed the ring lands, the engine now was putting out a nice blue haze when running.

That night the team gathered in the GL room for a strategy conference (and a couple of beers). We didn't know whether the car would make the few times down the track that was needed for time trials and eliminations, it was running pretty bad, but we decided to "limp" the car along. We also knew that Chicagoland had been watching us try the car that morning ripping up and down the paddock, and felt that if we dialed a really slow time, it would lead to their (and the other teams) confusion. So just for the grin factor it sounded like the best plan.

The next day, race day, we disconnected the waste gate actuator to eliminate boost and made a couple of time trials at part throttle. The car ran in the 23 second range for elapsed time. The first round of the drag race pitted us against the Lone Star team. Their car had not been drag raced before and they had no idea what it would run so they dialed in their car identical to our dial of 22.75, and just hoped to beat us to the finish line. Well they did beat us there, and also broke out more than we did, so we won that round. National Capitol beat Chicagoland in the first round, so the second round pitted us against their rented 2002 Neon. As any bracket racer knows, there is a great advantage to getting a 5 second head start at the lights because many drivers will get anxious and red light wanting to catch up to that car in the lead. That's exactly what happened to NCC as we dialed 22.55 to their 17.69 and got a 5 second head start, however, they not only red lighted, but they also broke out by running just a little too fast (by the smallest amount measurable .001 second). So it was Great Lakes as winner of the bracket race. One event down, one to go.

In the team push, Chicagoland beat Lone Star in the first round and GL beat NCC even though NCC put a couple of poles through the windows to push against (pushrods?). In the final it was Detroit vs. Chicago, a rivalry both our teams were used to seeing. We set a better ET, but Chicagoland cut a better light and won the event. However, we had a win in the drag race and runner up in the push event, so GL came away with the win by one point (7 to Chicago's 6).

Many people contributed time, parts, or money (or combinations of those) to make our entry possible. So, we want to thank the following folks for their contributions, (first our members and friends) Mark Affeldt, Mike Affeldt, Jerry Caviani, Tim Costello, Darren Dawes, Bill Gamalski, Barry Goodall, George Greet, Chuck James, Steve Jarred, Steve Lariviere, Will Long, Gary Lorenz, Mary Nowicki, Mark Palleschi, Tim “Weasel” Pooley, Randy Salk, Ken Soroka, Dean Stillie, Craig St. Pierre, Jeff van Solkema, Dan White, Joe Yurgaites, (and businesses that helped us) Bill Walker at QC Coatings 248-651-1755 for the beautiful valve cover, and T.J.& Son's Auto Repair 248-543-4880 for the exhaust system.

The decision was made to convert the car over to TII and go for some speed this year.

The Great Lakes team this year and included Nate Greer, Randy Salk, Bill Gamalski, Chuck James, Joe Yurgaites and Craig St.Pierre. We unloaded the car, for the first time at the event, did some detail work (added stickers), and got the car teched. Joe then got in the car for some orientation runs in the car. This year we managed to make only made three passes at Lapeer two weeks earlier, and one pass in front of Tim's house after we fixed another boost problem. After four test runs the coolant began pouring out the car. Uh-Oh! We had a look and it turned out that our test driver was not informed of the OFF switch for the fan, so the car just over heated. Once back to the tent, Tim dug out the labels that we had neglected to put on the fan switch. We topped up the car and went back at it. Then the battery died. Bill diagnosed that we had a bad power module and that we weren't charging the battery. After about a half hour scramble, we jury-rigged a fix in place with some loose wire and some junk parts that Bill and Randy got from the trash at the car show on Sunday. After some confusion with the driver line-up and the order of events it was determined that it would be the 60' push, a heads up race and a bracket race. The heads up race was added at the last minute as the only other Challenge Car entered was the Chicagoland car and a "tie-breaker" was needed. After "five-oh Joe" got beat on the tree, we out muscled Chicago and beat them by a tenth in the 60' push.

Great Lakes 1 - Chicagoland 0 Excellent.

Craig was the first driver as he was the only other person who had driven the car in anger that was present for hte event. We didn't expect to win and we didn't. He got beat on the tree a .230 to their .145, and ran a losing 15.88 to a winning 13.91.

Great Lakes 1 - Chicagoland 1 Uh-Oh.

Once again it rested on the bracket race. After some discussion a 15.38 was written on the car against Chicagolands 14.00 dial in. Joe was driving and was not about to hand them a win at the tree. He laid down a .090 light, but it didn't matter, as the New Yorker REDLIGHTed with a -.053!

Great Lakes 2 - Chicagoland 1 The smell off unburned hydorcarbons at the dragstip. It smells like...Victory!

So for the second year in a row, GL won the SDAC Chapter Challenge, the only Chapter to win the Chapter Challenge, and both times it was won on a red light in the bracket race. Can you say three-peat?