Feature: Mark Dykeman Introduces the Grey Goose 2014 X275 Camaro
/So many people with the drag racing world would have hung up their racing boots after suffering a loss like Mark Dykeman did last year in his beautiful blue Camaro named Blue Goose, but instead of hanging his head down and calling it a day, he did what any tough New Englander would do, he pulled up his boot straps and got to work on a new hotrod for the 2019 season.
Mark and his team made some time for us this week while at South Georgia Motorsports Park for Lights Out X and brought the car out so that we could highlight the car that he will campaign in X275. To say that the car looks more like artwork than a racecar might be a pretty factual statement.
So, about this car, what we have is a 2014 Camaro SS aptly named Grey Goose that Dennis MacPherson at DMC did the cage work on. If you are a fan of radial racing, then you already know how restrictive the rules are in these classes. With that in mind, Mark tapped Pete Harrell of HED to build a 460cid small block Chevy engine to stuff inside the DMC built frame rails. Attached to that said HED engine is a class legal Procharger F1X that makes gobs of power, enough power to hopefully shoot this Camaro down the track in the 4.30’s range.
It’s not enough to just make power though. These cars are running a tire that is smaller that most found on a basic four door sedan now-a-days. All that power is planted to the ground with the help of Mark Menscer and the crew at Menscer Motorsports. This Camaro relies on Menscer Motorsports shocks to keep the hydes planted and headed in that forward direction. Speaking of those tires, it’s MacFab Beadlocks that squeezes the rubber onto these beautiful wheels. A very important aspect of those is making sure the tires aren’t spinning on the wheel.
If you have all that power, you aren’t managing it by just looking at the plugs and guessing. This is where a Haltech ECU comes in to play. The ECU is in charge of handling a huge number of processes in those four and a half seconds down the track. There is a hell of a lot of wiring in these cars as well, and none other than Dykes & Strippers wiring was used to handle that.
There are a couple of other companies that are heavily involved in the program that Mark wanted to give a shoutout to, and those are Motion Raceworks along with Westgate Performance. Mark certainly couldn’t do what he does without some in person help that includes his son Jack, Wife Alyson, Daughters Brooke, Maci, and Ashlie, along with Dereck Mota from Mota Racing and Jamie Lovejoy from ARC Source.. It will be an intense season, and we look forward to the challenges that racing a new car bring. Watch for the Goose to be flying higher and smoother every pass it gets at the track.
