Lakeside southwest Ontario is home base for a truly stunning Canadian fast street car effort….
We could not help but be diverted by a truly impressive 1962 Chevy Nova Super Street car effort when our paths crossed with Ray Griffin at Cayuga Dragway – Toronto Motorsports Park – last summer.
This meticulously prepped car which is campaigned by Ray, and his wife Tammy, has seen quite an evolution during it’s history. It is now truly a car show quality machine which has also quickly become one of the most popular within Eastern Canada’s Outlaw/Fast Street car (OSCA/Drag Syndicate) series drag racing scene.
After first being a very much overpowered and street driven car only — Ray and Tammy have since shifted and concentrated their efforts on the drag strip only.
“I actually first bought the car in 1991 — for $1000,” Ray revealed. “It was originally built just for the street but over time it became apparent that it was just too much car for street use and it was hard to keep it legal and the Police paid a lot of attention to it. So in 2008 we made the decision to go drag racing only with it.”
During that process Ray called upon the Ontario provincial expertise of Joe Van Overbeek (Race Cars) and Joe Crow (Bears Performance) and the car was rotisseried. Kelly Cooper then updated the roll cage to chrome molly.
The motor was modified too and that program is now a self assembled 540 CID BBC, which uses gasoline and with a Pro-Charger produces some 2300 HP.
“Actually the engine program is pretty conservative,” Ray added. “But it has all great components and it’s a very reliable.”
Ray does and has so far kept his drag racing ventures local in Ontario for the most part. Racing to the 1/8 mile mark, this pretty little Chevy has a best time of 4.61 secs and 163 mph credit so far. The car targets and runs in the Super Street class category with 10.5 tires.
This team funds their racing operation from their own independent business (Griffin Autotek — which does general auto servicing but also specializes in racing parts and was established in 1998). Ray cites however valued support from sponsor Lambton Metals (Vince Sava), Ackwood Auto Parts, High-Tech Collision (responsible for the race cars incredible Mitsubishi Eclipse paint) and also team friend and expert fabricator Jeff Vance.
Post and photos by Bruce Biegler
