Camaros have drag raced, road raced, roundy-round raced, street raced, and bench raced for nearly four decades. There hasn't been a form of racing in North America in which some Camaro or other hasn't succeeded--except drifting (assuming you think of that as racing). And, of course, the iconic Camaro is the '69; the year Chevrolet sold the car in more performance variations than ever before or since, and a car so beloved by hot rodders that this magazine is guaranteed to sell several thousand more issues on the newsstand any month one is on the cover. A drifting '69 Camaro is a track promoter's wet dream. It's like having Tiger Woods show up for your golf tournament or Bruce Springsteen decide to play a set in your bar. Tickets will be sold.
"We've been drifting for years," explains Steven McClenon, the owner of Hotrods to Hell in Burbank, California, "we just didn't call it that." But even McClenon must be surprised to find himself the builder of the first '69 Camaro constructed to take on the import-polluted world of drifting.
Built for La Canada, California's Blacktop Rodeo Racing, a new team co-owned by Brendan Shannon, a Junior at the University of Southern California, and his father Mike, an attorney, Hotrods To Hell faced a unique challenge in exploiting the car's inherent advantages and overcoming its built-in handicaps. Not that there's much mystery left in the '69 Camaro after almost 37 years, but because what's considered an advantage or handicap in drifting is so peculiar. After all, when driver Ryan Hampton takes this Falken Tire-sponsored machine out on a track, it's more important to go sideways than to go fast.
Starting with a clean, running, and completely stock Camaro Blacktop Rodeo acquired for $10,000 in August 2004, McClenon stripped it down to a bare tub in his shop and rebuilt it around proven elements. First was the installation of Hotrods to Hell's own "Centerdrive" truck-arm rear suspension. Replacing the stock leaf springs, the truck-arm system is based on the standard rear suspension used in NASCAR Nextel Cup cars, which is derived from the '60-'72 GM 1⁄2-ton pickup suspension. The truck-arm system locates the solid rear axle with two long arms that reach forward to the center of the first-generation Camaro, just behind the driver's seat. With a set of coil springs now doing the job of isolating the chassis from wheel motion, and the almost flat radius arc of those long arms, the wheel motions are very predictable, and both bumpsteer and roll steer is virtually eliminated. Controllable drifts are possible with leaf springs, but they're much easier with the truck arms.
The 468ci big-block is overkill in a series still dominated by small cars with turbocharged fours, but the big-block brings with it a unique sound and character. How is any drift fan going to maintain the delusion that a 2.0L engine is something to get excited about once they've seen and heard a Rat motor at work?
McClenon made one modification from his standard truck-arm package for this application by adding double-adjustable screw jacks atop the Panhard bar so it could be raised or lowered to tune the car for track conditions. And in drifting, you want it loose in the hind end. The axle those truck arms support is a Speedway Engineering Stock Car rearend with a Strange aluminum centersection, 3.73:1 gears, gun-drilled axles, and aluminum hubs.
Steering angle is to drifters what launch traction is to a drag racer--indispensable. Muscle-era machinery is notoriously stingy, because these cars were designed with long-distance cruising, highway stability, and America's wide-open spaces in mind. In contrast, Japanese cars have traditionally been optimized for operation on tight urban streets, and that means lots and lots of steering angle. To get some steering angle, the front end of the Camaro had to be virtually redesigned.
Fortunately the aftermarket has been spewing out products aimed at taming first-gen F-car frontends and the solution was straightforward. The front subframe was replaced with Martz Chassis' Rally & Road Race Unit that includes tubular A-arms and rack-and-pinion steering. But the rack-and-pinion McClenon installed is a specially constructed piece built to his specifications by Woodward Machine Corporation. Featuring a lightning-fast 10.0:1 ratio and as much additional travel as they could shove in, it's nearly ideal for the snap-action antics this form of driving demands. The final element in the suspension is a set of custom-built Tein shock absorbers. Tein is a well-known brand name to the readers of Sport Compact Car, but this is the company's first foray into the world of American cars.
The key to the car's stability while drifting lies in the truck-arm rear suspension, similar to what you'd find in the average NASCAR Stock Car.
Brakes aren't as critical in drifting as in other forms of racing, but they're important on any car that skitters on the ragged edge. Wilwood Superlight six-piston calipers clamp on 13-inch rotors up front, while a set of similar rotors in back are fitted with two four-piston calipers each. The first set of rear calipers are plumbed to the same master cylinder as the front and operate off the conventional brake pedal. The second set of rear calipers are hooked up to their own brake cylinder mounted atop the transmission tunnel and controlled by a long handle. In the import world, that's a "rally brake." To old-time hot rodders, it's a "bootlegger's brake." Whatever the name, it allows Hampton to induce oversteer with brake instead of throttle alone.
But, seriously, with a 700-plus-horse 468ci big-block under the raised-steel hood, when exactly is it that Hampton wouldn't have enough power to induce a slide? Built by Hotrods to Hell around a 454 iron block, the slugs are Speed-Pro forged-aluminum domes slightly modified to bring the compression ratio under the Bow Tie heads down just a bit under 13.0:1. With an Isky 2230 roller cam whacking the pushrods and a big Holley carb atop an Edelbrock Victor Jr. manifold, this is an engine that's overkill for the street. In fact it's overkill for drifting too where the main goal is keeping the tires frying, not blazing through the speed traps. This is also probably the only car in regular drifting competition that still runs a carburetor. The Rat is backed by a T10 four-speed manual transmission.
The front suspension was fabricated from scratch by Hotrods To Hell to provide the most possible steering angle.
The exhaust runs through Hooker headers and then out side pipes directly in front of each rear tire. "The idea is that the exhaust will blow the tire smoke up and make it look bigger," Brendan Shannon says with a half-joking expression that says hell, it may actually work.
The car is still registered for street operation in the state of California, but it's far from tame enough to live there. It doesn't so much roar to life when the starter button is pushed as it does explode and then settle into a cackling and taunting idle. This isn't a car that simply vibrates with menace; the engine wants to suck in the hood and digest it.
Primary sponsor Falken required the car to be painted in its company colors or blue and lime green.
Tuning an early Camaro for drag racing is easy; it's been done so often for so long that everyone knows all the tricks. But since no one has ever seriously drifted a '69 Camaro before, the Blacktop Rodeo team has to chase down each glitch and improvise a solution. From the car's May debut through the rest of the '05 drift season, the team spent most of its time hunting down those glitches. By the time we climbed into the passenger seat in early October at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving (where Hampton is an instructor), the team had finally honed in an appropriate setup.
Inside the idling car, the cacophony is deafening. The naked steel beneath your feet seems to wave like a flag in the wind, the exhaust booms like thunder, and fasteners rattle like change in a coffee can being shaken by a paint mixer. The last thing this car wants to do is stand still.
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