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About the crash ...

... It was at the first IHRA Division 2 race of this year, on January 25. Davis was in the Vette. "We'd made some great runs that day, and I wanted to step it up some, to test a few things, so I made the run. I had some tire shake, and I drove through it. The track was a little marginal, had a very narrow groove, and the rear end came around on me, and it started flipping. It was gone before I could do anything about it," Davis said. It flipped eight times. Pieces of the body now sit outside his shop in Suwanee. But the chassis is already repaired by Alan Pittman Race Cars in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and the body is done. "In essence, it will be a brand-new '63 Corvette again," he said.

He had the Nova in the paint shop, and when he wrecked, it was a big shock for him because he had an IHRA race two weeks later. "I was left with no car or chassis. Warren Johnson offered me his 2001 car to use, Mark Whisnant offered me his truck, others offered me rides, but I prefer to run my own deal and do my own thing," Davis said. "I had

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this car (the Nova) and I knew that the car would run, so I said I'll paint it, put a delay box in it and go race it. I put a mild tuneup on it. It had a 5.03 tuneup set up, which is plenty quick in the eighth-mile for Top Sportsman."

Davis and Berry went to Douglas, Georgia, and in true Outlaw 10.5 regalia, with mufflers, headlights and all the rest of the stuff, the Nova, with a delay box installed, on the first hit of the tree tripped off a .507 reaction time and ran 5.03 with a 7. "Two hours later, I had a .501 tree and ran 5.03 with a 9, two thousandths difference. The 60 foots were one-thousandths apart. It's a killer car. It is definitely a backup car, even though it's approximately 500 pounds heavy," Davis said.

At the second IHRA Division 2 race at Hub City Dragway in Mississippi, he ran a quarter-mile setup and the Nova went 7.80s, but he blew the tires off first round. Typical 10.5 stuff. Since then, he put a 15x33x17 Mickey Thompson slick on, went to Gainesville for the first NHRA Division 2 Top Sportsman race, qualified 10th with a 7.71 at 177 mph with a small tuneup, and lost in the semis. Davis then ran the Orlando points race and ran 7.80s there and lost in the quarters there. "That's the only real competition I've been in in the car," Davis said.

Top Sportsman cars are allowed to weigh about 2,450 pounds. Davis's Nova weighs 3,000, which is mandatory for Outlaw 10.5. So he is giving away 500 pounds to run Top Sportsman. And he is still qualifying for Top.

"But I would never qualify at a fast race in the Nova, so I need the Corvette. I'm used to running 6.90s and 7-ohs, depending," he said. "I have 10 different tuneups that I can run whatever I want to run. But I wouldn't want to race this as a permanent deal, because I couldn't qualify at a national meet." The Nova has gone 4.84 at 150 mph, or a high 7.40 in the quarter-mile, "but it has more," Davis said.

So what makes up this Outlaw Nova? When he sat down and decided to build the car, he knew exactly what he wanted to build -- a double frame rail Pro Mod car from the firewall back, that's just as good as the Corvette or any Pro Modified. The car, sporting a steel body and Harwood front, doors, scoop and deck lid, is certified the same as a Pro Mod, it has a Mark Williams 9-inch Ford custom-built by Dan Parker, with 4.10 gears that will probably be replaced with a 3.89 later. The trans is a Turbo Action Cheetah-shifted Davis-Godley 1.76-geared Powerglide with all TCI parts, and the engine is one of a pair of Davis's 632s that are identical down to the MGT rods. Batteries are Interstate.

The 632 Chevy has Dart Big Chief heads, block and intake, a Lunati cam and crank, King Demon carburetion backed by a Nitrous Works three-stage nitrous system that has been run with only two systems feeding. Pistons are Venolia 14.8s squeezing Sunoco Cam 2 blue gas, a Moroso wet sump with Moroso aluminum oil pump, Hedman Hedders with Dyno Tech mufflers.

The motor that he will be building for the Nova to run Outlaw 10.5, once Davis gets the Top Sportsman Vette back, will probably make a little more horsepower than the 632, he says. It will possibly be a 706 incher.

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