Depending on your personal experiences, high school could either be a fond memory, or the reason you visit a therapist once a month. Chase Huffman doesn’t need a therapist, and he has a very good reason to remember high school. You see, his high school memories revolve around a certain ’68 Camaro. Actually, not just any first gen, but the one you see right here. Chase told us, “I drove this car for a friend in 2006 and 2007 while I was in high school. I fell in love with the car, and tried to buy it then. Unfortunately, the owner, Leo Mendes was not ready to let go of it.” According to Chase, when the 2007 race season was over, he parked the car in Mr. Mendez’s barn where is spent the next several years “taking a break.”
For the years between 2007 and 2015, Chase repeatedly tried to buy the car without much luck, that is until September of 2015. That is when Chase was finally able to convince the senior Mendez to allow Chase to buy his high school sweetheart. Remember, we’re talking about the Camaro, so it’s okay.
When Chase acquired the car, he didn’t plan to build himself a racecar. He affirmed, “I originally purchased the car for my mom (Jamie Huffman). I was going to build it into a street car, but it was taken over by me to be raced aftewr she said, ‘race it until I want to drive it’.” So that was the plan.
When Chase got the car to his garage, it still had the Chevrolet Performance 502 cubic-inch crate engine under the hood that was powering the car all those years ago. Unfortunately, while the car was parked in the barn from 2007 through 2015, the cold winters had caused the water in the block to freeze. Chase found this out after he got it home, as he details, “The car fired right up on the day we picked it up. But we immediately learned that the crankcase was full of water.” To remedy the situation of water being in the wrong location, a replacement block was sourced from Scoggin-Dickey Performance Center, and then Joe Torrez of Torrez Performance relocated all of the internal components from the cracked block into the fresh GM unit.
Behind the big-block is a two-speed Powerglide that has been worked over by Terry Sullivan at Sullivan Motorsports in Dallas, Texas, and helping the car launch is an FTI Performance torque converter.
Chase also rebuilt the brakes, added some traction-aiding components by Calvert Racing, and a set of Mickey Thompson tires.
According to Chase, “The car made its first public reappearance in spring of 2016. While at our first race, I entered in the 7.0-index class and won. The car has even carried me to a win in Super Street at the NHRA AAA Texas Fall Nationals in Ennis, Texas.”
Chase says that he has plans of eventually installing an LS engine in the car, making it more streetable and still have the ability to run the 7.0-index class, bracket race, and race Super Street. At just under 3,650 pounds with driver and fuel, the car is far from light, but we’re sure it’s not far from fun to drive.
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