Van Nuys born

Was looking for photos from the IROC races with 3rd gens.
I did a search and found one old post with dead photos and links. Didn't find much in a google either.

Got any cool pictures or info from the races ?

mr396

Here, try this.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Yeah unfortunately when IROC went bankrupt, their site only stayed up for about another year and a half or so.

Might want to try archive.org or some one of those other sites that have the wayback machine...

Van Nuys born

Cool, thanks for the video.

mr396

jermdm

Not a whole lot left to be a stock car compared to a stock iroc. I know they are very modified for racing. About the only thing that's stock is the body shell they used to build the car. Kinda makes you wonder if any of these cars survived to today.

Van Nuys born

Does anybody know how the race cars were spec'd ?

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

They weren't "modified" or "spec'd".

They were tube-frame race cars; NASCAR chassis of the day, usually last year's, BGN if memory serves, to get the approximately correct wheelbase, with the Camaro sheet metal just kinda hung hung on it. I can't recall who built em. (what chassis shop) I seriously doubt any "survived", as they had absolutely no value whatsoever left in them after the end of the season, to the people who owned them.

Van Nuys born

Thank's for the info SK ..... I hope more turns up.... With all the car collections out there, you'd think there would be one someplace ?

I bet one with the right name on it's side would bring the bucks today

mr396

The IROC/Z28 race cars began life as NASCAR Grand National rolling chassis built by Banjo Matthews. The engines were Chevrolet 350 cast iron bowtie block with aluminum heads prepared by KATECH Inc. 420 hp @ 6500 rpm Torque was 405 lbs-ft @ 4800 rpm's. Bodywork was hung on Matthews chassis by Diversfied glass products.

RockinGTA89

first of all thanks for posting a classic video! This is great to bring back memory lane. My uncle had a 85 iroc-z, ttop for a few years before selling at. At the time he even bought a 1/24 scale model of the car as a IROC racer. We both talked about wondering if any of these racers survived because we would really like to see one up front. Never see these cars go on the auction block at mecum or barrett jackson....must be a valuable car if anything? I remember an article in some magazine that told the specs on these cars, have to see and look for it. If i find it, i'll see if i can post it.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Why would you think that?

It'd be a race car that's now 20-some years old; not a prayer of being competitive. Can't drive it on the street because it's not really a "car", just sorta looks like one. Surely you don't mean that someone perhaps who frequents these boards would buy it? In between "What's the cheeeepest oil I can buy I don't need a whole quart Can I buy just a pint Why doesn't somebody sell that I want it I think somebody should sell it to me What do you think I'm made of money or what" type posts?

As far as "specs", they were the Busch Grand National chassis from the year before (i.e. obsolete before they ever hit the track in that form), with the BGN body cut off and the other bodywork hung on them. 5.8 liter V8.

They were cool to watch, at the time, that's for sure. I recall seeing Darrell Waltrip. Neil Bonnett, Dale Earnhardt, seems like one of the Allisons, and a handful other of those guys, driving em when they ran these cars. AJ Foyt might have. Lots of the big names in NASCAR, CART, SCCA, etc. Later on, Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, and a few of the guys from the trucks and Busch, as well as Indy, F1 (Scott Pruett comes to mind), etc. Wasn't much of a "race" usually, more of just an "exhibition" with one winner and everybody else lost.

After the contract involving our cars expired at the end of calendar 1989, Dodge picked it up, and there were Daytona "IROC"s. Didn't make very attractive race cars. Last several years of the series, they didn't have a mfr sponsor at all (nobody was willing to pay for the name any more), so they ran 4th gen Firebirds. Didn't really look any better than the Dodges, looked kind of anonymous and undistinguished, really. Last year I can specifically recall seeing em run was about the turn of the century, maybe around 03 or 04. Their web site stayed up for a few more years, just a cobweb though, until around 2006 or so.

RockinGTA89

i probably didn't mean that these cars are worth alot of money...however, come to think of it there are valuable race cars out there. Such as a Shelby Daytona Prototype cars, The racing lotuses, even a few hemi powered superbirds that were raced in nascar are valuble. Even though these IROC racers may not be fetching any kind of coin like those race cars as i mentioned, that still doesn't mean that they aren't worth anything. Today these classic racing machines can be allowed to flex their muscles (that is if one owns a race car or two) at tracks like Laguna Seca and Road America in special events. I would love to own one, even a Player's Challenge Camaro or Firebird would be awesome.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

And the difference would be .... ??

Given the ease of buying and selling ANYTHING to a very wide audience (ebay, craigslist, taobao, etc.) I'd be inclined to suspect that if there were any of these things around, and anybody actually wanted one bad enough to actually exchange cash for it, they'd pop up from time to time.

Although actually, any of em that were still in working condition in 1990, prolly got Dodge "Daytona" bodies hung on em. After all, you gotta remember, those were a RACE CAR, not a "Camaro"; the year before they had Camaro bodywork hung on em, they might just as well have had Regal or T-Bird fenders and whatnot. There's nothing inherently "Camaro" about em. That's just trim for the fans.

"Like to have" and "willing to pay for" are 2 ENTIRELY DIFFERENT things.

mr396

Dale Earnhardt SR. has a street IROC-Z and a race version. Richard Childress has a race version. https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/auto...arnhardts.html