Doing It Differently...Greg Schmidt's 2010 Camaro
/It is not often that you run across something that is just different in drag racing. A setup that catches your eye and piques your interest. This is exactly what happened when we decided to shoot Greg’s beautiful Camaro at Lights Out 12 this year.
A little background on Greg though. For those that don’t know, living in the upper midwest is a different type of lifestyle. You become accustomed to the idea that it is going to be cold half the year, and your local racing is going to run from Mid April to the end of October if you’re lucky. The reason that I know this is because I lived in Wisconsin for 38 years. If you travel six hours north of my hometown, you’ll find Greg working at his shop, Paradigm Automotive, in Brainerd, MN. Brainerd is about 3 hours south of the Canadian border with Minnesota. You can use your imagination on how the weather is up there unless it’s the middle of summertime. You can also check out some of Greg’s content on the Bad Influence Garage Youtube Channel.
When we ran into Greg at SGMP, it was his first time running radials on the car, something that he swore he would never do. He always swore off the idea of running a turbo, but as you can see in the photos, that idea was tossed out the window as well. So, you are probably wondering what makes a Camaro on radial tires with a turbo setup something that piqued my interest. Well, what you may not have noticed yet is that this a blow-thru carb set-up as well. That’s certainly not something that you see at this level of racing anymore.
The car itself is a 2010 steel roof and quarter Hennessey Camaro. To complement the steel roof and quarters is a host of lightweight components that include Senkyr Composites Rear Bumper cap, Paradigm Performance custom drag wing, VFN lightweight doors, front end, hood, and deck lid. You can’t be competitive in a tank, so that is why Greg went with the lightweight body parts.
Under the front cap of the Camaro lies a 528 cubic inch KB Hemi engine with a set of billet Veney Heads. Atop that is an APD blow thru carb with dual auxiliary fuel Tuned by KGB, along with an APD mechanical fuel pump and Blow Thru Bypass Regulator. So, one would think that the carb just does all the work, and you would be slightly correct, but also there is a Holley EFI Dominator ECU to control everything minus the carburetor, MSD Pro 600 CDI with KTR Hemi Cam Sync, and COP (Coil-On-Plug) setup. All of this is fed by a massive 118mm Precision Turbo.
Bolted up to the backside of that beast is a BTE racing Close Ratio TH400 with a Cameron Converter attached to it. The BTE transferred all the power via a Mark Williams driveshaft and out to a Don Ness Titanium Rear End that has been stuffed with Mark Williams axles.
Regarding the chassis and suspension in this monster. The chassis is an Innovative Metalworks Docal 25.2 chassis with a 4 link with wishbone. AFCO/Menscer Motorsports Rear Canister Shocks and Springs out back help put the power to the ground, while a set of AFCO/Menscer Motorsports front canister Struts and Springs help to control the front end.
Greg always wanted to give a big shoutout to some people involved with his racing program, as well as his everyday life. A special thanks to Brad Edwards for the countless texts, calls, and advice. Next, a huge thank you to those who support us back home! Crystal Schmidt (wife), Joelle Schmidt (mom), Ethan Berge, Matt Sandbeck, Ryan Keller, Eric Saffell, Travis Knowlton.
Last a special thanks to his dad Al. Al his is crew and is always there to make sure Greg is safe and having fun. Along with Al at Lights out, Greg had help from Mike Kritzky, Don Kritzky, and Cam Dorion.
This was our First ever attempt to run drag radials on our Drag Car, we said many times we would never run Radials, and we would never run a Turbo (yet here we are with a turbocharged RvW car) our previous best ET was a 4.58 on big tires and wheelie bars. On our 5th pass at SGMP we made a career best pass of 4.34 @ 169mph and kept chipping away all weekend to include a string of .30s and .40s and our Q4 pass of 4.26 @ 178 to get us the eventual #27 spot. This paired us up with Melanie Salemi and their amazing crew and car. Mike Kritzky (KGB) and Myself with some additional tuning info from Brad Edwards made a swing for the fence in E1 and laid down a 4.17 @ 181 mph (a new career best and first time in the teens for the weekend!)
