That is a great use for a retired race car! Which means it is not really retired.
Photography Credit: Alec White/SCCA Appalachian HillClimb Series
The beauty of hillclimbs is that it seems like you can run just anything. Formula cars. Kit cars. Old muscle cars. Supercars. Miatas, of course. And, yes, old NASCAR stock cars. In fact, there’s a class for it, and Tommy Plaza’s the fastest of the bunch with his 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass. In fact, with it he finished 17th overall among a field of 71 competitors.
Admittedly, Tommy, who has a drag racing background, didn’t intend to steer a stock car in competition. However, when he came across one on Bring a Trailer, it was hard to resist.
“I saw it and said, ‘That looks like fun,’” says Tommy. “The day it was selling, it was at 6 grand, with an hour left. So, I started bidding on it.”
At the end of the auction, Tommy bought it for $9600.
“I won it, and I was like, ‘What am I going to do now?,’” Tommy recalls.
This old stock car came came already converted for turning left and right, despite starting its life as an oval-track car. The history of the Olds isn’t clear, but it appears to have been built for running in what is now called the NASCAR Xfinity Series back in the early 1990s. The power plant under the hood is an “aggressively built” 355-cubic-inch small-block Chevy, which puts out 550 horsepower at the crank. The engine mates to a four-speed Tex Racing T101A manual transmission and a Winters quick-change rear end. The stock car weighs 3200 pounds.
“I did one track day with it,” Tommy says. “I got into the car, and it was a completely different world than I’m used to. When I came out of the pits–I never been on slicks before–I looped it coming off pit road.”
Hillclimbs have always appealed to Tommy, ever since seeing Pikes Peak represented in the Gran Turismo video game. When he came across the Pine Mountain HillClimb in an SCCA newsletter, it piqued his interest. Being closer to his home outside of Chicago than the hillclimbs in Pennsylvania, Tommy decided to give it a try. He vividly remembers his first time lining up toward the start line.
“My foot could not stop shaking,” says Tommy of his emotions before his first run. “I saw [SCCA hall of famer] Kathy Barnes and mentioned to her my nervousness, which was an understatement. She’s like, ‘You’ll be fine. Take deep breaths.’ She talked to me for a couple of minutes and calmed me down. I got to the start line, dumped the clutch and the rest is history.”
Tommy has been a mainstay of the SCCA Appalachian HillClimb Series ever since. He describes competing with a stock car in hillclimbs as “sledge-hammering a square peg through a circle.”
“It’s a good hillclimb car,” Tommy says. “You just got to drive it in an unconventional way. You have to drive the car hard. It’s got a solid axle, a locker rear end. You have to use the throttle to rotate the car through the corners because it pushes the second you start turning in. Throttle it through the corner and power your way out of it.”
The old stock car has proven fairly reliable and easy to work on, too.
“Honestly, we haven’t touched anything on the car since we’ve started hillclimbing,” says Tommy. “The car starts up, runs good. We’ve killed some batteries, because it doesn’t charge at idle. We’ve killed the coil. We broke a rear end. Axle breakage [is] another issue, but I like doing burnouts. Some stuff is getting expensive, but it’s been fairly inexpensive for us to maintain.”
Ultimately, Tommy says an old stock car isn’t a bad way to go for hillclimbs.
“What’s good about the stock car stuff is the bang for the buck,” Tommy says. “People would have a lot of fun in these cars. It’s a blast to drive.”
2024 Flag Rock HillClimb
SCCA Appalachian HillClimb Series
Flag Rock Recreation Area
Norton, Virginia
June 29-30, 2024
Class Winners
Special Awards
That is a great use for a retired race car! Which means it is not really retired.
That seems like a great use for a car like that. And good shout out to Kathy, she's good people :)
Thank you for not simply calling it a NASCAR.
$10k seems stupid cheap for this... so if you don't get lucky at a no reserve auction, what's a real-world cost of entry for a similar car?
Appleseed said:Thank you for not simply calling it a NASCAR.
I've personally covered NASCAR for years. I couldn't call it that. 
bludroptop said:$10k seems stupid cheap for this... so if you don't get lucky at a no reserve auction, what's a real-world cost of entry for a similar car?
This turnkey one sold for $12,100: 2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS NASCAR for Sale at Auction - Mecum Auctions
$9900: 2008 Toyota Camry NASCAR for Sale at Auction - Mecum Auctions
$9900: 1996 Chevrolet Monte Carlo NASCAR for Sale at Auction - Mecum Auctions
J.A. Ackley said:This turnkey one sold for $12,100: 2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS NASCAR for Sale at Auction - Mecum Auctions
$9900: 2008 Toyota Camry NASCAR for Sale at Auction - Mecum Auctions
$9900: 1996 Chevrolet Monte Carlo NASCAR for Sale at Auction - Mecum Auctions
Helpful... the first one seems to be a complete car, but not 'as raced' and #2 and #3 are both missing something.
In reply to bludroptop :
Missed that. Perfect K-swap candidates?
For a full list of past Mecum NASCAR sales, check this: Auction Results - Mecum Auctions.
P.S. - I'm still peeved at missing the Kyle Petty Coors Light car.
Aren't these almost always sold as rollers? I was surprised to see the first one actually had an engine. S'ok, you can build a carbureted 350 for about $100 :)
A stock car making K noises would be pretty entertaining, but I think you'd be missing a big part of the experience without the blasting power of a big engine.
FWIW You are not comparing Apples to Apples.
This is a Busch Car (different chassis, running gear and etc.) that was built in the 90s, the prices from Mecum auction are at least 4 generations of chassis newer.
$10K for a complete car seems at least $5K too high.
YRMV
Displaying 1-10 of 19 commentsView all comments on the GRM forums
You'll need to log in to post.
