I love this! A few years back at guy at my local autocrosses raced a Dakota R/T. My dad ran his Automatic S-10 once, and I have always wanted to build an older full-size truck for auto-x and the track (just for kicks, not that I have the time or money to do so, but one can dream)! I'm a huge fan of 'run what you brung' and just getting out there for the fun of it. We have an IT-Truck in SeDiv SCCA which looks like an absolute blast (nothing but little old nissan pick-ups).
Keep the V8-ger kick'n!
Very cool II! We wanted to run paved oval track in the Factory Four cylinder class at http://www.racesandia.com . The cheapest car we found first was a Mitsubishi Mighty Max 2.6L for $400. It was heavy, but after taking some rear leaf springs out, aligning the front for left-only camber, likewise biasing the anti-roll bars preload, BF Goodrich Comp TAs, and switching to 4:20 gears we pretty much ran away with the show against 26 cars. It was a bit like road racing but you only turned left. The road racing-like part was the "split eight." With a quarter mile inside of a 7/16ths mile and a shared front straight, we'd alternate tracks every lap. That's four different turns and exits. It also added the potential element of demolition derby as the cars coming slowly off of the little track met those coming fast from the big track to the little track, a.k.a. "the crossover." In six years I only saw one significant pile up; six cars and one roll over in a wad but it was exciting for the fans. Our truck wasn't fast in a restart, being heavy and down on power compared to the Hondas/ Nissans, but it was a great momentum racer as it out handled all of the other cars, front or RWD. Give me two laps and we'd win. A restart with only one to go was a real challenge. We were eventually claimed (the whole vehicle, less safety equipment) for $1,000. Thanks to Bob Bondurant no one else finished better than 5th in that truck. That, and they just HAD to set it up THEIR way so naturally it went slower :-) 
