Pirelli World Challenge is one of our favorite racing series to watch and follow. Real production-based cars like the Mustang compete head to head on a road course for 50 minutes at a time. While these are race-prepped cars, the chassis are still the same as those you’d get at your local dealership, and most of the parts are off the shelf hardware, rather than one-off pieces made from unobtanium.
It was an interesting 2015 season for Rehagen Racing with Nate Stacy, the youngest SCCA pro in history (16 years old) coming on board and competing for his rookie season in World Challenge under the Rehagen banner. Stacy finished 16th this season in the points championship out of 38 drivers. He competed in 11 of 17 GTS races, and was part of Ford’s successful effort in capturing the World Challenge championship.
We spoke with Rehagen Racing’s principal, Dean Martin at the 2015 PRI Show. Martin also happens to be one of Stacy’s team mates. The car that Stacy competed in this season was Martin’s former car. “We built this car at Rehagen racing in about two weeks last year after my crash at Sonoma. Then I raced it for a few races this season, including a podium finish at COTA (Circuit Of The Americas) and the St. Petersburg Grand Prix where I won this year. We built a new car for me, and Nate Stacy took over racing this car,” Martin says.
The car started life as a Ford Performance Boss S body in white. From there Martin says that Rehagen worked some of its magic lightening and seam-welding the car within the rules specified by World Challenge. “Significant improvements that we’ve made have been to the back of the car. A new cambered axle and Watts-link suspension from Cortex racing were installed and it’s been a game changer for this car, easily worth a full second in lap time at nearly any track we go to,” Martin says. Everything else on the chassis is 2014 Boss S spec.
Powering the car is a Roush/Yates Boss 302 engine, the same engine that has been under the hood, virtually untouched, except for maintenance since it was first raced three seasons ago. “Believe it or not, the engine in this car has been used for three seasons, never been rebuilt. The Boss engine is fantastic on its own and then when Roush Yates goes through it, that makes it even better.”
Of course Rehagen racing also relies on Forgeline wheels to help in its winning ways. The strength, durability, lightness, and reliability of these wheels has made an impact in the program as well. Forge line’s GS1R wheels, which were designed specifically for World Challenge series type cars, adorn all four corners of this and all Rehagen Racing’s World Challenge rides.
There are big things in the works for the 2016 season at Rehagen racing, including work on the 2016 Mustang chassis for racing in the World Challenge series. We can’t wait to see what they do next season.