After many years, the Pontiac guys got back together in the Pennsylvania countryside to show off their stuff at the Maple Grove Raceway just outside of Reading, which hosted the “Pontiacs at the Grove” event this past weekend. The weatherman was calling for some of that wet stuff to fall from the sky, but there was still a pretty good turnout for the event with over 100 show and race cars registered. Classic Pontiac muscle could be seen everywhere you looked and modern day muscle was well represented as well. Show cars were shining in the valley with people of all ages admiring the beauty of these fine machines, and for those scouring for parts or even a project of their own, there was a swap meet loaded with stuff.  However, some of the most exciting activities took place on the quarter mile dragstrip.

Photos credit: Bill Bolin

Bracket racing was the big deal here and racers had their machines dialed in on this day. In the Super ET class, it was Corey Wells with a .002 reaction time and a 10.92 with his 81′  Trans Am for the win. Scott Crawford’s 70′ Trans Am was runner up after a red light start. In the Heavy ET class, Steve Dress took the win with his 68′ Firebird over Wayne Garrison’s 69′ GTO. Maple Grove regulars Dawn Snyder and David Sciarretta matched up in the final round of Street ET, as Snyder took the win driving a 78′ Trans Am and running a 14.02.

A special heads-up class was put together on the Performance Years website for this event for some guys that would like the title of the fastest Pontiac in the land. And these aren’t tube chassis light weights; these cars weigh over 3,000 lbs. and look like a real street car.  Induction Solutions  and Roland Racing were the main sponsors and many others added some incentive to the fast Pontiac guys to bring their cars out to see who’s really the quickest and fastest.  The cars had to be stock appearing and have the normal street equipment on them. They were required to weigh at least 3,000 lbs for naturally aspirated and 3,400 lbs for a power adder cars with some extra weight added for a few things here and there, and any tire size was allowed. Many of the top racers couldn’t make it to this event but four competitors did make the call. These were all well known on the Pontiac message boards: EPC’s Firebird, John Langer’s ’69 Trans Am, SikGoat’s ’69 GTO, and Jeff’s Mystic Missle ’64 GTO. EPC qualified #1 with a 8.29, followed by SikGoat 8.38, Langer at 8.39, and Mystic Missle with a 10.16. In eliminations, EPC burned up his transmission and couldn’t leave the line, so Mystic got an easy win. Then Langer received a single run after Sikgoat hurt the motor in qualifying and couldn’t make the round. In the final, Langer crossed the stripe first with an 8.34 to Mystic’s 9.40.