I lined up against a few 427 tri power vettes in my 70ls6 454 chevelle. Never got beat by one. Cars that gave me trouble were the 375 hp 327 novas. the 396 375hp novas, and 440 tri power mopars. By the way I saw quite a few races between 440 tri powers and 426 hemis back in the day and for the most part the 440s were quicker. One other car youd never expect to be up there with the big dogs was the 390 rambler scramblers. THey were built like a tin can and light as hell and would roll down the road. Out of all of them i got the most nervous when lined up agaisnt one those hot small block novas. There was a 67 on the air force base that gave me fits. It was about a toss up between those two cars. If that vet broke into the 12s it was one of the rare ones with 456 gears and was wearing slicks. To get any car in the 12s back then about required slicks. My ls6 ran a 12.9 once on stock tires but it was a cold day on a prepped track. Thats what you have to factor in with those magazine tests. Most of them were done with slicks on a prepped track. Now today low 12s are nothing. Hellcats, zl1 camaros zo8 vettes and gt500 mustangs will all break into the 11s with street tires. Some like the demon and super stock challengers and z08s will go deep in the 11s. Ive heard of demons that ran in the 10s. Now that my freinds is hold on fast for a street car. Even an 11 second car back int the 70s wasnt street able. Unless you wanted to pay for race gas at every fill up at 5mpg and change your plugs every oil change and rebuild your motor every 40k. These new cars will do it easily and after the race hit the road and drive cross country with the air on getting 20mpg or in the case of the vette near 30.
