What Went Down at the Inaugural F-Body Nationals in Memphis

About Time

General Motors' F-bodies (Camaros and Firebirds) have been winning fans of every sort since the General brought them to life to compete with Ford's Mustang. The do-it-all platform is as at home on the drag strip as it is on road courses or ovals, and their eye-catching styling has been turning heads on boulevards and at shows since day one. Classic Industries first F-Body Nationals, held last September 2017 in Memphis, Tennessee, gave a chance for fans to come together like never before. The event offered something for every Firebird and Camaro fan—from casual enthusiast to serious competitor. Feast your eyes on just a fraction of what went down...

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Autocross

A hit with F-Body owners who like to turn both left and right, plus pit themselves against other would be Mark Donohues, the Nationals hosted a challenging autocross course, sponsored by Classic Performance Products (CPP)— makers of braking, steering, and suspension goodies to get your F-body around just such tracks in record time. The autocross portion of the event culminated in a run-off pitting the fastest competitors against each other, resulting in a victory by Valerie Pichette in her 1988 F-Body, with a time of 39.964 seconds. CPP brought a few of their own cars to the event, including the above silver '70 survivor Camaro we profiled last year, and the striped '68 convertible pictured on the previous page.

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Rides

If you wanted to experience the thrill of a ride at speed but didn't have a prepped and tech-ed car ready to go, the Nationals had you covered as exhibition cars were on hand, including pro driver Brian Finch in his veteran 2nd-gen Camaro...

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More Rides

...and Kyle Tucker in the LS-powered Detroit Speed 3rd-gen.

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Dragstrip

Memphis International Raceway was the site of the nationals, which made a fantastic dragstrip available for the festivities. Pro Mod cars made runs all weekend long and were always a huge hit with the fans. The strip played host to bracket racing all weekend as well, but anyone who could get their car through tech inspection was welcome to make a timed run.

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On Show

The venue was home to a huge tent sheltering an array of classic F-bodies from the possible inclement weather. On hand were Camaros VINs 001 and 031. That's 001 above, an extra-clean low-optioned straight six.

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Restored

It wasn't just mint originals in attendance, as this Restored category show entrant attests, a Cordovan Maroon big-block 1968 Camaro RS/SS owned by Ronni Held. Sicker price in December of 1967 was the not-insignificant sum of  $3,837.25, adjusted for inflation that's $28,753.02 in 2018 dollars—we'd bet Ronni wouldn't part with it for that.

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Show and Go

Brian Nick brought his 1967 Camaro RS/SS to be seen and to be raced. Those grippy redline tires on faux-rally alloys are a dead giveaway to the latter endeavor.

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Restomods

Winner of the best Best Resto Mod category was this ’69 Camaro owned by Kenny and Tammie Brazell, from Blythewood, South Carolina. That's an LS3 under its hood, mated to a 6L80E trans. You can almost hear the exhaust note from here.

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Giveaway

Every attendee received a raffle ticket to win a 1967 Camaro loaded with pieces from the National's sponsors. A&R Restorations from Emory, Texas, built the coupe, and is responsible for its primo red Axalta paint. All told, $125,000 in parts and labor went into the car, including items from CPP, Vintage Air, Hooker, Holley, Jegs, Dynamat, Eddie Motorsports, Golden Star Classic Auto, Right Stuff, PUI Interiors, Shiftworks, Classic Instruments, American Autowire, Optima, Lonestar Parts, CFR Performance, American Legend Wheels, Falken Tires, and of course Classic Industries.

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See You in September

Nick Licata’s Black Betty ’01 Z28—a former Camaro Performers magazine project car, now owned and driven by Mark Golovin—represented 4th-gens with style, taking that generation’s class with a speedy 39.731 second time. No national of any kind would be complete without a swap meet, and the F-Body Nationals was the place to be for tracking down that elusive Camaro/Firebird part. If you didn't get what you were looking for at last year’s event then we recommend you turn out for more F-body action September 21-22, 2018. To register, click here. You might even win the 1968 Camaro slated for this year’s giveaway. Good luck!

>>Join the conversation about the F Body Nationals in Memphis right here on LS1Tech.

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