photos by: the author video: Sam McConnell
Holley Lights Up Bowling Green, Once Again!
Every year, the Holley LS Fest brings together some of the hottest LS-powered vehicles from across the country. Whether it’s a 5th-generation Camaro or an LS-swapped Volkswagen, there’s no shortage of things to see and race! Held at Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky, racers, builders and enthusiasts show off their latest creations and compete head-to-head injury their respective categories.
Since the event has kicked off in its inaugural year, way back in 2010 as a small niche event, it continues to get larger and larger, attracting hundreds of thousands of people throughout the weekend. In fact, it was widely made known that it was the largest event ever held at Beech Bend Raceway.
Now for the last several years, we typically would write and spell out the winners for each and every respective category for each type of competition; Show-N-Shine, the various drag racing classes, the autocross and drifting classes and the relatively new road racing events at the local National Corvette Museum.
This year, GMEFI and Timeless Muscle Magazine has chosen to shoot 4-minutes of mouthwatering coverage instead of the typical 937 images we have shot in the past. There’s just a more real experience in providing video; with sounds and the depiction of action, as opposed to frozen images.
Also, since the event has taken on such a life of its own, and there is just an onion of different categories for different classes, we have linked back to the results of each class and category below, to the results on the Holley LS Fest website. We feel that this simplifies the way you get your info, as well breaks it down a little bit better for our viewers. You can see them below!
BTR/Car Craft Bolt-on Power Challenge Results
For the last several years, Holley has hosted an engine swap challenge, essentially taking two teams with similar vehicles and awarding the two-man team a brand new crate engine with some go-fast goodies if they beat the other team at removing the stock engine, installing the LS engine, installing the performance upgrade, hook everything, get the car running.
For 2017, that all changed — Holley stepped it up with the 2017 Car Craft Bolt-On Challenge. This time, it was about bringing your LS-swapped vehicle to the event, and face off with another team to install a complete top-end kit and other bolt-ons, get it running and put it on the dyno. Whoever pulls it off first, wins it all!
QA1/Lateral-g.net Autocross Results
Baer Brakes/Super Chevy 3S Challenge Results
Lucas Oil/Driftlife.com Drift Challenge Results
Frankenstein/Bangshift.com Dyno Challenge Results
Forgeline/Grassroots Motorsports Road Course Challenge Results
Scoggin-Dickey Drag Racing Classes Results
ACCEL/LS1Tech.com Show-N-Shine Results
Burnout Challenge Competition Results:
We could be wrong, but we believe that 2017 was the very first year that Holley hosted a burnout contest — and what a contest it was! It wasn’t just a bunch of stock late-models, either; it was an off-the-chain, in your face, full-on smoke fest with some of the baddest cars we’ve ever seen.
The ultimate outcome was the Three Pedals crew taking home the gold, with their 500+ horsepower ’89 Pontiac Safari wagon that we shot a feature on over the weekend. (UPDATE: Check out the full story on the car, HERE). The crowd went wild, and there certainly was some stiff completion, including a rad LS-swapped Malibu, drift-wild C5, a ZL1 and many others.
Vette Magazine Fastest Vette Results:
- Fastest Corvette/Drag Race: Joe Gregory, 10.536, 2007 Chevy Corvette
- Fastest Corvette/Autocross: Danny Popp, 2003 Chevy Corvette, 73.873 seconds (combined BB & NCM times)
- Fastest Corvette/3S Challenge: Rich Wilhoff, 2006 Chevy Corvette, 22.262 seconds cumulative (left and right lanes combined)
- High Horsepower Vette/Dyno Challenge: Jesse Coulter, 2000 Chevy Corvette, 1,277.52 horsepower
- Chevy High Noon Shootout Autocross Winner: Danny Popp,, 2003 Chevy Corvette, 94.310 Shootout combined time
- Chevy High Noon Shootout Show-N-Shine Winner: Ben Coffman, Fisheville, KY, ’55 Chevy
Rick Seitz is the owner and founder of GMEFI Magazine, and has a true love and passion for all vehicles. When he isn’t tuning, testing, or competing with the brand’s current crop of project vehicles, he’s busy tinkering and planning the next modifications for his own cars.
