SAM Is A Go

After years of competing in a diverse collection of motorsports, Jud Massingill made an interesting observation about himself. He realized that he had become an instructor for the skills necessary to assemble a race engine. He developed this talent from understanding what it took to set national records in NHRA Stock Eliminator, win championships in SCCA competition, and even build motors for a NASCAR team.

His engine shop, Northwest Engine, became a training ground on the weekends, when people would come in from out of town to learn a few pointers on what it took to be the best at machining engines for the upper echelon in competitive motorsports. Once he realized how much he actually enjoyed teaching people how to become better machinists, it was only one more small step before Jud first opened the doors of the School of Automotive Machinists in 1985. His wife, Linda, was put in charge of handling all of the paperwork and billing, and by 1989, SAM became fully accredited and approved by the Department of Education.

From that promising beginning, SAM has served the high-performance community with an amazing success rate. More than 1,000 students have now attended SAM, with the current enrollment around 100 more. Graduates go to work in all of the top areas of motorsports, including NHRA, NASCAR, and custom tuner shops that work closely with automobile manufacturers and racers.

As part of the SAM curriculum, students have the honor of participating in actual racecar assembly. This includes all aspects of the car, but, most importantly, the engine becomes the focus of the class project. Every possible topic is covered as the class builds it from the ground up. Projects have included the country's fasted naturally aspirated '99 Camaro with a stock block and heads, a '98 Camaro, and a nasty, little '79 Malibu that won the '03 Clash of the Titans EZ Street championship. All these SAM project cars have had one thing in common-natural aspiration

"For SAM, we're into natural aspiration," engine building instructor and racecar driver Patrick Topolinski tells us. "There's nothing wrong with the power-adder classes-we are currently building a '92 Mustang notchback for the NMCA's Street Race class-but we teach guys how to build engines from the ground up on naturally aspirated power. It's the most challenging. You're not creating the atmosphere that the engine sees, and you have to have a perfect combination to take advantage of whatever air you are given on that specific day. It is the most challenging, and it fits our school's mentality. If we're down on power, I can't just turn the boost up. We have to look at every single aspect of the engine and ask our students how they could build it better. It forces us to work harder, analyze the entire engine, and ultimately teach our students better."

With all-muscle power as the school's moto, it made sense to pick the NMRA's Hot Street class as the proving grounds for the next SAM project car. Hot Street is the realm of all-motor small-block Fords on the edge of insanity as they routinely spin their crankshafts past the magical 9,000-rpm range. Simply put, if you can build a car to be competitive in NMRA Hot Street, you are among some of the most elite drag racers in the country. And, Patrick Topolinski wanted to put his SAM class to the test-the ultimate naturally aspirated thesis.

Ironically, Patrick found their starting material from Matt Jones, the driver that he beat to win the COTT EZ Street Championship in 2003. The car was set up for FFW, which allows its Street Bandits to indulge in a few more modifications than Hot Street racers. The SAM class had to remove the Lexan front window, install a stock transmission tunnel, install a new interior with head liner and dashboard, remove the clutch pedal and install an automatic shifter, and rewire the car for the Edelbrock Qwik Data logger. So, after those repairs were made, it was off to the homeroom.