Six Days to Speedfest: The People Behind the Personal Best

**Thank you to Jesse Hazlett for telling us his favorite event of 2026. Thank you to Tom Bagguley who helped get this story out.

My Camaro was too damn slow!

When I received an invitation to compete at Speedfest 2026 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, I was pretty excited. I accepted the invitation, and then reality set in. My Camaro was too damn slow!

At that point, the quickest the car had ever been was a 9.68 at 147 mph in the quarter-mile and a 5.95 in the eighth. I knew there was more potential in the combination, but I didn't have an unlimited budget to throw at it. I needed to figure out where the money I did have would make the biggest difference.

That's where my good friend Casey Rance of MailOrderTuner.com came in.

Casey and I go back quite a few years. From about 2016 through 2020, we traveled all over Texas and Oklahoma racing his LS-powered, turbocharged 240. I helped with just about everything except driving and tuning the car or driving the motorhome. We had a lot of good times and plenty of success with that car.

When I told Casey what I wanted to accomplish at Speedfest, he recommended converting my Camaro to a Holley Terminator engine-management system.

The idea wasn't necessarily to make a bunch more horsepower. It was to gain better control over the horsepower I already had. I wanted more precise control of ignition timing while on the two-step, better MAP sensor resolution, and the faster processing and control capabilities of a modern ECU.

I decided that was the best use of my available money. I ordered the Holley system and a Jolt Systems F-body integration harness to make the installation easier.

There was just one small problem.

By the time the parts arrived, I had six days to install everything, get the car tuned, and make it to Bowling Green.

Nothing like a little self-inflicted pressure.

I got the system installed, and Casey made time after hours to get the car on the dyno and tuned. Nobody had really plugged into the car for tuning since I converted it to flex fuel in 2019, so this was a pretty significant change.

The results were better than I expected. The Camaro made 960 horsepower and 1,133 lb-ft of torque, the best numbers it had ever put down.

After the dyno session, I loaded the Camaro back onto the trailer and headed for Bowling Green the following morning.

Finding More Than Horsepower

When I arrived at Speedfest, I was excited to see what the car could do. But something else happened that made the weekend special.

I finally met Jesse Lesko and the Kinnison family: brothers Richard and Stan Kinnison, and Stan's son, Jacob.

These were guys I had known through Facebook, but we'd never actually met in person. Throughout the weekend, they welcomed me into their group and helped me with everything from boost-controller advice to getting lined up on the track, checking tire pressures, and just letting me hang out with them.

That last part probably doesn't sound like a big deal, but it really was to me.

I do a lot of this racing stuff by myself. I'm used to preparing the car, traveling to events, working on it, and making passes without much help. I enjoy racing enough that I'll do all of that alone, but it was really nice to have a group of people to spend the weekend with.

Having guys to talk racing with, bounce ideas off, and just hang out with between rounds made Speedfest a different experience from a lot of the events I've attended.

And meanwhile, the Camaro was absolutely flying.

My previous quarter-mile best had been 9.68. At Bowling Green, the car went 9.129, along with a new eighth-mile best of 5.817.

I hadn't changed the engine or turbo. In fact, the same engine has been in the Camaro since March 2016. Nearly a decade later, we were still finding ways to make it faster.

The biggest difference was finally having the control to make better use of the combination, along with Casey's tuning.

Of the 28 cars that showed up, I qualified fourth in my field and managed to win my first two elimination rounds.

That put me into the semifinals.

From Too Slow to Too Much

All weekend, the Camaro had been doing little wheelies, maybe five or six inches. Nothing particularly dramatic. Just enough to let you know it was working.

In the semifinal, I left the starting line and felt the front end come up again.

At first, I figured it was just another one of those little wheelies.

Except this time, it didn't come back down.

It just kept going up.

And up.

Until the trailer hitch hit the track.

I had gotten a great reaction time against my opponent, and I knew the Camaro had been running quick enough all day to win that race. Unfortunately, instead of another 9.1-second pass, I went 9.66. My opponent ran a 9.20, even after breaking his driveshaft around the 1,000-foot mark.

I was mad. Really mad.

I knew I'd had a legitimate opportunity to win that round, and watching it disappear because of a wheelie was frustrating.

But once I got back to the pits, I had something else on my mind. I was expecting to find some pretty serious damage underneath the car.

Fortunately, the Camaro had driven back under its own power, and when I inspected it, the only damage I found was some denting in the oil-containment belly pan. No oil leaks.

That was an enormous relief.

What I'll Remember

Looking back, Speedfest was one of the most rewarding weekends I've had with the Camaro.

Six days before leaving, I was installing an entirely new engine-management system and hoping everything would come together in time. Thanks to Casey's recommendation, expertise, and willingness to work after hours, I made it to Bowling Green with a car that was faster than it had ever been.

Once I got there, Jesse and the Kinnisons helped me throughout the weekend, whether that meant sharing advice, lending a hand, or simply making me feel welcome.

I left with new personal bests, two elimination-round wins, a semifinal appearance, and a slightly dented belly pan.

I didn't leave with a trophy, and I'm still a little irritated about that semifinal.

But I also left with something I don't always get when I'm racing: the experience of sharing a great weekend with good people.

Six days before Speedfest, I was worried the Camaro wasn't fast enough. By the end of the weekend, keeping the front tires on the ground was my biggest problem.

And as much as I enjoyed finally unlocking the car's potential, the people who helped me do it are what made the weekend special.

Thanks to Casey Rance, Jesse Lesko, Richard Kinnison, Stan Kinnison, and Jacob Kinnison. I appreciate you guys more than you probably realize.

Article by Jesse Hazlett. Photos by Eric White and Jesse Fox