While on the look-out for what he was really after, a ’70 GTO chrome-moly chassis car, Youmans bought a ’64 model, assembled a 535-inch all-motor Pontiac combination, and ran it like that for a number of years. “But, of course, that wasn’t quite fast enough,” he says. Someone once told me, ‘that thing is bad…but once you put a little spray on it and some little tires, that thing will go,’ ” he shares with a chuckle. “I was old-school, I was big tires. This little tire thing came up and bit me.”

Youmans was competing in grudge races in around his native Georgia, but began getting complaints from his competitors who took issue with his sheet metal intake and dual carburetors, despite running naturally-aspirated opposite their nitrous cars.
Tommy’s most recent ride was this big-tire ’64 GTO, which he campaigned in grudge and index events.

“I told them, ‘well you’ve got nitrous.’ But the Pontiac motor just made so much torque that I was able to compete and beat those guys. They started fussing and I just told them, ‘I want to race — ya’ll tell me what I’ve got to have,’ and they said inline-valve heads, cast intake, single carburetor. Mike Hill started helping me with tuning and we just got quicker and quicker. I tell some of those grudge guys even now, ‘this is all ya’ll’s fault!’ They say, ‘what do you mean?’ And I say, ‘if you’d have let me race the way I was, I probably never would have built the car I have now…I never would have gone this fast.’ ”

In truth, Youmans owes not his grudge racing counterparts, but an offer from a friend for the work of art you see before you.

“This guy had a turbo car, and he told me I ought to drive this thing one time. When I felt those turbos go to making power,” he begins with a chuckle and a grin, “and I felt that boost sensation, it was like oh…my…Lord. This thing is awesome.”
In its big-show debut on 275 drag radials at No Mercy 10, Youmans clocked a career-best 4.03-second lap and was on-track to top into the 3.90s — numbers that are most assuredly coming.

Youmans returned home and knew this was what he needed to do. He gained his wife’s blessing, telling her, “I wanted a ’70, and I couldn’t find a ’70, and I want to build a twin-turbo GTO and I want to go fast.”

Youmans met Todd Dobson of Mod-Rods in nearby Macon, Georgia, who he refers to as “a good Christian guy with a small shop that works mostly by himself,” and laid out the plans for the ’70 GTO he had long dreamed of. Not one to cut up a perfectly good Pontiac to make a racecar, Youmans and Dobson sourced factory reproduction panels to construct the car — quarters, rockers, A-pillars, rear valance, and deck panel.

Dobson spent seven months assembling the car, from a pile of ’70 GTO panels to a work of art covered in striking Carousel Red color.
Racing is the most addictive thing I have ever done in my life.
Despite the lack of parts availability, particularly at the extremes that he intended to operate, Youmans was dedicated to sticking with traditional Pontiac power. He approached the team at Kaufmann Racing Equipment in Ohio, which had built a plethora of Pontiac racing engines, but never a twin-turbo Pontiac of the caliber he had in mind. But they were willing to take on the project.

Kaufmann utilized a billet MR1 block, and together with GRP rods, Bryant crankshaft, and Ross pistons, assembled the 505 cubic-inch Pontiac of Youmans’ dreams. Topped with KRE’s Warp6 cylinder heads, a custom billet intake, and fed by a pair of 98mm Garrett turbos, the one-off mill produced a staggering 3,355 horsepower and 2,933 lb-ft of torque on the hub dyno at FuelTech, at 50-pounds of boost. This, he says proudly, is the most powerful Pontiac engine known to exist.

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