Every year 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords magazine puts a call out to the fastest street Mustangs in the country, and ultimately ten entrants are selected to compete for the ‘King of the Street’ title. Held at Beech Bend Park in Bowling Green, KY during the NMRA World finals, this year’s competition brought in everything from SVT Cobras to Shelby GT500s to a variety of supercharged and turbocharged S197 Mustang GTs.
Contestants for KOTS are put through a variety of tests, starting with dyno runs to get horsepower and torque figures, two passes down the drag strip, and a ride and drive sessions with an editor of the magazine. The cars are also judged on engineering as well as fit and finish, and a popular vote cast by spectators at the NMRA race is also taken into account.
While each of the Mustangs in the KOTS competition is impressive in their own right, at the end of the weekend there was one clear winner – Chris Cruz’ 2011 Mustang California Special. Cruz scored high in each performance category, putting down 815 rwhp (the third highest of the group) and netting the fastest pass on the dragstrip with 9.7 second time slip, but what set his car apart from the rest was its drivability. “The best thing about Chris’ GT/CS is its simplistic nature,” says 5.0 associate editor Michael Johnson. “We already knew the car was 9-second capable, so that it was a simple drive-in-the-park was quite astonishing.” Cruz’ Mustang also received high marks for engineering and fit and finish, giving him the highest final score of 81.
You can learn more about Chris Cruz’s King of the Street winning Mustang in the video below, or head over to 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords to read the entire article.
