The Texas Motor Speedway Dirt Track recently introduced the Cop Stock class. Cop Stocks will use retired Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor (CVPI) vehicles as its car of choice. Track promoter, X.Celerated, aka XR, hopes the division will help develop more racers.
“The [Police Interceptor] cars are readily available,” said Dan Robinson, COO of X.Celerated. “[As] stock race cars, they are fast, powerful, and inexpensive. More people will be able to get involved in racing because they are so inexpensive.”
Ford manufactured 1.5 million Crown Victorias from 1991 to 2011, with 95% produced for fleet and police use. As police departments retire the vehicles, the cars are an inexpensive find among a heated used car market.
“There are Crown Victorias just about everywhere, and they can be purchased at a reasonable price,” Shane Hewett, XR tech director, said. “We found newer models selling for $3,000 to $5,000. Older models can be purchased for $1,500. You can have a turnkey race car for less than $3,000, with roll cage installed.”
XR intends to keep the cars stock, right down to the air filter. The Dirt Track promoters will require racers to install a complete roll cage per their specifications.
“The idea was to come up with a class of race cars that was both entry-level and intriguing,” said Hewett. “We noticed some tracks had Crown Vic divisions. The rules were vague and they were not safety-oriented. So, we wrote our rules to would preserve the cars as stock and ensure that they would be as safe as possible.”
According to Hewett, the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor’s stock setup necessitates very few changes for oval-track use. They come from the factory with higher-rate coil springs that give them 0.8 inches of additional ground clearance. Ford manufactured Police Interceptor cars with thinner rear antiroll bars than Crown Victorias with tow packages. Some didn’t come with a rear antiroll bar at all.
Ford manufactured most Crown Victoria Police Interceptors with a single overhead cam 4.6L V-8 engine. XR prohibits those that have dual overhead cams (DOHC).
XR looks to expand the Cop Stock division to all of the dirt tracks it promotes, including the SMI-owned tracks of Bristol, Charlotte, and Las Vegas.
The promoters will also welcome the most experienced drivers of the cars used in the Cop Stocks — police officers.
“We will be buying about six cars, and making them race-ready,” Hewett said. “We’ll invite local law enforcement to race our cars. That will draw attention to the division and make it fun to race in it.”
The Outside Groove Director of Photography has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
