“War Horse,” the Camaro Chris Tunnell races, proves that good race cars win for a long time. He’s raced it since 1992, and has won 142 times with it, including most recently on June 28 at Newport Speedway.
War Horse, a 1979 Z28 Camaro, started as a pure stock at Lonesome Pine Motorsports Park. It then evolved into a super stock and even raced as a limited late model. These days in competes in street stocks.
“Someone traded a Z28 in at one of Morgan-McClure’s dealerships,” Tunnell said. “I was friends with Tim Morgan — he told the dealership to give it to me. He said, ‘Chris, here is your future race car.’ I had been racing with a ’75 Malibu that I built in 1989 [at] dirt tracks in Kentucky and Tennessee. I gutted the Camaro and built it for pavement because Lonesome Pine had just opened back up.”
In 33 years, War Horse has received its fair share of battle wounds.
“Three front clips, one rear,” said Tunnell. “It’s been damaged pretty bad several times, but never been turned over.”
Only once has someone other than Tunnell raced the Camaro. That driver, of all people, was five-time NHRA champion Gary Scelzi, who steered it at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2006.
“The promoter wanted to put drag racers in street stocks for 12 laps — I agreed,” Tunnell said. “Gary Scelzi drove my car and got her into the wall pretty bad. That was the one and only time at Bristol and the one and only time I let someone else drive my car.”
At one time, Chris Tunnell called his Camaro “Timex,” because it “took a licking and kept on ticking.” However, the Chevy now goes by War Horse and there’s no indication Tunnell will stop racing his trusted steed.
“She’s gone through dozens of engines,” said Tunnell. “Been updated on so many parts it’s hard to keep track of. She’s a good ole car, and I don’t see the need for any other. I’m hoping I have a few more years left with her.”
Mike Adaskaveg 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.
