George Cunningham grew up racing the streets and eventually hit the track as he got a bit older.
Now in his late 50s, he runs as close to the streets as he can in his big block nitrous Nova, hitting most any grudge/no time/no prep event he can, and his grandson Cohen is right there by his side. “Before I knew it, 40 plus years had gone by and here I am no-prep rac-
ing!” Cunningham exclaimed. Cohen would eventually get into a Jr. Dragster, following in George’s “legal” footsteps and although George was involved in bracket racing the majority of his own drag racing life, he had done some radial racing and is now dedicated to mostly no-prep drags. Bracket racing became boring and radial racing got expensive; no prep racing seemed to even out the playing field.
George has had a few cars over the years, but his 1969 Nova they call “The Bad Apple,” is unique because Cohen is the one who found it. Initially a bracket car, they struggled with getting the setup to run right and even tried to run some radial races. Frustrated, they turned to no-prep and never looked back. It’s been a learning experience and a money pit for the crew, but they wouldn’t change it for the world. “We bought a big block
nitrous car and we had no idea how to tune it,” George explained. “But with the help of a lot of people and a great team we have made a name for ourselves. When we pur chased it we were told it was a 555 big block but it turned out it was 540 cubic inches, but we made it work. Originally run ning a 400 hit of nitrous, after a few different transmissions and nitrous setups we were fi nally ready to up the nitrous tune a good bit more.
The Bad Apple is a survivor 1969 Nova with title that still has the steel roof and quarters. Fiberglass doors, hood, trunk and front clip have been added in the interest of weight loss. Paint is British Green with Sour Apple stripes and the front headlights and grill have been airbrushed.
We’ve actually been through 1 motor, 3 transmissions and 1 set of axles that we twisted and we bent the rear housing and had to re-wire the car completely. This car has come a long ways from being a bracket car. It took us a year of trying stuff to learn what works and the hard lessons of what does not work.”
The 1969 Chevy Nova is an iconic muscle car and has always been popular at the drag strip, however, seeing it at a no-prep event among lighter platforms is a bit more rare. The 3rd gen Nova is a heavy car, and for the most part
George chose to keep it that way; much of the original body and chassis are intact. The car is an original Nova with a title and maintains the original steel roof and quarters, but fiberglass doors, trunk lid, front fenders and hood were added to help trim a few pounds off.
George entrusted Angry Yankee in Atlanta, Ga, to take care of all the additional chassis work needed, and since the Nova had already been painted British Green with the Sour Apple stripes when they bought it, they kept it that way and gave it the Bad Apple name.
Although the car has a ’glass front clip, they installed square led lights in it for visibility at the low-lit back of the track, no-prep races. A combination of Viking front and Menscer Motorsports rear canister shocks drop Bad Apple to its menacing stance. Add in the V series 17x4.5 Weld Racing front runners and Alpha-1 15x12s with a 28x10.5 wide slicks mounted for extra contact patch, and you’ve got a tough-looking Nova. Not to mention the intimidating fender exit bull horn exhaust.
“The low stance with the paint job gives the car a great look,” says Cunningham. “But the bull horns coming out the fenders makes it look like it means serious business, and gives it a different sound than most cars.”
The really good stuff is under the hood; the engine platform is quite capable. RS Motorsports put together a killer big block combination for nitrous use. The short block consists of a Dart block stuffed with a billet Ohio stroker crank, GRP aluminum stroker rods, and oversized nitrous CP pistons that equate to 565ci of torque twisting goodness. A large Bullet Racing roller cam spec’d for nitrous activities rests in the block cavity. Dart 345 aluminum heads top the big cube steel mill, and Jesel rockers, Mo-
Built by RS Motorsports, the 565-inch big block was created using a Dart block with a billet stroker crank, GRP aluminum rods and CP forged nitrous pistons. Dart 345 aluminum heads with titanium valves and Jensen rockers were studded into place. An Edelbrock Super Victor intake is topped by a Holley 1050 Dominator carb.
George is an old-school kind of guy, so he uses a tried and true Holley Dominator 1050 carburetor on top of an Edelbrock SV565 intake manifold. Finally, a solid hit of nitrous comes into the mix via an Induction Solutions direct port system which can be tuned to add up to 850hp and is controlled by an AMS 2000 nitrous controller. And, as mentioned, a custom set of headers exits into those bull horns poking out the front fenders. The total output that they’ve pushed it to is in the 1500whp range on a hub dyno with around 1900 pounds of torque.
