Tuesday on Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, Dylan "Mamba" Smith — co-host of the show, founder of Queen City Garage — said the program out loud:
"I worked out this deal. I've been working on it for a while with Mopar and with Dodge, with them getting a crate engine back in the late model stock racing... So this is the first week that I'll be in a Dodge on track."
Read that quote one more time. Slowly. Because if you cover Late Model Stock racing for a living — and I do — you understand what that sentence is.
It is the start of a NASCAR certification process for a new manufacturer engine in Late Model Stock racing. It does not happen often. It does not happen quickly. It happens because someone does the work.
The development program doing the work is Queen City Garage. The shop with the experience is Lee Faulk Racing.
That sentence is the column.
What QCG Is Actually Doing
Queen City Garage is the Charlotte-based development program Smith launched this month. Project Never Lift — its first project — has one job: take a 5.7L Mopar Hemi crate through the testing and certification work that earns NASCAR approval for Late Model Stock racing. Engine in hand. Dyno-validated. Ready for chassis time. The published QCG launch post frames it plainly. The certification is the deliverable. Everything else — the chassis testing, the data collection, the public build log — feeds the cert paperwork.
QCG is not a race team. That has to be said early because some readers see "Charlotte stock car program" and think race team. This is a development program. The car is a tool. The track is where the data gets generated. The engine is the product.
The Receipts at Lee Faulk Racing
Lee Faulk Racing in Mooresville is the chassis-and-team partner. Owner Michael Faulk runs the shop. He is also QCG's Development Lead on Project Never Lift.
Faulk has done this before. The last new manufacturer engine to come through NASCAR Late Model Stock certification — the GM Enforcer — was handled by Lee Faulk Racing. That is the experience now sitting in the room with the Mopar Hemi.
If you understand how this sport works, that detail is the entire weight of the column. Cert is real work. The shops that have done it are a small list. (You could count them on one hand and have fingers left over.)
QCG hired the right one.
What Florence Saturday Actually Is
Saturday at Florence Motor Speedway, QCG runs its first competitive lap as a development team. Limited Late Model. Fifty laps. The 25 on the door. Mother's Day weekend, $1,000 to win, a 0.4-mile asphalt bullring fifteen miles south of Darlington, called the Diamond of the Southeast.
The engine is not in the car this weekend. That is on purpose.
Saturday is a chassis benchmark — sourced equipment, known dyno curve, the chassis is the only variable that gets to talk during the session. Once QCG has its own measurement notes on the chassis, the PNL Hemi gets dropped into a platform that already has a baseline. That is how engine programs work. That is how cert data becomes credible. That is the difference between a program and a press release.
The 25 goes green at 7 PM Saturday. The engine fits when the data says it does.
What This Means for Late Model Stock Racing
Folks. Listen.
Late Model Stock has effectively been a one-engine series for a long time. That has been GREAT for parity and accessibility — a kid with a crate engine can race against a veteran with the same crate engine and the engine is not the variable. It has not been great for manufacturer competition. The engine bay has had one option.
The presence of a second NASCAR-certified manufacturer engine — even just the certification process being underway — changes the structural conversation around the sport. Teams will have a choice. Manufacturers will have a marketing footprint at the developmental level. Drivers coming up the late-model ladder will get to choose between badges. That is not a small thing. That is a healthier ladder.
It does not happen overnight. The cert clock is the cert clock. But the work is being done. The shop doing it has done it before. And the development program backing it just put its first car on a 0.4-mile bullring to start collecting data.
That is how a real engine program looks.
What's Next
QCG's published vision document frames Project Never Lift as the first leg of a three-leg development arc — engine, drivers, crew. The engine is leg one. The chassis work at Florence is the start of the cert testing program.
Watch the QCG build log. Watch the dyno data when it gets cleared for publication. Watch the chassis through the season.
The next NASCAR-certified manufacturer engine for Late Model Stock racing is not a hypothetical anymore.
It is a 5.7L Hemi. It is in Mooresville. It is going through the work.
— John Speedway, Motorsports Columnist, Grand National Today
Disclosure: Grand National Today is published by Queen City Garage. This piece is reported coverage; standard editorial conventions apply.