Sal’s Mustang: Late-Life Resurgence
Sal Molinare’s speed obsession began with dirt bikes, go carts, hot rods and the viewing of a cult classic. After first watching American Graffiti, he went and machined a piston-shaped shift knob for his street car in his high school’s machine shop – like the one John Milner had in the movie.
It was that inclination to craft his own car parts that led to him building his own tube chassis and entering a local autocross series. When he stood atop the championship podium in that first season, he knew he’d found his calling.
This led to running a home built tube-chassis Thunderbird on the ovals and winning several championships in the eighties and early nineties. His proven track record and driving ability made it clear that this knack for fabrication could be more than a hobby. Several years later, his racing shop had become a mainstay in the stock car community.
His analytical mind, shaped by the rough realities of racing, turned out to have an application in another industry – one far more lucrative than motorsport. After being head hunted by the food and chemical industry, Sal spent the next thirty years taking unusual approaches to problem solving for a number of Fortune 500 companies. Sadly, the workload put his own racing on the backburner.
Thirty years would pass before Sal would got back behind the wheel. He had picked up a new 2006 Mustang GT and turned it into a show car, but it was only a matter of time before the old go-fast gremlins got a hold of his mind. Soon after, he stuck a blown stroker motor in his pony car and took it drag racing, but straight lines failed to keep him interested for long.
“I missed the competition and corners, really,” he said. Then sixty years old, he wondered if track days might scratch his itch. His background in racing didn’t impress everyone, though. “The track promoters told me on several occasions that I was too aggressive and passing too many cars. Conversely, some of the guys were telling me I was too old, too slow, and my reflexes wouldn’t be good enough to be competitive. On top of that, they felt my technology was based in oval racing and about thirty years too old. All those dismissals were not going to go unanswered,” Sal recalled.
Eager to prove there was some life left in the old dog, Sal started a track-oriented overhaul. Cooling came courtesy of a custom triple-pass radiator and a GT500 fan. As for suspension, he picked JRi coilovers and Cortex’s SLA front end, a cambered rear end, and a torque-arm. Out went the automatic transmission and in its place went a Tremec Magnum XL sending power to a Torsen T2R differential and onto 18x12 Forgestar F-14s wrapped in 335/30 Hoosier A/R7s, under which he fitted four-piston Brembos. Inside the car, he installed a complete cage, a full aluminum interior, and an ATL fuel cell. With some weight reduction, the car weighed in at 3,300 pounds with plenty of fuel.
Then came what’s affectionately known as a 3/2 Coyote – consisting of a third-generation bottom end and second-gen top end built by AED Tuning in Shingle Springs. Along with heads ported by Brett Barber at Air Flow Solutions, L&M Engines “intake only” cams, and a Ported Cobra jet intake, the custom mill revs to 8,200 and puts out 508 hp and 414 lb ft at the wheels on E85.
Crucially, the car did not provide him the reassurance of ABS – and that presented Sal with a moderate learning curve. “Driving the ovals is all about getting the power down first, and I had to fight that instinct on the road course. I realized that getting into the corner quickly was just as important, and so I started attacking the entries, but not having ABS made it easy to lock a wheel or two. So, I improvised and made a custom valving setup with cables that reach inside the car so I can adjust the bias on the fly. It still retains the stock master cylinder and booster,” he explained.
In 2021, Sal made a return to racing. First in SCCA ITE, where he won the season opener, the championship, and nearly every race that year. The following year, he jumped into NASA’s AIX class and won every event, the season championship, and the NASA National Championship at Laguna Seca. He’d proved the naysayers wrong and was enjoying the high point of his racing success during his so-called retirement.
Unfortunately, his winning streak came to a halt in early 2023 when his truck was broken into and all his gear stolen after leaving practice for the SCCA season opener at Sonoma.“That kinda took the wind out of my sails for a bit,” he admitted.
That hasn’t managed to keep him away from the track completely, though. Since then, Sal’s kept himself busy with the odd track day, and has even become an instructor with Speed SF. The proof in his performance has silenced the naysayers, and without much more to win with the car, he’s allowed himself to mellow a bit. Of course, ‘mellow’ has various definitions, and in Sal’s case, racing will still be his chosen form of entertainment, and neither gardening nor golf has a chance of taking its place.