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It didn’t happen exactly the way he drew it up, but Danny Towe is officially the 2022 NMCA Detroit Truetrac Nostalgia Muscle Car world champion.
Towe came into the season-ending World Street Finals presented by Chevrolet Performance as the championship leader following a clutch win last month at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk. Competing against Ralph Trimmer, Jerry Stamps, and his buddy David Mormann for the title, Towe expected a long fight to the finish but in a rare turn of events, all four contenders went out in round one. That clinched the title for Towe.
“Just like I drew it up,” Towe laughed. “Sometimes, these things happen. You think it’s going to go down to the wire, but it didn’t happen that way. The win in Norwalk was huge. When I won that race, I knew I was in the chase for the title but I thought I’d need to win some rounds here today [in Indy]. Between the NMCA and NMRA Series, Towe now has three championships and he’s a favorite to add a fourth next week in Bowling Green, Ky. Towe enters the final NMRA event of the season as the championship leader in the Ford Muscle class. The rules for the Nostalgia Muscle Car and Ford Muscle class are similar, but Towe admits the competition is a bit stiffer in Nostalgia Muscle.
“For one, the fields are quite a bit bigger in Nostalgia Muscle,” he says. “I’ve also found that the Nostalgia Muscle racers are a bit more experienced. Not to take anything away from Ford Muscle because there’s some tough racers there, but Nostalgia Muscle is really competitive.” Fortunately, Towe doesn’t need to make any changes to his Harland Sharp-backed ’70 Mustang to run either class. Towe is also quick to admit that he’d have a hard time racing if not for the help of fellow competitor David Mormann, who is his traveling companion. Mormann lives in Tampa, Fla. While Towe is from Westminster, S.C. but they somehow manage the logistics to be able to use a single trailer and split travel costs.
“I wasn’t planning on competing in both the NMRA and NMCA series this year but David started the year really strong in Bradenton so we decided to go for it. Once we looked at things and saw that we were both in the running for championships, we felt like we had to go for it. “Sometimes, it’s a challenge to get the cars from one place to the other but we make it work. Sometimes we leave the trailer at Mike Moistner’s place, and sometimes we need to drive long hours or buy plane tickets, but we make it work. I definitely couldn’t do this without David, though.” Travel and logistical issues aside, Towe has also had to deal with an ongoing ignition gremlin in his classic Mustang all season. He admits it’s been a constant struggle, but it wasn’t enough to prevent him from adding crucial semifinal finishes in Bradenton and Martin to go along with his victory in Norwalk.
“It’s been a hell of a year as far as this car is concerned,” Towe said. “It would skip, pop, and miss from time to time so I had no other choice than to dial-up so that I could get to the finish line first. The more I think about it, that might be the reason why I did so well this year. I just need something like that to occupy my mind so I stay focused on racing. I think we finally figured out that we had a problem with the tach but at some point this year, I changed everything and I do mean everything. If there is a part that had anything to do with the ignition system, it got changed.”
With his NMCA title safely in the bank, Towe can now turn his attention to winning the NMRA SCT Ford Muscle title when the series heads south to Bowling Green next week for the Whipple Superchargers NMRA World Finals. Towe hasn’t clinched the title, but he’s got a sizable 330 point lead over Mormann who isn’t about to concede the title without a fight. “David has been my biggest rival all year so I don’t see why it would be any different this time,” said Towe. “We’re just going to go down there and give it our best shot. I owe a lot of thanks to Harland Sharp for all their support. I’d love nothing more than to deliver a second championship as a way of saying thanks.”
