MUSTANGS! - speed, performance, and winning are what we demand from
them. It's an affliction which a large number of guys seem to get caught
up with in their youth and never seem to out grow. No matter how fast we
go, no matter how much money we spend, and no matter how much our significant
others want to kill us, we're just never satisfied. We just have to go
faster and we'll sell our souls to do it. You know how it is when your
driving down that certain hi-way with her and Joe Camaro pulls up beside
you, you just have to bust his chops even though you know she'll kill you.
A vast majority of women just don't seem to appreciate the awesome rush
of adrenalin you get from leaving that Camaro in the dust or going from
a dead stop to 100 Mph in 12 seconds. They're just concerned with the fact
you bought 3,000 dollars in performance parts this year, instead of taking
them to Hawaii! Now why on earth would that be any big deal, compared to
running 12's? That's why when a women comes along who not only loves Mustangs,
but racing them too, all of us guys should jump up-and-down with glee!
And if that wasn't enough, she modifies her car herself too. Who might
this female Fun Ford Shootout - Outlaw Class participant, owner of two
Mustangs, and total horse crazed fanatic be?
Ashley Smiley is a 21 year old Mechanical Engineering student at
Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee who proclaims "I've
always liked cars, ever since I had my first big wheel!" Ashley didn't
think Mustangs were to great back in her high school days though. To her,
it seemed like everyone had one - but she quickly changed her mind. This
happened after she learned what a nice machines they are, and that most
people running around in them hadn't modified the car to
be really quick. That's when she became interested in our favorite
type of Pony. It seems rather fitting that she would get into Mustangs,
the car symbolized by horses, because Ashley also loves real horses! Yep,
this lady has horses on the brain and is truly HORSE CRAZY. She
has been riding horses since the age of eight, working at a local barn
training horses, and giving riding lessons to young kids. She has also
placed in the state rankings in horse shows on several occasions. Ashley
says that the kids always think she's nutty for being so crazy about cars.
Once while working with kids and horses at a summer camp, she was taking
several of the kids on a field trip. While driving, with a car load of
the kids from the camp, she saw a 1993 Cobra "with one of those annoying
stickers" across the front that say "COBRA". She said out
loud - "OK! Everyone knows it's a Cobra anyway!", and the kids
thought it was so funny she was gripping about a sticker on this car that
they made fun of her all summer. It must be these kids are to young to
be into cars yet!
Ashley's first Mustang was her blue 1988 GT. She purchased it stock,
but having the 'need-for-speed' affliction, it didn't stay that way long.
Before going to Tennessee for college, she used to live in Pennsylvania
- right down the street from Maple Grove Raceway. She started taking her
GT there and modifying it. Starting off by helping the stock 5.0 exhaust
with a pair of 2.5" 2-chamber Flowmaster mufflers and
an off road H-pipe. Next, she took back some of the horsepower eaten by the
parasitic accessories by changing to underdrive pullies. She also quickened
the cars acceleration with a 3.73 ring and pinion replacement, a Hurst
shifter, and she advanced the timing. These light mods, on Hoosier DOT's,
brought the GT's ET to a 13.55 @ 100 Mph! Not bad to say the least. Now
Ashley really wanted more! She pulled out the restrictive stock headers
for a set of Mac full length pieces, replaced the stock throttle body and
EGR with 65mm units, and added an adjustable fuel regulator. Finally, she
tied up the frame with a pair of subframe connectors. Ashley then got the
opportunity to take a big slice of ego out of a couple Vette owners, but
unfortunetly the car never made it back to the track.
At this point, Ashley was moving from Pennsylvania for college. Her father
and her cousin came up with a car trailer to bring her and both the cars
(a Daytona at the time) down to Tennessee. They put the Mustang on the
car trailer. Then Ashley's father drove the truck,
while she drove her Daytona behind them. After driving for 10 and a half hours,
Ahsley flashed the lights to pull her father over. She had become so tired
that she was falling asleep at the wheel. She got in the truck with her
cousin and her father started driving the Daytona behind them. After a
few minutes, she had almost fallen asleep when the truck went over a big
joint in the road at the bottom of a hill, where the road connected to
a bridge, causing her cousin to loose control of the truck. Ashley says
that the whole ordeal seemed like it took forever. She honestly thought
they were going to die, because they were out of control on the bridge.
The truck bounced back and forth between the guard rails. Then finally
the Mustang flipped off the trailer behind them!
The Mustang rolled down the road, stopping between the the truck and the bridge.
However, as the truck hit one of the large concrete guard rails, Ashley
went straight through the windshield! Fortunetly, she only suffered a puncture
in a small artery in her leg, and her cousin was fine too. Although, her
Mustang was destroyed. She says, the most terrifying part of the
whole ordeal was that after they had stopped, she realized that a tractor-trailer
had been by them and locked up the brakes. The truck came to a stop only
5 feet from them! Then when the state-troopers came, they said that if
the Mustang hadn't come off the trailer Ashley and her cousin would have
gone straight through the wall and over the bridge! I'm glad that we can
write here that Ashley came through the accident relatively unscaved and
is with us today.
Seeing how Ashley was alive and her precious Mustang was destroyed,
what else could she do but get another one. This is when she purchased
her 1993 LX Mustang, 5.0 equipped of course! Now wouldn't you guess, she's
at it again. Currently, this beautiful LX breaths through a K&N air
filter followed by a 75mm Pro-M Bullet which is connected to a 65mm Throttle
body. From there, the air gets pumped in and out of the cylinders via a
set of out-of-the-box TFS Aluminum heads with 2.02 / 1.60 valves. Right
about the time you'll be reading this article, Ashley should have completed
the installation of a Cartech single turbocharger with a Mac / Cartech
custom header set-up. The stock cam still resides in the stock 5.0 short
block, beefed up a little; however, with a set of Cobra 1.7 roller rockers.
The rest of the exhaust features 2-chamber Flowmasters and 2.5" pipes
to get the gasses out. Fuel is be delivered to this combination via a high
volume Ford Motorsport fuel pump, stock lines, 30 lb injectors, and when
the boost comes in hard, there's a J&S Electronic Detonation Control
System to keep the head gaskets in one piece. All this is cooled with a
3 core heavy duty radiator. The power is put to the ground through a stock
(yes, stock) T-5 transmission, heavy duty FMS clutch, billet driveshaft,
31-spline billet axles, an Auburn differential with 3.27 gears, and the
Mikey Thompson slicks are made to byte with a set of Southside Traction
Bars. A complete set of Weld Draglites sport the racing tires all around
and give it a look that says "I'm all business". Of course, the
stock shifter has been swapped out for a Hurst short throw for some hard
power shifting! Well now, if you're saying to yourself "This thing
should move!", you're right! Ashley has been doing a lot of talking
with Cartech on the installation and tuning of her new Turbocharger. She
fully expects to see the high tens really soon! Needless to say, she's
not taking any chances with her life. After all, she already came close
to loosing it once, so she's installing an 8-point Competition Engineering
roll cage for lots of security.
Ashley Smiley is definitely headed in the right direction with her
steed. So look out, she's prowling the streets of Nashville and may be
coming to an event near you soon. As of now, she is currently planning
on making it to some of the Fun Ford events this year. Ashley says that
after college, her ultimate goal is to get her LX well into the 9's! She'll
be happy with 10's until then, however. So gentlemen, take heed. Yes -
she's cute, but deadly! She just might leave you sucking exhaust
fumes before you even know what hits you!
