Dave Mock bought his L88 Corvette new back in 1969 and drove it on the street for a couple of years. “If you’ve ever owned or driven a Corvette, you’re familiar with their psychological impact,” starts the Car Craft magazine story about Mock’s Vette. “You have an urge to ‘play’ a little on the street.”
Mock had the urge, all right. On the very first weekend he owned the car, he took it to a slalom race at Fremont Raceway, near his Oakland, California, home. From there he moved up to autocross, and then took the big leap into SCCA A/Production road racing.
When Car Craft wrote about Mock’s race car in the January 1975 issue, he had never finished lower than Second place in three years of West Coast SCCA racing. He also held the A/Production track record at Laguna Seca at 1:52.85.
Mock got all that speed from the Vette’s born-with L88, which was fitted with a stock Chevy ZL1 camshaft, ported heads, and Venolia pistons on stock rods. A Holley 850-cfm carburetor flowed air and fuel through a Chevy high-rise aluminum manifold. The 427 was joined to its Muncie M22 Rockcrusher through a Schiefer clutch and aluminum flywheel, and there were 4.11 gears in the rearend.
The Corvette’s fiberglass body was augmented by factory road-race wheelwells, an aluminum dashboard, and an alloy firewall behind the driver seat. Mock also made use of Chevy racing suspension parts, an adjustable front sway bar, and Moog adjustable ball joints. The gummy Goodyears were mounted on 15x9.5-inch Minilite wheels.
“Mock estimated the car’s total cost at $25,000,” said the article. “Its best timed top speed has been 180 mph, and the car turned mid-12 e.t.’s in street trim three or four years ago.” After CC’s Don Green shot these photos, the Mocko Vette was about to take its “play” to the next level, as Mock was entering the car in the SCCA’s new Professional Trans-Am Series. From what we can gather looking at ’70s race results, Mock continued to terrorize West Coast tracks, logging a number of top-10 finishes.