Jeff Lutz And “Mad Max” To Mark Return At Sick Week

Before he was one of the Street Outlaws universe’s most beloved stars, veteran racer and chassis builder Jeff Lutz was one of the leading forces of the drag-and-drive movement, battling year in and year out with Larry Larson for street car supremacy in his iconic 1957 Chevrolet’s and later, his “Mad Max” Pro Modified-style 1969 Camaro.

As his involvement with the Discovery Channel reality program evolved, his drag-and-drive efforts took a back seat. Lutz last officially contested Drag Week in 2016, a banner year in which he won the Unlimited and overall title and recorded what was — and remains to this day — the quickest five-day average for a drag-and-drive event in history at 6.191 seconds and an average speed of 240.01 mph. It was his second overall victory at the sport’s premiere drag-and-drive event. In the years since, he’s hung on to Max Max, utilizing its 540 cubic inch big-block Chevrolet powerplant at times in his newer ’57 and Pontiac GTO in the Street Outlaws No Prep Kings series. Fans often ask him when or if he’s going to return to drag-and-drive competition, and unsure of his intentions and not willing to commit to it, he would always tell them “no.”

But the answer, he tells us, has for the last three years been not a matter of if, but when.

“I always told people no just to stop them from asking anymore, but it’s been on my mind for about three years,” Jeff says. “With my schedule with No Prep Kings and all of the filming, I could just never get it together. I wanted to switch this car to FuelTech … Jeffrey’s been bugging me to do that for years, and he finally got it all switched over and we just got it running. This car’s been sitting collecting dust since 2016. We’re working on the wheelie bars and we’re putting the new RC Components R5 rear wheels and the Impulse fronts on it. The car’s dirty as hell, but we’re dead-serious about coming back out.”

With the Street Outlaws franchise on hiatus from filming this winter and the No Prep Kings series in the midst of it’s offseason, Lutz and his son, Jeffrey, found themselves with a rare two full months of time on their hands — and that proved the perfect time to get Mad Max ready for its return.

The combination is virtually identical to the GTO he campaigns in No Prep Kings: 540 cubic inches, twin 88mm turbos, a Rossler Turbo 400, and FuelTech managing everything.

Jeffrey, who handles all of the tuning chores on his father’s…