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Mitchell Stapleton

@stapleton42_

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Racer - Historian - Builder
Keeping the Golden Era of Motorsports Alive
YouTube: Stapleton42

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Early 2000’s NASCAR was the pinnacle of pushrod V8 engine sounds and it cannot be disputed 🇺🇸

Also people don’t read captions because they thought I paid 5k for the whole car in my last post. I sure wish that were the case🤦🏻‍♂️ Who reads the captions?

#longmaywedrive #pennzoil @pennzoil by @stapleton42_

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a year ago

Pretty wild how things seem to play out... When I was 7 and drew this picture it wasn’t my life goal to turn a Suburban into a racecar. Apparently in my fantasy land brain it could do the job though (also predicted mustangs crashing but that’s another story 😂)
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I didn’t line up with a Corvette to recreate this picture or pick the left lane on purpose either. Even wasn’t beating a regular Corvette it was one with 1000 whp. Couldn’t plan that photo finish if I tried. That part of the real life version was definitely not on my radar at the time of this drawing. When I was 7 I didn’t know it was possible to put 2,000 hp into anything let alone the truck my dad drove. Heck the headlights are even on in both pictures…
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Coincidence or prophecy? Makes you wonder how things work themselves out when you follow a passion with intent...and I’m also glad my dad saved a bunch of my old doodles.
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2023 update: As time went on I realized this photo was also the symbolic “end” of the Escalade centric era of my life which makes this whole thing even weirder. The engine blew up as this picture was taken and has only been used again for one week in the last two years. Almost as if the box was checked and it’s time to move on. Nothing is a coincidence in my eyes.
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#lsxcalade #trusttheprocess #100to0 #totmfw #corvette #zr1 #howitstartedvshowitsgoing #twinturbo by @stapleton42_

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6 years ago

#Sponsored Every car enthusiast knows what an X pipe is, but did you know it was NASCAR that popularized it in the mid-1990s? That iconic sound was standard for every Daytona 500 during the sport’s golden decade. Kevin Harvick won the final X-pipe Daytona 500 in 2007 driving the Shell @Pennzoil car. Today that car sits in authentic, race-used condition at the Richard Childress Racing museum.

I use Pennzoil Ultra Platinum in my personal vehicles and my own vintage NASCAR race car too (as you may have seen before). If it is good enough to handle the racetrack, it’s good enough for your car. Hope you enjoyed today’s mini history lesson brought to you by Pennzoil!

#LongMayWeDrive #Since1913 #Pennzoil by @stapleton42_

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4 days ago

Old school innovation lives on with modern technology at @bobcatcompany in the all new Pro Loader Lineup

#ad #bobcatpartner #onetoughanimal by @stapleton42_

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17 days ago

I’m a car guy by nature but really anything mechanical sparks my interest to learn about. You may drive by a construction site and see some guys pushing dirt around not thinking much about it but let me tell you… these are some SERIOUS machines. Getting a chance to learn about the new @bobcatcompany Pro and Classic loader lineup and try them out at Bobcat Jobsite Live was extremely enjoyable. I am eager to share more about what I learned with you guys!

#ad #bobcatpartner #onetoughanimal by @stapleton42_

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2 months ago

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2 months ago

Sometimes to make long term progress you have to take some short term steps backwards.

My willingness to take a loss in comforts over the last 8 years is probably the attribute most responsible for me having the life I do now. I was lucky to figure this out relatively early and it became something I willingly sought out. When things became too comfortable, that meant I wasn’t pushing hard enough.

Last year I had a nice air conditioned space to work on things but now that we bought this house, I don’t. I knew it would be a while before I had that again but didn’t care. There is plenty of covered garage space here but it’s all in flux or different stages of storage from moving. Driveway is better for now and kinda nostalgic for me to sweat my ass off in the sun with this old truck.

I’ve been driving this truck since 2018 and now it has over 420,000 miles on it. Except for one year in mid 2019 to mid 2020 I had a much nicer 2012 Duramax I got a loan for to pull a bigger trailer, which I also lived in.

That truck was WAY nicer than my 2007 here. The old LBZ got better fuel mileage and was worth less, so I went back to it instead of keeping the newer nicer one I was used to. I traded the 2012 truck plus cash for the Newell. The exact amount of cash I had sold my also financed trailer for. I didn’t even know where I was going to live once I drove away with it, but the groundwork was laid.

Live in the Newell. Be fluid. Rent the shop space wherever I needed to be. Only pay rent in one place to keep overhead low. That’s exactly what I did. Back then I told myself I’d live in it until I was 30 if I had to... Now I just turned 30 and I willingly sleep in the Newell plugged into MY house because I like it 😂

There’s tons of tactical decisions and lifestyle sacrifices I have never talked about before. Some felt like embarrassing, others necessary to live under the radar in code violation. Putting paper over the windows, keeping lights off. Nobody knew on YouTube.

Sometimes on road trips if I’m solo I still sleep in the back seat and use truck stop showers just to keep myself honest. Your comfort is disposable. Don’t prioritize it. I’m glad I didn’t.

#100to0 by @stapleton42_

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3 months ago

#Ad I see people on the internet buy old NASCAR cars and do serious damage to their engines all the time not knowing they are doing anything wrong. The startup procedure is a whole process that doesn’t exactly come with an instruction manual.

Almost everything about running a vintage NASCAR engine is different from a normal road car engine...except the oil I put in it. You can find the same @Pennzoil Ultra Platinum 0W-40 oil I use in my Dodge R5P7 at most parts stores. (If it isn’t on the shelf, sometimes they have it in the back if you ask them for it).

If it is good enough for a NASCAR engine used for actual racing, it’s good enough for your car too. #LongMayWeDrive #Since1913 #AdvanceAutoParts by @stapleton42_

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4 months ago

Headed back to the track!

During a recent trip to Riley Technologies, Bill Riley revealed to @stapleton42_ that GTS-R2 C02 was being recommissioned to return to the track for its new owner.

I had not seen this car since it was in storage with Stellantis in the summer of 2025. A quick inspection revealed an assembly of parts from various cars, but not enough to make C02 a running example. It served display duty post retirement wearing its 2013 Le Mans GTE Pro livery. The pending revival would take it from the least complete of the four GTS-R2s built, to just the second ready to race.

Here's to hoping it roars back to life soon! Check out the entire video on Stapleton's YT channel. Visit ViperRacingHistory.com to see C02's competition history.

Photo: VRH

#viper #gtsr #alms #imsa #dodgemotorsports by @stapleton42_

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7 months ago

It didn’t occur to me how funny this radio audio exchange with @uhbrad was until people pointed it out in the comments on youtube. I think it was the only question I asked on the radio 😂

Legitimate question though. There’s no place to put your left foot and you’re not supposed to use it. Just kinda hover it there on standby as the entire car buzzes around you at terminal velocity while you control the buffeting side to side in the wind. It’s the strangest sense of stillness until you realize you’re doing 180 pointed at a huge turn with a nice wall at the top. Your brain says the car won’t stick to the ground…but you keep your foot down and it just works.

The way this ARCA test came about with @mullinsracing was totally unexpected and really altered the course of everything I was doing in a good way. At the end of last season I had no thoughts of having an ARCA license in 2026 and now I do. This year is going to be REALLY fun.

Maybe next year at the test I’ll be in a car with my own name on the roof rail.

#arca #daytona by @stapleton42_

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7 months ago

2016 was a MAJOR year for me and it may not have happened without a GM supercharger recall. I was an unmotivated commuter college kid with skinny arms and no desire to do anything but work on cars. I figured I was going to be a loser anyways so I took all the money I had saved and conspired to install a refurbished Camaro ZL1 supercharger on my dad’s Escalade that he was making my drive to school. My Monte Carlo was always broken so I had been secretly taking the Escalade to the drag strip for the last few months.

I was strictly forbidden by him from doing any sort of racing. Naturally it made sense to throw a supercharger on there and hope my dad didn’t notice. He wasn’t around much so my chances were good. I just assumed if I did it correctly and it worked reliably he wouldn’t have it in him to kick my ass since I made it better right? I waited until he was out of town and some smart friends helped me figure it out.

I signed up for Drag Week under my friend George’s name just so I could go hang out with other friends who were doing it. I’d tell my dad I was going to stay at my mom’s house for a week. I had to get four slicks to meet the rules since it was AWD.

None of this was done with the intent to make it famous or anything like that. I just wanted to go have fun with my friends and be faster than the other kids at the mall parking lot.

The slicks made it faster at Drag Week running high 11s and it started going around social media. I wound up meeting @kyle_1320video at a checkpoint during one of his live streams and that was my first “appearance” in anything on the internet besides my own social media.

I learned how some people could leverage Instagram promotion to have relationships with parts manufacturers. I thought maybe I could do that and make the Escalade faster. People seemed to like it. I had no money even though I was driving a 3 year old Escalade. I camped in the back and used other peoples hotel showers.

After that I photoshopped documents to get myself “industry approved” for credentials to go to SEMA and PRI. That’s when @so_kamikaze_chris thought I was his UBER and things really took off.

2016 completely changed my life by @stapleton42_

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9 months ago

That’s no fun..

@pennzoil

#vintagenascar #shorttrackracing #pennzoil #longmaywedrive by @stapleton42_

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10 months ago