Greg Gessler's
1972 GS STAGE 1
Greg has owned his Buick since 1981. It's an original 1 of 728, 1972 GS with the Stage 1 engine. In 1982 he performed an 'on-body' restoration, stripping all body panels down to bare metal, rebuilt the suspension, cleaned and reused the original interior. The car was painted in black lacquer and its the same paint on the car today. In the early 80's NOS parts were available and purchased from the dealer such as a new front bumper, rubber bumper molding's and N-25 chrome exhaust tips. The car has seen alot of street duty thru the years.
Like many Muscle Car owners, Greg modified the engine with tube-headers, aftermarket aluminum intake manifold and a 'racy' camshaft. Greg has always stuck with the Rochester 800 cfm Quadrajet carburetor. In the late 1980's the car ran as quick as 11.44 @ 117 MPH and fully streetable. Not wanting to add a rollbar to his street car, Greg decided to re-install the stock intake and exhaust manifolds, figuring that this would slow the car down. Greg has had success racing his Stage 1 at the Buick GS Nationals in their GS street stock class for cars that looked stock. His car won that class for several years.
During this time, racing still meant using slicks and he rarely raced on street tires. But that all changed in 2001 with a call from Year-One inviting Greg to the inaugural Year-One Bristol Bash F.A.S.T. race. During the summer before the first Bristol Bash, Greg practiced on street tires and guess what? He LIKED IT! Greg enjoys not having to change the tires, he likes the attention that the car drew running good without slicks and best of all the car no longer had the top-end sway that could occur with slicks. Greg feels the car is safer with street tires, because if something did go wrong at the top-end of the track and the car got sideways, the tires would just slide and not dig in an flip the car like slicks tend to do.
Greg won the very first Year One F.A.S.T. event in 2001 with a best ET of 11.97. In fact for four years straight, Greg won the Fall Year-One Experience F.A.S.T. race. (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004) Greg says his future goal is to snag a 10 second ET with his power windowed Buick and continue having fun racing with good friends in the F.A.S.T. class.
UPDATE: November 2006- Greg ran an 11.000 and missed a Ten Second run by one thousandth of a second.
SPECS:
| CID | 493 |
| Bore | 4.35" |
| Stroke | 4.15" |
| Compression Ratio | 12.8 to 1 |
| Pistons | Flat tops with valve reliefs |
| Crank | Stock, offset ground |
| Heads | 1972 Buick castings, with 2.16/1.75 valves. Fully ported by Gessler Head Porting |
| Intake Manifold | Stock 1972 cast iron, fully modified by Gessler Head Porting |
| Carburetor | Rochester 800 cfm Quadrajet |
| Camshaft | Solid roller |
| Exhaust Manifolds | 1972 castings fully modified by Gessler Head Porting |
| Transmission | GM Turbo 350C |
| Rear | GM 12 Bolt - 3.90 gears |
| Tires | Goodyear Polyglas GT G-60-15 |
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Hookin' up at the 2002 Year-One Bristol Bash F.A.S.T. event. |
Top-end shot of 11.17 pass @ 2004 Year-One Commerce Challenge F.A.S.T. race. At the time, the 11.17 run was the quickest official F.A.S.T. ET ever. Greg was #1 qualifier and won the event for the 4th year in a row.
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Buicks dual snorkel fresh air setup. | 
Power windows? Of course, Its a Buick!
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Front end up, and gas pedal down
Greg's off to another great run! | 
Greg can help you go faster too! He works on all makes and models, not just Buicks.
(Click on photo to go to Gregs web site) |
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