The GM Stick Shift Record was Just Destroyed by 22-Year-Old Technology

Yup, Jonathan Atkins has just put the stick shift world on notice.

It seems like, over the past couple of years, the battle for supremacy in the world of stick shift has been heating up immensely. Records have been falling, one after another, as stick cars get faster than we could have ever imagined.

Earlier this summer, we watched as Jared Cocanougher rocketed to a 7.82-second pass. This would become the quickest ever pass in a manually shifted General Motors machine. Jared had been chasing down the record with a variety of other cars entering the 7-second range as well. He would be the first to find his way to the 7.80s.

This past weekend, the GM record would fall again. However, it came in a form that we’re not sure very many people were expecting. In fact, outside of the Tick Performance wheelhouse, there probably wasn’t much of anyone who saw this record coming. That wouldn’t stop them from striking and striking hard, though. Today, we can officially announce that the GM record is now held by a car with LT1 architecture. No, we’re not talking about the second coming of the LT1, either. We’re talking about the architecture that can’t be found in any production car after 1997.

As the crew would line up to go to battle at FL2k, the pass of a lifetime was on tap. Making use of a Gen 2 LT1 block from a caprice, the machine would blast its way through the traps at 187 mph, donning a record pass of 7.59-seconds. All of this comes with factory-style heads and a factory LT4 intake. That’s impressive no matter what the application. The fact that these guys stuck it out with the older architecture makes it even more impressive.

By following along with the video below, we watch and learn as the T56 shifted machine lays out who’s boss. As the last record was set early in the summer, we thought that maybe the race had died down a bit. Jonathan Atkins’s record pass lights a spark back under the competition once again. We would most certainly keep an eye on this one as we wouldn’t put it past Jonathan and company to send the record even deeper. With the cold fall air on tap, you never know what’s coming next.

As far as Atkins’s response to the record pass, he says “We’re going for the Brazilian boys ETs at WCF,” referring to Maryland International Raceways’ Import vs Domestic World Cup Finals Early next month. Talk about an event to keep an eye on!