World Cup Ready: Haley James Wants The Wild Street Title At WCF 2018

Haley James has a reputation of being a ferocious competitor in the NMRA that doesn’t back down to anyone. She has proven that reputation true by earning many round and event wins on her way to becoming a multi-time champion. Now James is ready to unleash her 1993 Mustang once again in the Wild Street class at the 23rd annual Haltech World Cup Finals – Import vs Domestic to add another win to her legacy.

In 2018 James was a buzzsaw in the Coyote Modified class, chopping her way to three event wins and a runner-up finish at the NMRA All-Ford World Finals, on her way to an NMRA championship in the class. Her dominant performance this season was highlighted by a string of runs in the 7.50-second range that were produced by her Precision Turbo & Engine-boosted Mustang.

With the NMRA season complete, James is ready to lead her team across the country from New Mexico to Maryland so she can compete in the Wild Street class again in 2018 at the WCF.

“We love coming to this event because of the number of cars and the huge crowd. It’s really neat to see the level of performance from the import cars at the event and the wide variety of cars that participate. Coming to an event like this you get to race against cars you normally don’t see, so that makes it interesting. It’s also fun because I get to race against other Coyote Modified teams that cross over from the NMRA,” James says.

At the 2017 WCF event, James had an epic staging dual against Steve Oliveira in his Section 8 all-wheel-drive Honda Civic. This was the race that everybody wanted to see in the Wild Street class during the semi-finals because the two cars were considered the favorites to win the event. The staging dual ended in a double DQ, but according to James, she was just going through her standard routine.

“I talked with Steve before the race and let him know what my procedure was after wishing him luck. With a turbo/automatic transmission car you have to bump in a certain way so you don’t build too much heat in the transmission and get burnt down as you build boost. We both sat in the pre-stage bulb and Jason told us to go in at 40 seconds the first time, and being the stubborn racer I am wasn’t going in first to get hung out. At 50 seconds Jason waved us off and emotions got pretty raw. Jason invited us back and set up a grudge race with Section 8, but he crashed recently and we’re not sure if he’ll make it,” James explains.

Having such a razor-sharp focus on winning has allowed James to move on from the controversy of last year’s WCF and prepare for the event in front of her. Using the experience from her highly successful 2018 NMRA season, James and her team have moved the performance bar even higher with their program and are ready to dominate in Wild Street.

“With the strides we’ve made with our car and program this year I think we’re going to be a legitimate threat to win the Wild Street class. We have been able to run in the 7.50s this year and that’s pretty good for the class. The good air, tweaks to the car, and solid prep at the World Cup should allow us to run into the 7.40 range if everything works out,” James says.