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Muellerized... chassis specialist John Mueller is a perfectionist
when it comes to constructing and developing high-performance suspension
components. He draws on his 26 years of road race driving experience to
identify and implement many unique solutions to bring Mitsubishi chassis
to a previously unheard of performance level. Recently, this was
illustrated in the pages of Sport Compact car Magazine, where Mueller
took a customer's drag race AWD Mitsubishi Eclipse, bolted on 4
corners of his own proprietary suspension, and won the Road Course event
at California Speedway in this year's Ultimate Street Car Challenge.
This event is covered in the February and March 2004 issues of Sport
Compact Car. This car also pulled 1.071G on the skidpad, the highest
number ever recorded by this magazine for an AWD street car.
Mueller has
competed in many different types of road racing vehicles, dating back to
his first win at an SCCA driver's school in July of 1985 at the age
of18. He successfully competed in SCCA club racing throughout the late
80s, winning a CalClub Championship after many pole positions and
winning races overall, competing in an outclassed, self funded, and self
prepared car. His efforts resulted in being awarded the Pete Sharland
Memorial award, given to the CalClub 'Low Bucks' Racer of the Year.
Mueller had already proven himself a force in SCCA Pro Racing by
dominating his debut 3-hour race at Sears Point in a self constructed
Mazda GTUs, competing with a RWD naturally aspirated car against turbo
AWD cars. His IMSA races were initially in VW factory backed cars, based
on the east coast, using engines and chassis that he built and
developed. Later he switched teams to a Honda backed team based in the
Midwest. Driving in endurance races across the United States has given
him tremendous insight regarding setting up racing chassis for a variety
of courses and weather conditions in races as long as 24 hours in
length. When on the west coast, Mueller performed competition driving
instruction for a school based at Willow Springs Raceway. Throughout the
1990s, Mueller competed with distinction, driving many different chassis
in SCCA and NASA club and endurance racing. He also logged thousands of
on track miles developing and evaluating components for many large
aftermarket corporations. He has traveled internationally designing and
constructing racing chassis components on-site, then tuning these
components to a razor's edge from behind the steering wheel.
The foundation for his chassis development skills, started with helping the
racing teams his father, road racing legend Lee Mueller, drove for. This
started from the time that he was old enough to ask his dad Lee if he could go with him
to the track. This is significant as Lee finished his racing career as a 4 time SCCA
National Champion, IMSA GTU Champion, 3 time winner of the 24 hours of Daytona,
and 12 hours of Sebring winner. In the shop, Mueller has been mentored by
some of the best in the automotive industry, starting his professional career
working for racing wizard Dave Kent, building championship IMSA GTU cars. He worked
tirelessly at the track under the tutelage of IMSA Mechanic of the Year Harry Haggard.
Then he
worked for Carroll Shelby, at Chrysler Corporation's California
Development Center,
guided by engineer Neil Hannemann. Many winning drivers have turned to
Mueller
for 1 on 1 instruction and chassis development, often attributing their
rise to
competitiveness to a Mueller racing line or suspension set-up advantage.
Mueller
not only knows how to make a car go fast for a lap, but how to achieve
one hundred
percent of you and your car's performance potential.
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