For most people today, the golden era of 1960s racing remains one of fond remembrances, historical mementos and period visual images. To understand the passion that drove the technological advances, one need only look at the number of limited production cars that entered onto the competition scene for organized sanctions like NASCAR, NHRA and SCCA. And so it was from the partnership of Carroll Shelby and Ford Motor Company that there emerged approximately three dozen 1965 Mustangs whose real purpose was to dominate American production sports car events. The car seen here, SFM5R538, is one of that rare group and is considered by many to be the winningest Shelby ever. Such a title should not be taken lightly. However, this car won SCCA Division Championships and numerous regional events during the period of 1967-1971 under first owner Roger West and later Charlie Kemp. It was raced at places like Daytona, Sebring and Riverside. Under Kemp’s tutelage and assisted by Crew Chief Pete Hood, this car made 54 starts with 42 finishes and 32 race wins, including a consecutive run of 17 victories at one point between 1968 and 1969. Kemp drove it to a top speed of 184 MPH during a competition event at Daytona that has been noted as the highest speed ever achieved by any 289 CI Shelby, Mustang or Cobra, at a sanctioned closed-course race. Kemp, who drove everything in competition from a Lotus to McLarens to Porsches, was also responsible for getting the car preserved for the future upon purchasing it for a second time. According to SAAC-based Shelby documentation, this car began as an order from Shelby American to Ford Motor Company in March 1965, with construction starting at the San Jose assembly line the following month. Built by Shelby under Work Order No. 17535, conversion of the vehicle into a GT350R took almost six months after the car was received from Ford at Shelby’s conversion facility in Los Angeles. Finished on November 10, the completed race-ready pony car was made available for purchase and subsequently ordered only eight days later by Treadway Ford Inc., a franchise in Mobile, Alabama. First owner Roger West of Birmingham, Alabama, purchased the car and associated racing pieces in early 1966 for just over $6,200 and began racing it in B/Production soon afterward. Running some longer events like Sebring and Daytona with noted Alabama driver Donnie Allison, West was later honored as SCCA Southeast Divisional Champion after excellent showings with the car in 1967. He would ultimately sell the car at season’s end, reportedly in part upon taking delivery of his new GT40. It was at this point Charlie Kemp enters the picture. Simon Charles Kemp grew up with a racer’s heart. At the age of 16, he drove in his first event, wheeling in a ’49 Ford to a third place finish at a dirt track in Jackson, Mississippi. Racing continued, including a stint in drag racing with an early supercharged Thunderbird, but by the early 1960s, Charlie turned to road racing. After joining the Mississippi Region SCCA and finishing second in his first sports car race in 1964, he bought a Lotus 11 and competed at events like the American Road Race of Champions against some of the toughest racers of the era. An SAAC listing notes Kemp was able to buy West’s GT350R in December 1967 from Foreign Car Center in Birmingham, Alabama, where he paid $4,600 for SFM5R538 and a stash of spare racing parts. An introduction to mechanic Pete Hood soon afterward completed the program, and Hood agreed to stay on as top wrench. As competition No. 23, the Mustang was modified throughout the era according to the methods then popular (and in some secret ways as well) but retained a majority of its specialty Shelby components. After Kemp sold the car to the next owner due to his other driving opportunities, it was driven by Buddy Winsett to a B/Production victory at Road Atlanta in 1974. Soon afterward, the owner offered to sell it back to Kemp, after which Kemp and Hood put it back together primarily as a show car, never again racing it.