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Posted
Nov 06 2009, 03:19 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 21 comment(s)
I was browsing one of my favorite forums, ClubRoadster.net the other day when I found a thread about an LS1-powered Mazda Miata drag car out of Mississippi. Now any time you combine a light weight rear-drive car with a powerful V8 the potential for awesomeness arises, but I noticed something about this car that I don't think the builder intended - it's likeliness to sports car-based drag cars of the '60s....
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Posted
Oct 29 2009, 04:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 29 comment(s)
It was the Winter Nationals at Pomona California in 1974. We were down to the last round of qualifying, with no success of making the field yet because I’d had ignition problems all weekend. But when I warming up the car in the pits, it sounded so sharp. I knew I’d found the problem. But little did I know I was about to take the “E ticket” ride of my life on the next run....
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Posted
Oct 21 2009, 01:21 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 6 comment(s)
Over the past couple days we've been hard at work prepping our special driver blogs from Irwindale, but for a moment let's jump back into some coverage of the 18th Annual California Hot Rod Reunion held last weekend at Famoso Raceway. In this opening shot you can see two more examples of altered drag cars, including the blown AA/FA class "Outcast 1" - complete with period correct (and mega pricey) mag wheels....
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Posted
Oct 19 2009, 03:36 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 13 comment(s)
No less than 12 hours after the tire smoke had cleared at Irwindale Speedway, I was on my way over the Grapevine to Famoso Raceway, located just north of Bakersfield. The reason? To check out the 18th Annual NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion. Rod and David Lister shot this event last year, and after seeing their photos I was excited to witness the nostalgic action for myself, even after the exhaustion of shooting for three-straight days at Irwindale....
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Posted
Sep 29 2009, 10:44 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 8 comment(s)
We have just over a day left in BMW month and we've yet to feature any BMW drag cars here. Generally Bimmers aren't favorites among the 1320 crowd, but the doesn't mean there aren't any BMW drag cars out there. The M Coupe seen above was built by Micke Svensson and features a custom chassis with a Ford 9" rear, a sequential gearbox and an 887hp turbocharged M3 motor under the carbon body.
Weighing in at just 1054kg, the car is capable of running the quarter mile in the low eight second range.
-Mike Garrett...
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Posted
Jul 06 2009, 01:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 18 comment(s)
Last week Rod posted a quick engine shot of this monster Evo drag car from the UK, and he looked into sending one of the Speedhunters shooters out to have a closer look at this beast. Unfortunately, we got word that the car is currently disassembled so we'll have to make do with a quick spotlight on the car using some older photos. The car was built by JR Motorsports (with the assistance of Mangus Motorsport in Canada) and according to their website, it's "the most technologically advanced AWD drag car that the world has ever seen". A look at the spec sheet doesn't give much reason to doubt that claim......
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Posted
Jun 25 2009, 01:00 PM
by
Jonathan Moore
with 17 comment(s)
There is a corner of Santa Pod that is forever Japan. It just seemed right to see the hordes of Japanese car clubs packing out the hard stand that runs alongside the drag strip: from the biggest, meanest supra-cars to more modest town hatchbacks via the cleanest classics this side of Tokyo. From the moment I arrived on-site it was clear just how popular the event is: the parking field was packed and the camping areas full of tents. The quarter mile provided the focus for the weekend - particularly...
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Posted
May 06 2009, 11:46 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 8 comment(s)
In case you haven't got your fix of Cal-Lookers, Volksrods, rat VW's, drag cars, and others - here's some more photos from last Sunday's Bug-In 34 at Autoclub Speedway in Fontana....
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Posted
May 05 2009, 01:38 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 9 comment(s)
Now for some more the Volkswagen mecca that is Bug-In.
After reading some of the comments on yesterday's Bug-In post, it's clear to me that aircooled VW's really are "The People's Car" - even in the sense of customization and tuning. I'd say almost half of all car enthusiasts I've known have either owned an aircooled VW at some point or had close friends or family with them. As I walked through AutoClub Speedway's massive parking lot before heading home, I noticed the variety of cars in the parking lot. There were fixed up Japanese imports, late model Euro cars, muscle cars, hot rods and everything else.
Are vintage VW's the cars that bring the world together?...
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Posted
May 04 2009, 01:29 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 15 comment(s)
Last Friday we kicked off our VW (and friends) month and we lucked out because this weekend one of the most important VW events in the world was held - the Southern California Bug-In 34. Anyone with a passing knowledge of air-cooled VW's knows that while the cars may have been born in Germany, they were perfected in Southern California. Before anyone had even heard of a Honda Civic, early "import tuners" were building Volkswagens that could spank V8's in the quarter mile and look badass while doing it. In the early days of the SoCal VW scene, there was no event bigger than the "Bug-Ins", which were held at the historic Orange County International Raceway....
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Posted
Apr 07 2009, 02:20 PM
by
Carl Jarrett
with 4 comment(s)
Head over to the desktops area to find a couple hi-res shots of this beautiful vintage drag racing machinery. Enjoy! - Carl Jarrett
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Posted
Apr 03 2009, 01:57 PM
by
Carl Jarrett
with 19 comment(s)
Took this picture last year at SEMA, just love the look of old mechanical bits and gadgets, I really geek out on this stuff. Wallpaper anyone? - Carl Jarrett
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Posted
Mar 20 2009, 04:31 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 16 comment(s)
As promised, here's some more photos from my visit last month to the small museum at the HKS factory in Japan. As I was reading through the comments section of the previous post, I noticed a lot of you guys wanted to see the HKS Mercedes Benz CLK JGTC car from 2002. Of course I didn't forget about this awesome piece of machinery from what many people consider to be the glory days of GT racing in Japan....
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Posted
Mar 19 2009, 05:37 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 27 comment(s)
Do you ever find yourself wondering what happens to a company's race cars and tuner cars after their services are no longer needed? Sometimes they will wind up in the hands of private buyers (often overseas), in other cases they will be destroyed or dismantled, and every once in a while they'll be preserved or displayed as part of the company's heritage. In it's 35+ years of existence, HKS has built dozens of these historic competition and street vehicles, and a number of them are kept on display in a special room at the sprawling HKS factory in Fujinomiya City, Japan....
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Posted
Mar 12 2009, 03:06 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 7 comment(s)
You know, we are greedy people at Speedhunters.... We have this compulsive need to know everything cool happening in the world of automobiles.... This feeling is accompanied by a terrible desire to attend racing events around the world with our cameras.... unfortunately, there are limits as to how much time can be spend on airplanes.... you can only be in so many places at once! To our annoyance, this past weekend we were unable to organize any of our core Speedhunter shooters to be out at the Famoso...
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Posted
Feb 16 2009, 08:00 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 10 comment(s)
One of the rarest cars in the Corolla lineage is the KE15 Toyota Corolla 1200, or Corolla Sprinter. These cars came out even before the TE27; we're talking late 1960s here. Parts for the KE15/KE17 are extremely hard to find, no matter what country you search in - United States, Japan, Australia, Philippines, New Zealand, you name it. I have personal experience with trying to find parts for this car unsuccessfully - I owned a white KE15 about ten years ago, but ended up selling it after a year...
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Posted
Feb 02 2009, 11:51 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 16 comment(s)
I have no info what so ever on this car, all I know is that it's the first AE86 turned Dragster that I have seen. I wonder what's under hood. Do any of our readers have more info on this car? -Jeroen Willemsen
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Posted
Jan 31 2009, 03:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 6 comment(s)
Exactly one week ago today was the drag racing portion of the 4&Rotary Nationals... unfortunately I couldn't be there but Gray Lynskey, the news editor of NZ Performance Car magazine kindly offered to do an event report for the Speedhunters audience. Thanks Gray!...
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Posted
Oct 31 2008, 08:20 AM
by
Chris Rado
with 34 comment(s)
Okay... here comes a big one... blog that is. Prepare yourself, as I am about to touch on some drag racing, time attack, SEMA stuff, and drifting... yes, you read correctly... drifting . Let the Speedhunting begin! So some have you may or may not have heard through the rumor-mill that I have been out at Willow Springs five days over the past two weeks causing some ruckus with veteran drifter Tony Angelo. Why you ask? Because in 2009, WORLD Racing will be starting their own drift program. That's...
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Posted
Oct 02 2008, 05:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 6 comment(s)
Right now I am here sitting in my Japanese apartment about 5,000 miles away from Los Angeles, there are GT-R's and fixed up Chasers cruising around outside, but I am inside thinking about SoCal. I'm not sure if it's a case of being homseick, as I hail not hail from SoCal itself, but from Fresno which is a couple hours to the north. Nonetheless, my parents grew up there and through my numerous trips there, I have seen plenty of the the car-crazed place that is Southern California. The brains of American auto culture may be in Detroit, but the heart of it has to be in LA. I mean, where else can you go to a jam-packed cruise event on a random weeknight in the middle of the winter? We'll be looking at many parts of SoCal automotive life during the next month, and first I'd like to start out with a basic look at SoCal's significance to motoring over the years....
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