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Posted
Mar 10 2010, 12:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 15 comment(s)
As we gear up for the onslaught of the 2010 season, everyone seems to be getting busy. Yesterday I tagged along with Chris Rado and the World Racing team to a dyno session for their time attack Scion, and in just a bit I'll be heading out to the Inland Empire to get the latest on the Rockstar Drift tC. Before that though, I need to finish up my coverage from the weekend's Famoso March Meet....
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Posted
Mar 09 2010, 01:32 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 13 comment(s)
Moving right along, here's the second part of my trip to Famoso Raceway for the 2010 March Meet.
March has always seemed like the unofficial start of the racing season, and taking in this drag race culture was a fantastic way for me to kick off the 2010 season....
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Posted
Mar 08 2010, 01:41 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 13 comment(s)
This weekend a huge number of drag racers gathered at Famoso Raceway near Bakersfield to take part in the annual March Meet. The March Meet has long been one of the biggest nostalgia drag gatherings around and this year was no different, even with rain off and on throughout the weekend. With Sunday looking like the day with the smallest chance of the wet stuff, I headed up to Famoso to have a look....
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Posted
Jan 11 2010, 06:40 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 16 comment(s)
I'm currently sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to Dubai, so I thought I'd quickly write up this set of photos from a recent outing to the NHRA Museum in Pomona, California.
While in LA last month for the Mooneyes Xmas Party, I arranged to visit the museum with legendary car builder Ron Bergenholtz.
...
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Posted
Dec 08 2009, 02:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 61 comment(s)
While at Cars and Coffee the other day I was walking around enjoying the machinery when I heard the distinctive rumble of a V8 from the corner of my ear. Glancing over, I expected to see a fixed up Camaro or Mustang roll by, but to my surprise the sound was coming from an S13 240SX. Now a V8 S-chassis is nothing new, but I figured this car was certainly unique enough to warrant a quick spotlight....
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Posted
Dec 01 2009, 03:35 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 12 comment(s)
Here's a quick video clip of Chris Rado's groundbreaking 6.87 @ 197 MPH quarter mile pass last month in Pomona.
Wow.
-Mike Garrett
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Posted
Nov 17 2009, 06:42 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 36 comment(s)
Over the weekend we heard unconfirmed rumors that Chris Rado had driven his Scion tC into the 6's at Pomona, making it the first front-drive drag car ever to do so. There has been a little discrepancy regarding the time, but I just got off the phone with Chris who gave me the the quick rundown of what happened. With the car running faster than ever, and a solid coating of rubber on the track Chris laid down an astonishing 6.97 second ET during eliminations.
Unfortunately the incredible traction that the car had off the line caused the timing beams to misread the 60-foot time, technically making the ET "unofficial". Nonetheless, the complete 1/4 mile time is still legit by all accounts.
The drag racing was just part of Rado's wild week, which included record breaking time attack runs at both Buttonwillow and Fontana. He'll be posting a blog here soon with the story in his own words.
-Mike Garrett...
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Posted
Nov 06 2009, 03:19 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 30 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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