By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

Back in 2008 this Scorch Racing Supra kind of raised a few eyebrows after its appearance on the Blitz stand at the Tokyo Auto Salon. At the time it seemed strange that Blitz would get involved with a drag project, as interest in the scene has died down in Japan. I originally shot it for Turbo magazine, now long gone since being axed in late 2008, and at the time the car was supposed to be raced within a few months, ready to set those record passes everyone was expecting from it. But nothing really happened for a good two years.

I was very surprised the other weekend in Sendai Hi-Land when out of nowhere it showed up at the strip. I had completely forgotten about it but it looked like the project, after a little pause, is back on track. It was the car’s first outing and it achieved what it set out to do within a few passes, so the Scorch Racing and Blitz guys were extremely happy. The car put down a series of low 9-second runs before recording a 9-sec dead at the end of its first practice day. See more pics and continue reading at Speedhunters.

-by Dino Dalle Carbonare

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

It seems to have been a rough year for drag-race attendees, and this horrific incident in Brazil is the latest assault on race-fan safety. Be warned: there’s kids screaming and brief views of grisly injuries.

Stands Collapse at Drag Race! Over 100 Hurt!

By Karan Singh

StreetFire.net

This isn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill backhoe–this beast does a 17-second quarter mile. That’d sure speed things along on the jobsite!

Worlds Fastest Backhoe Tractor?!

By Michael Berenis

Tampa Sports Car Examiner

Thanks to all-wheel drive coupled to a 5.3 liter turbocharged V8 and some good driving, a Chevrolet Express van smoked a Corvette ZR1 on the quarter mile. I find it interesting that a 7,000 pound van modified with just a turbo and Z06 cam could actually beat the mighty ZR1. Something went wrong on the launch, maybe? Read more about the absurd race at Tampa Sports Car Examiner.

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

The last time I witnessed Reece McGregor’s NZ based R32 GTR was back in 2006 when I first started taking photos. It hasn’t changed very much on the exterior, but has come back to Australia with a load more power. Let’s see if a new record is on the books.

This past Tuesday was quite a day of testing for this weekend’s Jamboree drag event, the most important Australian drag meeting of the year. McGregor ran an 8.3 @ 184mph pass on his second run, but the team wasn’t too impressed with this time. The clutch was pulling the car down and wasn’t set up correctly for the sticky track. After adjusting the clutch, the next pass was an 8.22 @ 183mph. With testing ending at 4PM the end of the day was already upon us, they put in one more pass: a 7.73 @ 187 mph. That’s a huge improvement over a short period of a few hours, it will be exciting to see what times it can pull this weekend’s Jamboree, Australia’s biggest sport compact and custom event of the year. Be sure to tune in, it’ll be streamed live all over the globe. See more at Speedhunters.

-by Casey Dhnaram

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

During the NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways in Kent, WA this weekend, lifelong drag racer Mark Niver was killed after a wreck caused by a parachute malfunction. The chutes tore away before they had a chance to slow Mark’s Top Alcohol dragster, which then barreled through the sand trap and slammed the catch netting, causing the car’s frame to buckle over onto the driver’s cockpit. It seems a little senseless for a “safety net” to be responsible for someone’s death–shouldn’t it have a break-away design so it could still slow the vehicle significantly but then let go before causing catastrophic damage? I guess you can’t prepare for every possible eventuality when you’re dealing with basically flimsy vehicles hurtling through space at 300 mph–but NHRA has been a little deadly lately, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a safety crack-down before too long. Rest in peace, Mark Niver.

By Tony Castellano

Tcassa

Swedes love their American muscle, as I discovered last year at Power Big Meet. And it looks like this event was another cracker! Head over to race68 for loads more photos!

Continue reading "Drag Racing, Swedish Style" »

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Recently, most of the news about diesel engines has revolved around the fact that today’s diesel motors are not the slow, dirty powerplants of yesteryear. And while this 740HP pickup definitely isn’t slow, it sure as hell is dirty. Now, I know it’s not really fair to compare a drag-tuned truck to something like Mercedes’ Bluetec engines—the first to win certification in California in two decades—but that’s all I could think about when I was watching this clip. Seriously, a few more seconds on the starting line, and I don’t think that the driver would have been able to see anything.

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

First off, am I the only one that thinks the guys fighting this fire should be wearing more than shorts and t-shirts? If there’s a bottle of nitrous in a burning car, nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen, and this situation could have resulted in an explosion. Another thing? Why the hell didn’t the driver shut the motor down before he bailed? That seems like a no-brainer to me. Anyway, while there are some pretty big fireballs—at one point it gets so bright you can barely see anything in the frame—it doesn’t look like anyone got away with anything worse than some singed eyebrows.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Mark Rebilas is clearly a heck of a photographer, and at this year’s March Meet he did a great job of putting himself in harm’s way to capture some truly astonishing mayhem out on the strip. He’s got a whole heap of crazy wreck photos posted up on his blog, including an animated sequence of this Mopar funny car blowing its whole body into the air as its guts continue ondown the track in flames. Check out the photos here–and thanks to Brian at Bangshift for finding ‘em!