By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Check out Lee Smith’s ‘66 Plymouth Belvedere Whackee Wagon Super Stocker, a legit historic racer that was the companion car to the Crazee ‘Cuda with the same multicolor paint scheme. As if my lust for wagons wasn’t enough, this one has a Hemi in it. The fact that it’s the wagon version of Steve Atwell’s daily driver Hemi Belvedere, brings back memories of Hot Rod Drag Weeks past, and the ’70-’71 paint scheme is mint, the Keystones rock, and it’s got a rollbar. What else could you want in a wagon? Check it out here.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We’ve done the Can-Am thing so we thought we should do the Trans-Am thing in this week’s featured video item. We’re taking you back to SCCA 1970 and some footage from what seems to be an overview of the entire season, a recap if you will.

1970 is usually held as the best year for the Trans-Am series as it is the point when manufacturer spending peaked and most teams were rife with cash and innovative ideas. It also marks the entrance of AMC and its Javelin entry. We have a soft spot for those boys now.

If you are the impatient type, skip right to 1:21 in the video to see and hear the racing fury. If you are not, enjoy a complete walk down memory lane.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

This was the worst racing accident I have ever seen, bar none, end of story. No one said it in the press room where I was sitting but everyone thought Bruce Allen was dead. The tricky, all-concrete track at the Texas Motorplex, with its extremely hard-biting groove and ice-like outer edges had just sent Bruce Allen and Kenny Koretsky to the hospital, and many of us believed worse than that.

It was a hot Saturday night in Ennis, Texas, and the final qualifying session for Pro Stock was underway. I had called to chat with my dad to give him an early update on where guys were qualified before he’d see it on television when I noticed Bruce Allen was back a couple of pairs. Continue reading at Freiburger’s Junkyard

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Did you know that when an NHRA Nationals event comes to town that you can walk in without a pass on setup day? We did exactly that on Wednesday before the 2009 NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, and got some pictures of teams and cars. It was interesting to see the newest paint schemes and bodies, as well as who wasn’t there. In this gallery, you’ll find pics of WJ’s new K&N paint scheme, Tim Wilkerson’s new Ford body, and the much anticipated Toyotas of AL-Anabi Racing. In addition, there are tech inspection and template photos, some random cool stuff, and a Kodiak we would love to have. Turbo wings rule! See all the photos!

Text and photos by Chad

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Man, we saw this little guy and started drooling. It’s a Toyota Starlet with a bad-ass cage, all the tin work done, and just needing a motor and transmission to terrorize the land.

Sure it’s tiny, and probably would score a -175 on a comfort scale of 1 to 10, but it would definitely turn some heads. The miniscule wheelbase may also make it turn some donuts on the track, but in reality a fairly mild small-block with a snoot of nitrous would make this thing haul buckets of ass.

Maybe you’re under 5’8” tall and want to go on Drag Week, this is the little rice bowl for you. These cars are as rare as hen’s teeth on the east coast as they were made from magical evaporating steel when new. As the old joke goes, you could scrape some of the paint off and still see the Budweiser labels.

Someone out there…do it. Here’s the ad.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

After writing about the Lola T70 and thinking about the sheer awesomeness of the old Can-Am series, we remembered that there are probably lots of people who’ve never seen those wild old cars in action. Well, here’s your chance.

This is a seven-minute video (and the first of a multipart series) looking at the first race of the 1967 Can-Am season at Road America, located in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. If we could build a time machine and go anywhere on Earth for a day, we’d take it here, on this day.

Listen to big-blocks screaming in 1,700-pound road-racing cars and pay close attention to the crowd of immortals racing these cars. It’s the freaking racing hall of fame, and it’s the starting grid for this race.

Simply bad-asser.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

So here we have my ’93 GMC stepside 4×4 completely trapped in a giant snow bank. This was a Sunday afternoon bad idea that happened at the tail end of a boring weekend at college. We went out to some of the parking lots on campus that had large open areas and proceeded to go bombing through the snow. “We” was me and my roommate Pete, who, other than being a bad influence, was of no help mechanically or physically with, well, anything.

We blasted through larger and larger drifts until he got on my case about trying to make it over, or through, this massive snow bank. I got a huge head of steam, which was idiotic because I had no idea what was under the snow, and tried to use large amounts of wheel speed to claw through. It obviously didn’t work. Continue reading at Freiburger’s Junkyard

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Man, sometimes even we get a little sick at our luck. We got an e-mail from our pal Jon Sandahl at Tube Chassis Designz in Hanson, Mass. You may remember Jon’s name from the ongoing saga of the hacko-rama General Lee. This e-mail was short and rather terse.

“Cobra Jet number 17 in the shop,” it read, and there were a couple of photos with it. After scraping ourselves off the floor, we called Jon and asked if we could come over and see the beast. He checked with the owner (more on that in a minute) and got the all clear, so over we went.

Sounds lame, but have you ever gotten the “woah” feeling when you around a car that was just epically cool? Being a dragophile, I got that as soon as I got a close look at this thing. Factory built drag cars have such a neat place in the history of the sport and this is yet another example, and a top notch one at that.

Honestly, seeing, touching, and being around this car, even as it sat torn apart and silent, really makes you think that there’s still hope for Detroit. Get all of the bean counting idiots out of the way and let engineers execute on ideas. What will you get? The best freaking cars in the world. Continue reading at Freiburger’s Junkyard

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We spotted the link to the Dragmasters die-cast dragstrip in a post on our forums and checked it out. We ordered one within 6 seconds of seeing the demo video.

It’s a long, gravity-feed dragstrip for Hot Wheels and similar small toy cars. No big deal right? Wrong. It’s got a working tree, you launch the cars by hitting a foot pedal, each lane has its own timer, and there are functional win lights at the “top end” of the track.

This thing could be ruinous to the blog output of a certain blog outputter who is outputting this blog right now. It’s winter here, cold as hell, and we’re always looking to stay occupied. This baby is just the ticket (thanks for the tip Cool Newell). Check it out here.

By David Freiburger

David Freiburger

Nine days ago we told you that I’d be making a trip north to Sacramento to pick up a ’65 Pontiac wagon that our friend Todd at MSD had scored sight-unseen on eBay. I came home from the trip last night at midnight. As it turns out, the car is a Tempest and not a LeMans as previously presumed, but who cares? It’s a creampuff, the sort of totally rust-free California car that you Rust-Belters envy. Continue reading at Freiburger’s Junkyard