COVERAGE> Redline Time Attack at Buttonwillow
Many automotive media outlets, drivers and teams traveled out to Buttonwillow Raceway this weekend for Round 1 of the 2010 Redline Time Attack Series. I've been so pre-occupied with other projects that I almost screwed up and forgot that Redline was this past weekend, but luckily I received a friendly reminder about the event from Brandon Scarpelli from WebRidesTV! If it weren't for Brandon, I probably would have spaced out and forgotten about it - and that wouldn't have been a good thing!
I drove up to Buttonwillow with Edward Uche and his boy Asim; both of them FC3S RX7 owners hoping to see some rotary goodness out at the track. When we arrived, we split up so they could check out the Mazdatrix RX8, while I stopped in to check out Chris Rado's World Racing Scion TC.
There has been a lot of controversy (including some trash talking and hating) surrounding Chris's Scion TC. I've read some comments on the internet that bashed this car, hating on the usage of the huge front wing. I gotta admit, it does look a bit crazy, but as long as I've known him (10 years I think), Chris Rado has always been a bit of a crazy individual. He's a forward thinking, rule-breaking person that's always trying to dream up some new sort of innovation for his car. I remember back in 2000, we were hanging out at the SEMA "International Auto Salon" in Pomona, and he was telling me about how he installed videocameras on the back of his JZA80 Supra turbo with a small video screen inside the car. I thought it was a pretty crazy thing to do back then, but now it's commonplace on OEM cars.
This being said, when Rado says that having a big ass F-Wing on the front of his Scion TC really helps the performance of his car, I believe him. Of course there are critics out there who say it looks dumb, but remember... people said the same thing about putting wheelie bars on front wheel drive drag cars, but it has been proven to work.
At the end of the day, numbers talk. Chris drove his F-Wing fighter and ended up breaking his own course record at Buttonwillow, winning top honors in the Super Modified Front Wheel Drive Class with a time of 1:46.736. Read more...
There has been a lot of controversy (including some trash talking and hating) surrounding Chris's Scion TC. I've read some comments on the internet that bashed this car, hating on the usage of the huge front wing. I gotta admit, it does look a bit crazy, but as long as I've known him (10 years I think), Chris Rado has always been a bit of a crazy individual. He's a forward thinking, rule-breaking person that's always trying to dream up some new sort of innovation for his car. I remember back in 2000, we were hanging out at the SEMA "International Auto Salon" in Pomona, and he was telling me about how he installed videocameras on the back of his JZA80 Supra turbo with a small video screen inside the car. I thought it was a pretty crazy thing to do back then, but now it's commonplace on OEM cars.
This being said, when Rado says that having a big ass F-Wing on the front of his Scion TC really helps the performance of his car, I believe him. Of course there are critics out there who say it looks dumb, but remember... people said the same thing about putting wheelie bars on front wheel drive drag cars, but it has been proven to work.
At the end of the day, numbers talk. Chris drove his F-Wing fighter and ended up breaking his own course record at Buttonwillow, winning top honors in the Super Modified Front Wheel Drive Class with a time of 1:46.736. Read more...
COVERAGE> HellaFlush Scrapes Buttonwillow Pt.1
This weekend, many of the best stanced cars in California made their way to the HellaFlush 3.5 meet at Buttonwillow Raceway, which was located in the middle of BFE, along the Interstate 5 highway. The stretched tire movement has finally been getting a lot of attention in the past couple years, which is awesome because I've trying to promote it for quite a while... but it took a long time for it to catch on. Now that insane offset cars have been popping up all over the internet for the past couple years, people have started building their cars with a focus on aggressive stance and aggressive wheel offset. It sure took a long time for the message to spread though. I first began writing stories about how "Offset is Everything" in magazines, websites, and talked about it at drifting events/carshows that I emceed since... 2004? 2005? It's funny to think that people used to make fun of me when I would talk about rocking negative offset wheels, demon camber on AE86s, super low down (shakotan) stance, hippari tires (stretched tires), and tsuraichi (cars running aggressive offset wheels and tucking tire). In fact, I distinctly remember emceeing a Drift Showoff event out in Houston TX in 2005, and some of the DA homies were like, "Dude. It's like negative offset is all you ever talk about!" (HAHA, they were absolutely right.) I'm so glad that multiple forward thinking websites, forums and blogs across the internet have virally spread this message and made aggressive stanced cars popular; now it's a whole different ball game!
The way a car sits has absolutely everything to do with the image it projects - it all has to be just right! Aggressive offset wheels that stick out too much = lowrider. Big wheels with thin tires (non stretched) on cars that aren't slammed enough = DUB style. (Yuck.) Slamming cars to the ground without enough width, offset and tire stretch = 1990s FF Honda style.
Since neither of the aforementioned styles are desirable when it comes to making a fashionable looking car, it's nice to see that car owners all over North America have been stepping up their wheel game - a game that was rumored to have started in Europe (gotta give props to those Euro car guys... Mk1 Golfs FTW!) or Japan (Bosozoku/Yanki car builders, kyusha kai car builders, and VIP car builders). While I'm not exactly certain of the exact origins or history of this style of automotive stance, I personally first noticed it in the late 1990s/early 2000s, thanks to AE86s that were built by my favorite drift teams - Running Free and Rough World.
It was awesome to see some of the West Coast's most dedicated car owners with aggressive stances come out to the event. I saw Toyota, Honda, BMW, and Lexus owners from Southern California; Northern Cali Toyota, Nissan, Lexus, and BMW owners from as far as Fairfield CA and Sacramento... I even saw a slammed Mercedes Benz from Las Vegas! Read more...
The way a car sits has absolutely everything to do with the image it projects - it all has to be just right! Aggressive offset wheels that stick out too much = lowrider. Big wheels with thin tires (non stretched) on cars that aren't slammed enough = DUB style. (Yuck.) Slamming cars to the ground without enough width, offset and tire stretch = 1990s FF Honda style.
Since neither of the aforementioned styles are desirable when it comes to making a fashionable looking car, it's nice to see that car owners all over North America have been stepping up their wheel game - a game that was rumored to have started in Europe (gotta give props to those Euro car guys... Mk1 Golfs FTW!) or Japan (Bosozoku/Yanki car builders, kyusha kai car builders, and VIP car builders). While I'm not exactly certain of the exact origins or history of this style of automotive stance, I personally first noticed it in the late 1990s/early 2000s, thanks to AE86s that were built by my favorite drift teams - Running Free and Rough World.
It was awesome to see some of the West Coast's most dedicated car owners with aggressive stances come out to the event. I saw Toyota, Honda, BMW, and Lexus owners from Southern California; Northern Cali Toyota, Nissan, Lexus, and BMW owners from as far as Fairfield CA and Sacramento... I even saw a slammed Mercedes Benz from Las Vegas! Read more...
