Shop Tour - Hardcore Drag Racing

  Mark McGuire has been a truck driver for over 40+ years, currently he hauls heavy equipment. In the past he did a 10-year stretch driving a transporter for Dick Simon racing and he was also on the pit crew. Mark was just a child when his father was drag racing and said that's how he got hooked on racing. Mark was just 19 years old when he bought his first race car, it was a 1969 SS Chevelle dirt track car. He was lucky enough to land a sponsorship from a local California radio station 99.1, which helped with expenses.  He had fun, but after three races he realized that asphalt was for racing. He went on to race circle track cars for the next 30+ years, from street stocks to super late-models.      The Nova wagon didn't start out this pretty, this is a before photo of what this killer looked like in a previous life.           With help from Gilbert "Mel" Meltvedt the car was transformed, the Nova was named "The ...

    The Billet 5 Valve W8 HEMI Engine Designed by Rene Gagner   Rene Gagner is from Canada and s aid that he has been a true drag racer his whole life, this is what he has been working on in his spare time.   It's a CNC billet 1,002 CID W8 fuel motor, designed with a DOHC 5-valve HEMI configuration. It features a 10.250'' deck, a big bore & short stroke. The heads have a potential to flow over 1000 CFM.  Rene stated that the real obstacle is to make it as compact as he can, so it can fit in most drag car chassis. For power, he has already made 3.05 HP per-cubic-inch on th e dyno, with a much smaller engine spinning at 12000 + rpm. The new CNC Billet 5-valve W8 HEMI race engine design is aimed at the 960 cubic-inch displacement rule limit, but it's 1000 C.I.D capable. Intended for the latest Outlaw Street and Pro-Mod drag racing leagues.  By using an extra large bore and short deck, along with new modern materials h...

                                                                 Wicked Willys                                                              I tried to the best of my ability to maintain a certain look when these cars ruled the strip. (J.Andrew Stepka)   J.Andrew's 1941 Willys was acquired from a guy in Long Island, N.Y. It was turned into a Pro-Street car during its long life but it was a steel body and that was all that mattered to him. The frame was built by The Willys Works in upstate NY, but Andrew had plans to turn this old Pro-streeter into a ground pounding gasser from the glory years of drag racing.         ...

                                                       Brad McBride is the builder and driver of this 1963 Type 3 Fastback, known as Blitzkrieg. Photo credit Jason Reiss/PDRA   Brad McBride is the builder and driver of this super cool and fast Type 3 Volkswagen. Brad has been around racing his whole life. His father owned land that's now the pit area beside Piedmont Dragway in North Carolina. His father raced a roadster and later raced a top alcohol funny car called the Starr Rider well into the 1990's. So you could say it was in Brad's DNA that he was destined to be a drag racer. We asked Brad how he started racing and what his earliest memories were. He stated the first thing he raced was 20" Schwinn 5-speed bike when he was 12 or 13 years old.  Even early on he was a fabricator and equipped the bike with wheeli...

  The Lucas Oil division 1 meet was a hot one, It was 86 degrees and sunny. It was held at Maple Grove Raceway in the heart of God's country, Mohnton, PA.   The turn out was out standing, the pits were packed and people filled the stands. This shows that people are still interested in the sport. The Pro mod class had 32 cars show up for 16 spots, I haven't seen that since the late 1980's  when Englishtown had 32 funny cars.                                                                                   The staging lanes during the last qualifying session on Saturday .                                   ...