Shop Tour - Hardcore Drag Racing

  This  Dodge Coronet spent most of its life as a slant-6 Deluxe sedan. That is, until vintage Funny Car enthusiast Richard LeFebvre located it in early 2004 and kicked off an intense build , which  included an altered wheelbase, and shaving a pair of the car's doors , making it a coupe . The new 2-door profile now has fiberglass fenders and  bumpers that were ordered directly from  Fiberglass Plus, Inc. And now features a 1960s paint scheme, which is why 1965 Dodge Gold worked so well under the vintage hand-painted graphics.  For the last 12 years, Richard has been driving this Coronet as a  faithful tribute to race cars of a by-gone era. . At the front of the car, a black-trimmed grille hangs a Moon Equipment fuel tank between clear parking lamps, a painted bumper and halogen headlights. And at the back of the car, a Dodge branded trunk bends around stylish taillights, a small kill switch and a  painted fiberglass bumper.   ...

This 1940 Willys is street driven in Colorado & features a 528 CI Mopar Hemi . It has an iron block with 8.7:1 custom JE pistons and Indy ported race heads. ARP studs keep it glued together. The 4150 steel crank swings Eagle H-Beam connecting rods and an ATI balancer keeps the big Hemi from shaking to bits . It was Dyno'd at 1031 Horsepower & 900 lb/ft of Torque . A complete MSD ignition system keeps the sparks flying under the boost pressure supplied by the polished 14-71 Hi-Helix supercharger by the Blower Shop. It's running a drive ratio of 1:1 giving it 14 Psi through the traps. A pair of Holley 800 CFM Double Pumpers mix the fumes and this healthy Hemi is topped off a vintage BDS scoop . The exhaust system features 2 1/8 custom Zoomies with ceramic a coating so they will look good for years . There are two sets of inserts to drive on the street,but it's still loud ! The 727 Torqueflite is equipped with 300M input/output shafts, manual valve body and a trans br...

        John Randell and his his family have been around the sport of Drag Racing  almost from the beginning and when he is not racing he's protecting the State of Nevada as a Police Officer. John stated that his family has been involved in the sport for the last 50-55 years and we still keep going!  He learned everything from his father and often picks his head for knowledge about engines.  John said at Randell Racing we build our own engines and transmissions , one of the few teams who do.  Eventually we plan on taking everything to a professional basis , but for now we enjoy having fun and being a family. Drag Racing is our life, this is where I learned how to swear, open a beer, and learned about life all from a young age.   This is John around 3 years old, and he is helping his father work on his race car.             As you can see I live out my dream everyday. It’s great to look back on old photos t...

  There are some things about Pre 1985 Funny Cars that I love , from the custom paint jobs to the full track burnouts . From 1960's to the early 1980's, Coast to Coast every Drag Strip on any given weekend had a huge match race style event . Some had a 32 car field , and as Match Racing hit it's peak tracks competed  against each other by bringing in even more cars,  some booked 64 or more just to boast that they had a bigger & better event .   The most funny Cars that I witnessed at one single event was when Englishtown had an event sponsored by K-Mart in the early 80's, they featured 32 Funny Cars and a couple of wheel standers, The Paddy Wagon, The little Red Wagon, and some VW pick up. The show lasted from 12 in the afternoon until after 9 PM .Those who know Raceway Park know that the lighting  was just over flashlight bright. But at night you could see header flames 4-feet in the air the full 1320. There were a lot of heavy hitters that followed th...

       Ron Carlsten Jr. is from Phoenix, Arizona, and he calls his classic 1932 Ford 5 Window Coupe the 227 Bullet Coupe. He calls it that because it had 227 bullet holes in it. Ron said he and some friends  were in the garage one night, and they  had a few drinks and decided to count all the bullet holes. I was hoping for a Bonnie and Clyde type of story about the bullets, but alas that was not to be. Ron believes it was nothing more than target practice.  How Ron would end up building a classic Deuce Coupe hot rod, however, might be as good as the Bonnie and Clyde story anyway.   Ron and his friends started getting into early hot rods because all the old guys were throwing away the traditional components. “They wanted independent front suspension and air conditioning and power steering and power brakes,” he said. “And they were like ‘I don’t want that straight axle, that’s a piece of junk. Here you can have it.’” Ron and his friends de...