Shop Tour - Hardcore Drag Racing

    Mark Francis has an addiction to H-Body Chevy Monza's. Our main story is about Mark's green Chevy Monza nick-named Louie the Lizard, later on we will take a look at his other projects that he has brewing in the garage, from the past to the present Mark has built some cool hot rods . From a young age Mark was exposed to racing from listening to  his Father's stories of his street racing days and how his Mother went along with him. When he got older he would work on his fathers cars and amassed a wealth of knowledge. While still in high school Mark began building cars for himself and for his friends.   Mark said he bought this Monza coupe around 2000 to go racing while his Monza hatchback was getting tubbed out. The car is a 1975 Chevy Monza Towne Coupe that was purchased as a roller. He said it was heavy and hideous . It needed more work than he imagined. This was Mark's first big tire car but it wasn't his last as we will see later on. When he brought the Mo...

      In the 1960’s the Chevrolet Nova was sold as an economy car. Most of them were built with tiny 4-cylinder engines or with the larger boat anchor inline six. They were compact and lightweight and the racers of the day took notice.       Like this example here, the owner built his idea of what the Gasser’s and A-F/X cars of the day looked like. The inline six is long gone and in its place is a fresh Merlin big-block packing 496 cubes and an original Hilborn mechanical stack fuel injection system feeds all those thirsty cubes.  For street-ability the injection system was converted to electronic and it’s controlled by a FAST ecu. Other goodies include ported aluminum L88 cylinder heads with stainless valves and Crane roller rockers. An MSD ignition system including a Pro-Billet distributor and Blaster-3 coil light the fire. For a little pizzazz period correct polished and finned valve covers top off the heads.       Backing up th...

  Welcome to another installment of Women in Drag Racing. This week we had a chance to get to know Taylor Vetter. She comes from a family that has Drag Racing in their DNA. By day Taylor works for the city of North Las Vegas as an assistant to the city Director , on the weekends she races in different classes of the NHRA. She races in Top Alcohol Dragster, Top Dragster, and the Super Comp classes.  Currently she is the only Woman racing a blown alcohol Dragster and the only woman to go over 280 MPH, which makes her the fastest female  in a Blown Alcohol Dragster class. Taylor started racing JR. Dragsters when she was only eight years old and transitioned into a full scale car when she was just twenty. At that time she started bracket racing and started to race in Super Comp, then she moved up to Top Dragster for a couple of seasons. Taylor set her goals high and she achieved them, she licensed in Top Alcohol in 2020 and she's now competing in a Blown (supercharged) T...

      This is a very rare Canadian built 1970 Pontiac GTO that's owned by Randy Greene, he is retired from United States Marine Corps where he worked on helicopters.  The GTO had some serious upgrades over the years, starting with a hopped-up 455 c.i. Pontiac engine equipped with a big Holley carburetor supplying the air/fuel mixture. It's mounted on top of an aluminum Edelbrock Performer intake manifold.   The fumes exit through long-tube headers & Flowmaster mufflers. A high lift-long duration cam was installed giving the exhaust notes that nice rump- atty-rump sound! The 455 is backed up with a 3-speed automatic transmission, that was filled with a 3000 rpm high-stall torque converter and it's controlled by a Hurst His & Hers shifter .  The chassis was filled with the best parts from QA1, including control arms, sway-bars and heavy duty end links. The rear end was filled with 3:42:1 gears and a posi-traction differential.    Randy sa...

  This 65' Nova is one of the most significant Pro/Street builds of all time. Since the time it was built in 1982 by Rick Dobbertin it won so many awards it literally put the worlds car builders on notice.  Rick devoted more than 3,000 hours over the course of three years to create this legendary Nova. The Nova was featured on the cover of the September 1982 issue of Hot Rod magazine and a full feature inside as well, it won the Grand Champion award at the 1982 Car Craft Nationals as well as Best Pro Street, Best Engineered and Best Engine awards. The main reason for those awards happens to lie beneath the hood, a 454 big block Chevy that was shoehorned into the little compact. Most builders would have called it a day at that time, but not Rick.  He installed a BDS 6-71 Supercharger that is feed boost via a pair of Rotomaster turbochargers that inhale the fuel mixture from a pair of Holley 750 CFM carburetors. Wow that was a mouthful. If that wasn't enough there is ...

  ******* Update 2024 , Ida will be joining the NHRA tour in the USA ******  Driving a Top Fuel Dragster.  Shop Tour was the first news outlet to bring Ida's story to the United States two years ago! Ida is cool and confident behind the wheel of her Top Fuel Dragster, in her first FIA event of 2022 she set a new European record of 3.782 seconds making her the first team to make a 3.7 second pass in Europe.     Ida Zterström is from Aland Islands, Finland and even though she is under 30 years old she already has had an amazing career. This is her twentieth year competing in a Drag Racing category, as she was licensed to race junior dragsters at just eight years old.   When Ida was only three weeks old she would travel with her family to different race tracks. She grew up in her fathers workshop and at the racetrack. Her father raced in Pro-Stock and Pro-Modified and also worked with other race teams.  He was her biggest influence and encouraged h...