The biggest number posted for the day, by this time evening, was Ryan Woon who made a late grand entrance, keeping everyone on the edge of their seats wondering if he would show up. Winning the Highest Horsepower MkIV Unlimited award, Ryan posted over 1,200 hp and was actually cut off by the DynoJet which could not register more than 1,200 hp. Now that is something to brag about.
As a total aside, adding to the family/everyone-knows-each-other atmosphere, several individuals approached us at both the Show and the Dyno event who recognized Turbo's Project Celica which we piloted to the event. Parking as far away as possible in our what we thought would be a frowned upon Celica; we still had people walk up to us who had seen the car tooling about in SoCal. We even ran into a couple of, um, shall we say previous opponents-not that we ever race. Never. What was clear was that the love for performance and Toyotas was everywhere.
Closing out this year's event was the annual Drag Showdown at The Strip at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. An interesting tweak this year was some built-in competition with the Buick Grand National Club's West Coast Nationals sharing the track the same night. Nothing like a little domestic versus import turbo rivalry. Drag classes this year included the Quick 8 Unlimited, Quick 8 Turbo Only, Street 8, Basic Performance Upgrades, 6-Speed Challenge, and Grudge. Also taking place at the drag strip was the Super Tuner Car Show and Fantasy Schoolgirl Contest (a scary fetish alternative to the boring bikini contest).
Aside from Supras burning rubber there were a load of Top Comp cars making 200-plus mph passes and one crazy Top Fuel Funny Car. A highlight race was a Grand National and Supra going heads up, and not just any GN and Supra but both vehicles that had been posting 8-second passes (check out the DVD, link provided below, for footage).
As usual it was an awesome event from show to dynos to drags and well-worth the excursion to Las Vegas. (As if we needed an excuse.) What I have come to decide about Supras is that as much as I love and admire them, I just can never own one unless I win the lottery. They are just too darn expensive to own because the possibilities are endless to make power on these puppies. It would be impossible to keep a Supra stock when there are limitless modifications to pursue which is like kryptonite for me. I simply could not afford my ideas and need for power. Nonetheless, I will salivate at every MkIV I see on the freeway and continue to torture myself by attending this event next year and seeing even more sick Supras that are not parked in my driveway.
Next year we hope even more Supras turn out. Even if you don't have the Toyota in question take advantage of the casino-subsidized cheap airfare to the City of Lost Wages and attend the 10th annual Supras Invade Las Vegas event. The more the merrier.
For more information and to see the other award winners visit Vegas.Supras.org and SupraSport.com. To purchase video coverage of the event contact ExtremeMotorsports.tv.