The cover of the July 1996 issue is dominated by a 12-second street Eclipse; however, it is the Honda Civic in the inset that proved to be the most noteworthy item on the cover. The blue turbo Civic belonged to Gary Kubo and, at the time, ran 11.71 in the quarter mile. You can still see this car running today. Just go to pretty much any import race and look for it; it's now orange with white, green and pink accents and is driven by Gary's wife Lisa. Lisa Kubo is currently at the top of the nation points race in the IDRC.
Also of note in this issue is the unofficial Turbo magazine burnout king-Bill Sakes' 1989 Turbo T/A. For our photo shoot, Bill laid down what is still, to this day, the biggest and baddest burnout we have ever seen. I had taken some really nice beauty shots of Bill's car. The problem was they were too beautiful. This car was a street driver that blasted 9.89-second quarters at will; it needed something more aggressive.
So I invited Bill to lunch near our offices-dessert was a burnout at a cul-de-sac in a nearby industrial complex. I was shooting with my Pentax 6x7 that had no metering system, so I used the meter on my Nikon to nail down the exposure. With the car positioned and the 6x7 dialed in, Bill began baking. The T/A puffed smoke big-time and I shot some frames. Waiting for Bill to stop, I repositioned myself to get more of the side of the car and took some more pictures. Still waiting, I moved and fired again.
It turns out that while I was waiting for Bill to quit, he was waiting for me to tell him to quit. The resulting plume of smoke blocked the sun like a nuclear winter. As the smoke cleared and there was enough light to see by again, I noticed the car had splattered the curb (and upon later examination the side of a building) with molten rubber. The asphalt was even smoldering (pictured in article). Then it happened. Like mindless zombies from "The Night of the Living Dead," people emerged from the surrounding buildings, seemingly on cue. Zeroing in on us from all directions, they looked to be drawn by some demonic force toward the white Pontiac; all had blank looks on their faces and seemingly stiff torsos-you know, like real zombies. I told Bill to hit it and hurriedly rounded up my equipment and got out of there before they could suck my brains out or ID the plates on our cars.