The NHRA, Summit Racing and Nitto Tires came up big at the Nitto Sport Compact Nationals at legendary Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J. The place was packed and the fans were frenzied, as history was made in front of their very eyes.
Turbonetics Racing cashed in on Summit's $25,000 bounty for breaking the 200-mph barrier in an import. Matt Scranton busted 202.55 mph in his twin-turbo iForce V8-motivated Turbonetics Celica.
The barriers continued to fall in the Hot Rod Class where Jojo Callos and his Castrol GTX-sponsored Integra completed their assault on the 8-second mark running 8.89, 8.91 and 8.92 on the way to the winners circle. The Castrol Integra also became the world's quickest unibody Honda. Bruce Mortensen and the Venom Civic joined the 8-second club with an 8.95 in round one and "backed it up" with a 9.09-second qualifying run.
Mike Crawford and the Phatridz Neon came oh-so-close to the 8-second club, qualifying second with a 9.007. Kenny Tran was fourth on the grid at 9.28. To put it all in perspective, Tran was the quickest unibody Honda when his Civic appeared on our July 1999 cover. His 9.68-second class-leading e.t. of two years ago would only have been good enough for a number eight at E-town. That's progress.
The biggest showdown in the class was the first round match-up of Rafael "Racer X" Estevez and Lisa Kubo. Estevez and the DRT Civic qualified sixth with a 9.665 but blew up the engine. The crew booked back to the shop in Woodside, N.Y. and retrieved the block-guarded engine block it ran at Gainesville. Working until 2 a.m., the DRT crew bolted on the turbos, intercooler, head and all the plumbing-and made the show.
Team Kubo, running the hatchback and not the new coupe, had a hard time making the field. The Nitto Tires/ExtrudeHone Civic broke the front left control arm on its first qualifying attempt and made the field on the second try with a still off-pace 10.26. Despite the drama, both cars were at full song as they entered the burnout box for their first-round confrontation.
Racer X got the jump off the line .521 to .558. But his .037-second advantage faded and Lisa's 9.543 was a grand total of 0.052 seconds quicker than Estevez's 9.632. With all the door-to-door racing and 8-second e.t.s, the final was anticlimactic as Callos ran a 9.45, leaving an injured Venom Civic to putt-putt to a 29.39.
In the Pro Class, it was a day of debuts that culminated in an epic showdown of domestic vs. import, the likes of which had never been seen. The pugilists were Tetsuya Kawasaki and the HKS 180SX and John Lingenfelter and his Summit Sonoma. Kawasaki is known as the "John Force of Japan" and Lingenfelter is one of the bigger names in V8 power tuning-his twin-turbo kit for the Chevy Corvette is straight up unreal. The GMC is all-American; the 180SX is a Japan-only proposition. One is a truck, the other a car.