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November
14th, 1999 — NOPI Texas Import Challenge
For the final import drag racing event of the season here
in Texas, we had the special honor of Cameron Worth and
the Pettit Racing crew coming into town to help us show
some RX-7 domination. While there’s always the natural
competition between RX-7 tuners, when it comes time to race
we all tend to band together and help eachother succeed
against our common enemy, the “piston” competition.
When the Pettit Racing crew arrived at our shop Saturday
morning, our RX-7.COM drag car was still in the early stages
of a Haltech install. After tracing our problems we’d
been experiencing at the last few events down to our aftermarket
piggy-back computer, we made the last-minute decision to
pull the entire factory computer and install the Haltech
engine management system. All this, on top of a brand new
engine installed the afternoon before, made for a very long
day.
In true sportsmanship fashion, Cameron and his crew jumped
right in and started helping us get the car together and
running. Cam even went so far to give us some of his own
base maps to compare to the maps we had. After comparing
Haltech maps and working out some bugs, we began the tedious
process of breaking in the motor. As Cam retired for the
night, the second shift came in and began tuning the car.
Luckily, our drag car is still actually a street car so
this could be done on the city streets near our shop. Even
though we worked around the clock to get the car ready,
we didn’t actually finish the car and load it up to
take to the track until 11am Sunday morning, well after
qualifying had started.
When we finally arrived at the track, qualifying for the
Quick 8 competition was right about to begin. Thankfully,
the event organizers allowed us one shake-down pass to evaluate
how the car was performing. With a soft launch and easy
shifting, Ari tripped the lights with a 10.83 @ 128mph.
Considering the lackluster performance we’ve had the
past few events, just getting back in the 10s was a nice
start for the day. As we pulled back into the staging lanes
to qualify for the Quick 8, we were paired up with Cam’s
Pettit Racing drag RX-7. Cam ended up getting the hole shot
on Ari but unfortunately spun the tires heavily and was
unable to hook up. Ari’s RX-7.COM car launched ahead
by the 1/8th mile but then started to hiccup on the top
end. The end result was an 11.7 @ 130mph run for Cam, obviously
due to not being able to put all the power down on the launch,
and an 11.20 @ 111mph for Ari. This set the stage for the
RWD Quick 8 as we had 4 RX-7s in the competition. Ari was
number 1 qualifier followed by Steve Kan’s 3rd Gen
RX-7, Cameron in at 4th place qualifier and Aaron Imler
taking a 7th place qualifying position. With two AWD Eclipses,
one Supra and one NSX, the RX-7s once again showed their
dominance and their field.
In the first round of the Quick 8, Steve was pitted against
fellow RX-7 driver Aaron Imler. Steve’s single turbo
RX-7 was a bit faster than Aaron’s stock twin turbo
car and he took the win to advance to the next round. Congratulations
to Aaron though for once again having a very strong and
amazingly consistent performance this entire season. The
next RX-7 up was Cam (Pettit Racing) against an AWD Eclipse.
Cam got a better launch this time and flew by the Eclipse
with a solid 10 second pass. Last up was Ari who was given
a bye run due to the #8 qualifying Eclipse not showing.
Ari took the opportunity to make another test pass to see
how the car was running and flew through the 1/4 with a
10.53 @ 130mph setting a new personal record.
In the Semi-finals, Steve Kan’s RX-7 was lined up
against Cameron’s RX-7. Steve had been experiencing
boost related problems and had only been able to run less
than 13psi though the car was still making 11 second passes.
With Cameron’s car performing better as the day went
on, it was going to be a tough race for Steve to win. As
the lights flashed green, it looked as though Steve had
the jump on Cameron until Cam’s car came to life and
screamed ahead finishing the 1/4 mile in a mere 10.5 @ 136
mph. Next up was Ari Yallon’s RX-7.COM car versus
a very capable NSX running a 125HP shot of nitrous. While
Ari slept at the line, the NSX jumped ahead a made it to
the 60ft mark before Ari passed him and took the win with
a 10.40 @ 131mph.
With the RX-7.COM car and Pettit Racing in the finals, the
RX-7s had already won the day. Now it was down to two RX-7s
hashing it out for bragging rights. Unfortunately, Cam had
some mechanical problems after his race against Steve and
was unable to continue. This lead to somewhat of an anti-climax
but Ari tried to make the best of it by putting on one last
run in hopes of putting on a good show for the crowd. Unfortunately,
a miss-shift blew our plans for a dazzling run but we had
fun all the same.
Thanks to our sponsors GReddy and Bönez . Everyone
at Haltech who has given us help all season. The guys at
GReddy who have gone out of their way to give us support
and bring in special order parts from Japan without ever
complaining. Our friends at Tokico for their suspension
expertise. Abel Ibarra for his amazing technical knowledge
and the encouragement to keep testing our limits. Adam and
Leroy Saruwatari for their generous advice and suggestions.
Nitrous Express for their help, support and encouragement.
KAAZ for making us one incredible differential! Jacobs Electronics
for putting up with our constant demands err...requests.
Big thanks to all of our customers, race fans, the guys
that always come out to the races to cheer us on, our competitors
like SGP, Powerhouse, and the others for making it fun.
Thanks to Peter Farrell and Pettit Racing for coming all
the way to Texas to race with us this year, we were honored.
And thanks to our entire crew and everyone at the shop for
coming in early and staying late to get the car ready. We
couldn’t do it without all of you!
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