STREET-LEGAL DRAGSTERS
Living life a quarter mile at a time, then driving back home
MEET LARRY LARSON . Since 1988 the Missouri-based race car builder/ driver has been ‘proving a lot of philosophies’ in his twin-88mm-turbo 9.2-litre 1966 Chevy II Nova. How? Well, driving across America within a week whilst setting quarter-mile records at the end of each gruelling driving day and carrying all his necessary belongings, for example.
He’s won that event, called Drag Week, five times. More important (to Larry, at least) is that he’s always finished it, and not needed to tow a trailer-full of parts. The Nova has wind-down windows, DOT-approved tyres, runs on ‘ pump gas’, satisfies suspicious highway cops and yet serves up strip numbers beyond the reach of many pure race cars. ‘I put 5600 kilometres on it in a year once,’ says Larry. ‘ Doesn’t sound much, but for a car this fast, in this state of tune, that’s a lot.’
And just how fast is Larry’s two-ton Chevy? It has run numerous seven-second quarter-miles, but has a best of 6.93sec at 339.6kmph. We hear that a LaFerrari has managed 9.70sec at 239.8kmph on the drag strip…
‘When it runs at 338kmph it sits so high up it’s a little spooky. I don’t want to go faster in it, because it’ll turn into a plane. It’s already in the sixes. That’s enough. It’d be cool to have a new supercar, but practicality wise I’d probably wear it out. I wouldn’t drive it like most owners do.’
It’s not just the North Americans who are pushing street-legal boundaries. Thanks to our more accepting MOT regulations on older cars, the ‘world’s quickest street car’ typically ends up being a two-way scrap between the Brits and the Americans.
Steve Pateman, a mechanic from Hitchin, built a normally aspirated 11.6-litre Vauxhall Calibra in the ’90s. Why a Calibra, one of the most unloved performance cars ever?
‘I raced a Mk1 Escort but needed something longer, more stable – Calibras were very aerodynamic for their time. The intrigue for me is how to make a 1250bhp, 1695Nm car work with a road tyre. It was the first car into the eights [seconds over a quarter-mile] on a true block-tread tyre. I raced 13 years non-stop and won five championships, but it was more about pushing the car quicker with as simple a setup as we could.’
In the early 2000s, Pateman’s Calibra was Europe’s quickest street-legal car. His engine, a carb-fed ex-Pro-Modified-class unit with reduced compression for longevity, has remained in this form for over a decade. He and three Brits shipped their cars to Louisiana for a huge street race event in 2005. They wanted to prove the strength of this little island. Steve won. The world’s fastest street car was a Calibra. Some Americans were not pleased… and neither were some Brits.
Step forward Wolverhampton’s Andy Frost, who’s probably enjoyed the most column inches for ‘World’s Fastest Street-Legal Car’. Andy’s creation is based upon another Vauxhall – a 1972 Victor. Evolving over 30 years, ‘ Red Victor 2’ eventually became a 2200bhp, 2712Nm 9.3-litre ultra-Vaux whose quarter-mile peaked with 7.4sec at 317kmph. The sprint to 246kmph took 4.8sec – roughly the time it takes a V8 Vantage N430 to hit 100kmph.
Like the majority of the breed, Andy’s Victor uses a twin-turbo and electronic fuel injection recipe atop its V8. Laptop mapping allows the engine to either deliver colossal boost or act docile for component longevity and ‘streetability’ – a key word in this context.
But what is ‘ streetable’? This is where it gets contentious. Is it the raw MOT certificate and tax disc that defines a street car? Or a car that can drive for hours without mechanical failure?
‘That’s a conversation that will never get settled,’ laughs Larry Larson. ‘Everyone has their own vehicle and idea. Some want air con, heater etc. Bottom line: if it’s legal in the state you live in, then I guess it’s a street car. They’re all race cars, but it’s degrees of race car! In my twisted mind they still need to resemble a real car. Not some kind of hacked up clown car.’
In Britain, the Street Eliminator drag series acts as both a benchmark for roadlegal drag cars and a catalyst to speed addiction. ‘Whilst there is no limitation for engine size, competing cars must attend a mandatory 32-kilometre road cruise – come rain or shine – before they can qualify,’ explains Jon Webster, revered race car builder and driver of a subtle 1964 Mercury Comet that reaches 300kmph in 7.42sec.
In other words, if you break down, you can’t race. If your horn doesn’t work, you can’t race.
‘In Street Eliminator, we have to cruise on the same road tyres we race with. The US Drag Week is amazing, but different. They’re allowed to run slicks and wheelie bars now, so more power can be put down. The most common issue with these cars is not lack of power but traction. Another vital factor is chassis control.’
“ON TRACK IT’LL SPIN THE TYRES ALL THE WAY TO 306KMPH IF GRIP’S NOT THERE”
Besides satisfying scrutineers at tracks and cocooning your skeleton, converting to a tubular chassis also sheds weight and allows better tie points for reworked suspension and engines. Andy Frost’s Red Victor 2 ran nines in the ’90s, but the brutality of the launch rippled the chassis. ‘ After every race I had to literally hammer the floorpan back into shape.’
Every racer treasures their own accolades. John Sleath claims that in 2005 his Audi 80 was the first street car into the 8.0sec bracket, but Steve Pateman was the first car into the eights. Sleath reportedly was the first to break the 289.6kmph mark on pump petrol; Andy Frost claims he was first to hit 305.7kmph. Sleath was first in the UK to run a seven. Andy was first to run a backed-up seven. You get the idea…
Predictably, people tailor arguments to suit themselves. ‘The proclamations are always self-proclaimed,’ says Webster, ‘because everyone cannot meet in the same country on the same day on the same track. Until there’s a universally agreed condition then the street car definition will eternally be argued.’
In 2010, Frost, keen to claw back his title, completely re-imagined his Vauxhall to create Red Victor 3, this time as an all-out, FIA-approved Pro Modified race car. Think 3000bhp of composite-bodied, tax-exempt, methanol-burning anger, but with indicators. Never before had this been achieved. With the envelope not so much pushed but dynamited open, Frost’s streetability became a token gesture as he went headlong into the sixes, reclaiming the ‘world’s fastest’ title in 2012 with a PB (on slicks) of 6.40sec at 368.5kmph.
‘To run these numbers and compete in a class, I had to comply with Pro Mod rules but with street trim in mind,’ says Frost. ‘I don’t really give a shit about Drag Week or its organisers. I’ve been to race in the States twice and it nearly bankrupted me. I don’t need to go there to prove myself. I drive here where I live. Drag Week’s unlimited class is literally a competition you have to build a car for.’
Frost had snatched the crown from Larson and drag-race veteran Rod Saboury, who has a long affinity with making old Vettes rapid.
Maryland-based roofer Saboury purchased the personal license plate ‘INTHE6S’ and, in his own words, ‘spent two years strictly planning before building’. His 1963 Stingray is as much a show car as a drag car, featuring everything from cup holders to a cooling system incorporated within the chassis tubes.
Ever innovative, Saboury went against the grain with a small-block V8 (a mere 6554cc) and fed it 88mm turbos. In September 2009, his 2400bhp Vette lived up to its registration plate with run of 6.75sec at 337.48kmph – more than three seconds faster than a Veyron.
‘I always say it’s not how fast you go, it’s how you go fast. The Vette was on street tyres, with pump gas. I had to run a Plexiglass windshield and ’ chute for safety, otherwise they wouldn’t let me go so fast on the track. I’d have kept the glass personally, and 6.75sec was with 1.7bar of boost. We built the motor to withstand 2.6bar, so the car could go faster, but counter-steering at 320kmph is no joke.
‘Everyone has their own idea and there will never be a universal decision,’ says Saboury. ‘I built a car that could go fast – consistently – and not change anything to race. I’ve driven many cruises and it sits in traffic just fine, but a 50-kilometre cruise is more attrition for a sixsecond car than you think. I’m not taking anything away from the guys who explore the rulebook. If Drag Week allows slicks, then you can use them.’
None of the world’s quickest cars are off the shelf. Every car has endured an evolutionary journey of workingman’s R&D. Many are happy accidents. And there are new happy accidents emerging every year, capitalising on technological progression and a terminal acceleration addiction.
Steve Neimantas from Halifax is the newest Street Eliminator contender. Instead of starting with trad US muscle or another average Vauxhall, he bought a leggy Bentley Conti GT and made two-thirds back from selling the drivetrain, then commissioned a 3082bhp V8 twin-turbo tubular chassis’d masterpiece. Like all of the fastest drag machinery, it is now rear-driven as, according to the Conti’s builder, Jon Webster, AWD doesn’t translate to the strip so well, the weight transfer making it less efficient.
‘The body is all stock, still with double-glazed windows,’ Neimantas assures me. ‘I’ve a dash switch for a street [ECU] map and it tootles about quite gently. But on t’track it’ll spin the tyres all the way to 306kmph if grip’s not there.’
The sprint to 335kmph takes 7.30sec. Thrice the horses of a Veyron. Keeping a low profile en route to Londis is clearly out of the question.
‘I run 1000bhp off the line and then feed in another 1000bhp – that’s how I’ve had my fastest times. I know it’s a car that’s only fast on one straight piece of track in Northamptonshire – at Santa Pod Raceway– but it’s like being on drugs. Once you’re in this sport, you can’t get out. You have to find a way of going quicker. And it’s better value than a supercar to me.’
Of course, when piloting a sub-one-second tohundred car, there are winky bottom moments. Tyres breaking grip and causing the car to rearsteer, losing oil, engine parts going airborne (there’s a ‘ballistic diaper’ around the engine block to contain mechanical grenading)…
‘I’ve had the Calibra steering wheel come off at the launch,’ chuckles Pateman. ‘It flew off and hit the roof.’
It was in Red Victor 3 that Andy Frost had oil escape a cork rocker gasket and end up on one of the slicks. ‘Dab of oppo’ barely describes his reaction, which almost ended in deploying the ’chute to stop the car veering into the wall. I know, because I was in the car too.
As time and technology progresses, numbers tumble. Nines were seen in the ’90s, eights in the early noughties and sevens in the mid2000s. Fewer than ten cars have broken into the sixes. Only one has conquered five seconds.
Arguments reignite when race rules change, but few people would go to the trouble of building a whole new car as retaliation. The current fastest street car in the world is actually a truck. A 1998 Chevy S-10. With a 10.1-litre engine and a pair of 98mm turbos. Larry Larson had some explaining to do.
‘I built this as a protest to the organisers of Drag Week, to show them how far you can stretch the unlimited class rules.
‘Sure it’s got a VIN, but it’s a full stinkin’ race car. The only reason I built it was to set the bar so high and make people come to their senses and rein it back in a bit. Unfortunately my protest backfired. People liked it. I did Drag Week, towed a permitted size trailer, switched fuel systems to methanol, steel doors to carbon doors and tyres to slicks for the run.’
Larry initially ran low sixes and then later broke his own record to become the first person in the fives… 5.95sec at 393.3kmph. But his truck, beautifully executed and undeniably quick though it is, doesn’t possess the sentiment or pure ‘streetable’ appeal to its maker. The trusty, 800bhp-deficient Chevy Nova ‘that you don’t need to transform for every race’ will always be the apple of his eye.
So Larson is the king of the street. For now. Frost firmly states his thoughts: ‘My opinion? Larry’s truck just isn’t the way to go. I understand why he did it – the protest thing – and immediately congratulated him on doing the big miles, but I won’t have a car that needs so much transformation from street to race.’
Frost has removed Red Victor 3 from Pro Modified competition, but the Union Jack towel isn’t being thrown in yet.
‘I’ve got the bulldog spirit. I’m not prepared to give up. I set-up a crowd-fund called “Red Victor 5 Second Club”. Within 10 days ` 17 lakh was pledged to buy parts. I want to run fives with nothing more than a change of tyres, fuel switch and the addition of wheelie bars.’
Would he take it to the US to settle the longrunning feud? ‘If the organisers pick up my every expense – including loss of earnings – then I’d take Red Victor 3 to Drag Week.’
We can get bogged down in details, or just revel in the fact that blokes like Jon, John, Steve, Steve, Larry, Rod and Andy have gone to the effort of building cars to cunningly juggle the race and road rulebooks to catapult evo’s mantra to another solar system.