K&N NOPI LA Race Wars - Fool's Paradise

It's always our distinct pleasure to watch the quarter-mile madness at the Los Angeles County Raceway. As we look out over the state of the art facilities from the air-conditioned luxury suites within a tower that rivals Indy's Pagoda, we are treated to a spectacular view of one of the finest tracks in the U.S. of A. Wait a minute, we're talking about Palmdale, California, here. The sunstroke must have warped our brains because there are no air-conditioned luxury suites, and not even much of a tower here. LACR has rustic charm-but we mean that in the nicest way.

For the K&N NOPI LA Race Wars, the NDRA rained down upon LACR transforming the acrid, cracked, high-desert landscape into some sort of drag racing oasis. It was like the Burning Man festival, but with race cars. A few of the big names came out to score points in the Xbox cup race while we just came to frolic at the clothing-optional foam party and show the kids how to really do the Running Man. We later discovered that it was not clothing optional but that didn't stop us from letting our freak flags fly, baby!

Pro Import
In Pro Import, Grant Downing put the Venom Tundra on the top of the qualifying grid with a 7.846 @ 179.19, which is very impressive for LACR. The track conditions at Palmdale are less than superb and comparisons to canine fecal matter come to mind. Throw in the altitude and a blustery little cross-wind for good measure and a pass here looks more like some kind of Fear Factor challenge than a drag race. While the AEBS Focus missed a few of the early season races, it was out at Palmdale sporting its new APC colors. Even though RJ Simrock got the holeshot against the Venom truck in the first round, he couldn't hold it as Downing easily drove around the ailing Ford. Adam Saruwatari managed to get by Abel Ibarra and his K&N RX-7 to meet Downing in the finals. At the 60-foot mark. Adam's NSX went every which way but straight and with a masterful drive Adam managed to keep it on the track. But by this time Grant was already counting his winnings.

Pro Outlaw
Shaun Carlson made some serious changes to his Meguiar's Focus in the off season and the Esslinger-built North-South engine package seems to be working for him as he won both the Houston and Palmdale races putting him in the APC Pro Outlaw championship points lead. He also wants to be known as "Slash" from here on out. Uh, whatever you say, Shaun. The Ford driver put down no less than Ray Lochhead and his wheel-standing SR Motorsports RX-7 in the finals. While Steph Papadakis and Christian Rado were noticeably absent at Palmdale, we can't wait to see these FWD big dogs go at it later this season.

Pro 4 Cylinder
The Toyo Tires Pro 4 Cylinder class flexed some big names like Bautista, Kubo, and Mortensen. While Lisa Kubo and Myles Bautista were eliminated, Bruce Mortensen put his number-one qualifying Venom Civic in the finals against Eric Del Rosario's Integra. What should have been a foregone conclusion quickly turned into the upset of the day as the Civic's turbo piping let go and Del Rosario's 10.8 proved to be more than enough for the victory.

Pro Stock
The Pro Stock-or all motor-class always scares us. These guys are doing some very unnatural things to their naturally aspirated cars. At Palmdale we saw the debut of Joel Mandl's new CRX. And while it broke a clutch at LACR it should be breaking records in no time. Bisi Ezerioha continues to do big things with his little motor and he made it all the way to the finals against Mario Samala. Mario was running low elevens all weekend in Palmdale's thin air and his new CRX is part of the resurrected STR concern. In what was by far the best final round match-up of the weekend Bisi got away from Mario at the line but the black STR Honda was able to drive around the little CRX that could to win but just over two tenths.