No one knew what to expect as the bright yellow and black 2001 Honda Civic coupe pulled up to the water box, looking very different, yet strangely familiar. The driver was barely visible through the helmet braces of his screaming red Sparco racing seat. Gloves on, check. Helmet on, check. Game face on, double-check. If Darth Vader had storm troopers like this he would have been a lot more intimidating.
Tension soared among the crowd of 10,000 as Stephan Papadakis prepared to launch his AEM Racing team into a new era. The radically-engineered AEM Drag Civic bellowed smoke from its wheel arches as it made its first burnouta long and strong onein public. We built this car to be a lot faster than the old one, Papadakis said before climbing into the cockpit.
With less than two miles of testing under its wheels, the Civic was now primed for the big show. And with a banshee-like wail and a tire chirp, the screaming fans were silenced for 8.82 seconds, followed by cheers and applause at the end of a stunning debut run. Papa Doc was back.
Papadakis proceeded to dominate the HKS Pro FWD classa phenomenal achievement with a brand-new race car. The AEM machine has a carbon-fiber body, a new chassis, and the boldest move of all, a longitudinally mounted Honda engine under the hood. His best time with his old car was 8.449 seconds, so we can expect to see him trying to better that mark at every meeting now.
But Papas wasnt the only heroic story of the weekend. Abel Ibarra debuted his newly painted and rebuilt RX-7 after a major accident at Palmdale had left his old car in pieces. Ibarra won the Pro Import Finals against record-holding RJ Simrock with a 8.148-second pass at 165.11 mph versus Simrocks 8.193 at 158.8 mph. JoJo Callos and his Edelbrock-sponsored Civic set a new elapsed time record for the Endyn Pro 4 Cylinder class with a 9.335-second run, edging out former record holder Lisa Kubo for the win.
Not only were there new cars and new records, there were a couple of new faces as well. Ara Arslanian from Cresskill, New Jersey, walked away with the Pro Comp trophy, hitting a top speed of 148.22 mph with Bullish Racings six-speed turbo Supra after squaring off against Turbo Joe Morgan and his Ford Focus wagon. Bullish Racing was campaigning two cars at the event, but their automatic transmission Supra (that was actually running quicker times in the 9s) broke early in the qualifying rounds and couldnt recover.
The whole weekend was full of surprises. From Timothy Poole and his 18-second electric Honda, to Mike Crawford turning consistent 9-second runs in a Neon. But I guess thats all part of the import drag racing scene, all part of NIRA.