i gotta say nothing about japanese imports is cool to me... it's a generation thing i guess.
i grew up running my Chevelle against Mustangs and camaros.. not sure where the hobby turned into Hondas and Acuras... i seemed to have missed the memo.
It turned somewhere in the 90's me thinks.
I used to practically live at Great Lakes Dragaway. Had been going there a number of years when the track started assigning a couple weekends a year "4Cylinder Days". The track is very close to Chicago, and a few folks who didn't appear to speak a lick of English made a show with these little 80's Toyotas. No big trailers, flat towed them up or dolly'd them. They made a hell of a noise at the line, like you just pulled down a hornet's nest. It wasn't any better if you were in the opposite lane, you're whole car vibrated in tune to that little buzz box.
We had long staging lines back then and awesome attendance, so naturally, lots of time to chat with folks about their cars. Most guys and gals had their hoods open, just like a car show. I was looking at one, an '80's Toyota Corola, no chrome, didn't look much like a race car except the cage, and the power plant. A few guys where hanging out nearby speaking in a language I didn't know (it turned out to be Puerto Rican).
The owner of the car sees me looking things over, and mid sentence, changes to english; infact the entire group did. So we all chatted. It turns out that these guys were serious car buffs, I mean like the old school. No bolt on stuff for them, they didn't make it. These guys adapted or machined their own stuff, then tried it out on the track. Engines went like scat. When they could keep the rear end from blowing up, they would easily lay down a 12 or a high 11 without a bottle. They spent a lot of time fixing rear axles, but they got very good at it.
The 8 cylinder racers didn't think much of them, but I was impressed. Whether it's your "Thing" or not, the effort these guys put into those little cars was seriously impressive.
-Ron
