Race Results

IDRC Kicks Off the 2001 Import Drag Racing Season with Record-Setter

Rain delays but can't stop records from being broken at IDRC's season opener

With weather forecasts changing minute to minute, no one knew what to expect for the Importdrag.com West Coast Nationals. Despite scattered showers that delayed the start of Sunday eliminations until 1:30pm, nearly 10,000 die-hard import enthusiasts battled the weather over the weekend to witness the start of the 2001 racing season.

"Everyone was amazed at the turnout considering the varying forecasts and morning showers on Sunday," said Jim Liaw, IDRC Sponsorship Director. A few teams including Venom Racing and Kubo Racing thought it best to call it an early day on Sunday as they felt that the weather challenged track wouldn't be able to hold their car's power (it was mistakenly announced at the track that Venom Racing left the event to service its race vehicles). The teams that stayed put on an incredible show for the performance-hungry crowd.

The DC Sports All-Motor class featured the first-ever 16-car field. Ten in the field qualified in the 11s. In the finals, Scott Kelley's VW defeated Bisi Ezerioha's SOHC Honda CRX. Honda's faired better in the Apex Integration Outlaw class as Stephan Papadakis's Civic defeated Ray Lochhead's RX-7 in the final. Steph also set a track elapse time record for a front-wheel drive of 8.987-seconds.

The Nitto Tires Turbo magazine Quick class had 15 qualified Hondas in the field of 16 cars. Joel Tanzman's Supra was the number one qualifier but he was defeated in the Semi-finals when his car broke in competition against Kosuke Kida's Civic. Kosuke Kida went on to face Heather Zender in the final. This side-by-side low-10-second contest ended with Kida edging out Zender for the win.

In the Street class presented by Sport Compact Car, Ari Yallon and his RX-7 qualified number one, but Robert Lives cut a killer light and sent Ari home early. Robert went on to defeat Roy Narvaez in the final.

In the Toyo Tires Pro class, the crowd got a sneak preview of two teams to watch in 2001. The Area 51 racing team campaigning a Lexus SC300 powered by a twin-turbo 2JZ powerplant and the Venom Racing team's Toyota Tacoma also powered by a turbocharged Toyota 2JZ motor. Ron Lummus, a legend in the ranks of VW enthusiasts, also brought out his 2001 VW bug. This trio faced the pair of rotaries from the Toyo Tire Racing team. Abel Ibarra's Toyo Tire RX-7 lost a driveshaft and hit the wall in the semi-finals, while teammate Efrez Vazquez took the Toyo Tires R-100 to the winner's circle defeating Ron Lummus in the final.

According to Operations Director Wayne Kiang, "All in all, this was one of the most challenging events that we had to run due to the great turnout and limited track time. The racers deserve the credit for putting on an incredible show. For the teams that stayed and worked with the compressed time schedule, their professionalism was second to none. We really appreciate that they put on an incredible show for the fans. When we come back to LACR for the finals, we'll expect an attendance in excess of 20,000."