| Drag Racing In The Philippines |
| In Angeles City, where we live, we have a club called The Angeles Hot Rod Association. Here are a few pictures of what, and where, they race. |
| Below is Blown Crazy, a '67 Camaro that I raced for a friend. It has a well tuned 327, a TH350 and a Ford 9" rear. It does the quarter in about 12.9 secs. Times in the Philippines are a lot slower than our American equivalents because we have such a lousy track surfacc, in fact it's a rather tired runway. |
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| This car is called "Thunder in Paradise", and has a very warm 350. It does the Filipino quarter in around 12.00 seconds, but would probably be in the nines on a real track. As you may notice, it very recently had a small altercation with solid ground, at around 130 mph. Best we can tell is that the sump gasket blew a chunk out and squirted oil onto the crank damper, and then sprayed it onto the right disc brake, resulting in a very hard left pull when the brakes were very firmly applied at the top of the strip. The car has since been rebuilt, using the existing body, loads of metal work, and a coat of paint. While it was apart a 10 point cage was fitted, and Dart heads were slotted in. |
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| V8s are actually in a minority here and the majority of race cars are small Jap fourbangers. Until quite recently, the most common car at drags was the home built Jeep. For around $2000 you can build a hell of a fun car, and take it out and race all day long for pennies. Nowadays the Jap import econobox is taking over, and Jeeps are rarely seen. |
| This car, Big Boss, is one of the fastet fourbangers around, narurally aspirated anyways. He refuses to race on timing lights and does grudge racing for some rather large sums of money. |
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| This oddball Jeep has a 2000cc turbo four banger in it, and goes like a scalded cat!. You don't need 12" slicks when your car weighs 1300 pounds!. |
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| One very fast jeep from Manila, again, with a Jap four banger. |
| Fastest car in the Philippines. A Honda Civic with a turbo four banger pumping out a reputed 470 horsepower!. Does the quarter in 10.67 seconds. Looks kinda scruffy for a $60,000 dollar investment!! |
| This '68 Camaro used to be known as 'Viper', but was recently bought by a young American bodyman, who gave it a paint job, a tidy up, stripped some weight and added a few stickers. He also fitted several different motors, and blew a few up! It's historically the 3rd car into the tens in the Philippines. |
| This is 'Thunder', the car that was recently nigh on totalled in a hundred mph plus rollover. It's now back in action with Dart heads, a new 10 point roll cage and five point safety harness!. See further up the page for the 'before' pictures. |
| This is that fast red Jeep, in the left lane at the PDRF strip in Manila. And yes, those posts you see to the left are solid concrete lamp bases!!!!! |
| PDRF (Philippine drag racing federation) start line. Note the quality of the announcers 'box'. |
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| Green Monster, the only racing Nova in the Philippines. It has tubs, a healthy small block, and is now in for a rebuild with a 3" top chop included!. New spec will include a 10 point cage, new engine, nitrous, and a bunch of other stuff that's pretty secret right now. It was finally finished in 2002, and is called "The Boogieman", but I have no pictures of it. Word is that it is most definitly a ten second car! |
| Yes, we do have safety rules over here, but they're not nearly as strict as in the real world. |
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| This is without a doubt the nicest street legal V8 race car in the Philippines. It has all original interior and a very healthy smallblock, and can break into the tens on a good day, with a shot of nitrous. |
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