Oook here it goes. I have a school project for english class which we got to choose a subject of our choice. I decided since im into import drag racing I would do it. I need help with the history of import drag racing. Like how it all started out. Like how long ago and then bring it up to date of import drag racing of today, in a "nutshell". Feel free to put your own opinion post on here. if anyone has any links or sites that can help me that would be great. I thought you guys on here would be the best sorce for this. Thanks if any of you guys can help me!!!!!!1

 

i know there is a site with a history.. back to like 98... its one of the race series' sites...

 

feel free to come over and look in my garage...i have every issue of turbo magazine since 1995....

 

IMPORT DRAG RACING=<FONT SIZE="6">SYLMAR,CA</FONT>

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by advertise &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">HONDA IMPORT DRAG RACING=<FONT SIZE="6">SYLMAR,CA</FONT> </TD></TR></TABLE>

lol

 

please

PR 1st in import racing
East Coast 2nd in Import Racing
West Coast more show then go but there last to get in the action

: Flame suit on :

 

yup, puerto rico pretty much had all the fast stuff back in the day, but its not hondas, think more of 1970s 80s 3tc corollas/starlets and 70s/80s rx7/rx3

and alot of the big name racers in the game now, started off street racing in california

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by alloutmotor &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yup, puerto rico pretty much had all the fast stuff back in the day, but its not hondas, think more of 1970s 80s 3tc corollas/starlets and 70s/80s rx7/rx3

and alot of the big name racers in the game now, started off street racing in california</TD></TR></TABLE>

nailed it right on the head. im from ponce, we all know the history

 

hehe not what you were expecting huh TyCooley? but basically thats where it started. Japanese made cars started to be modified for drag racing in the late 70’s if not a bit earlier in Puerto Rico… I’ll ask pop’s tomorrow for the near exact dates…

Ed-

 

Damn Alex I thought I had a deep collection.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by misfertech &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">please

PR 1st in import racing
East Coast 2nd in Import Racing
West Coast more show then go but there last to get in the action

: Flame suit on :
</TD></TR></TABLE>

hehe.. you knew you will get responses on this.
Here's my opinion.

well.. ya you have the right idea on that PR did alot of Import car racing, but where are those cars on the Industry today. did the PR cars pave the way for the growth of the industry? nah i dont think so. maybe for the growth in the PR and east there was a following on those Rotaries, Starlets, Corollas, but the Import Racing Industry isnt even based on those cars.
So I would say that that class of cars were popular regionally and did influence many racers, but as pioneers of the NHRA Import, IDRC, Battle, and NDRA of today.. they didnt play a significant part.

In my eyes, Import racing did start from the 510s, Corollas, and Datsuns. thats where the Street Import Performance grew in the 80s. It evolved into the late 80s/early 90s with Jackson Racing getting into the Honda/Acura market which then popularized the Civics and Integras. Soon a new crowd of Import Enthusiasts came out fixing up their CRXs/Civics around 92-93. and thats when Battle of the Imports came about. it popularized Honda throughout the next few years and became to what we have today.

I know I may be Biased since living in the west coast but i think its pretty accurate. that what we call Import Racing of today came from that era in time. with Steph P, Wicked Racing/Bergenholtz/DR Charles/Andrew Yang/Viet Lam, Cyber, Tony Fuchs, Lisa Kubo, Dave Shih, and many more WERE the early years of Import racing about 92-93. The top names in the East came out a bit later with John Brown, Gary G., Kenny Tran. and numerous other names popped up all over the country around 95-97.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by exospeedAMcrx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

hehe.. you knew you will get responses on this.
Here's my opinion.

well.. ya you have the right idea on that PR did alot of Import car racing, but where are those cars on the Industry today. did the PR cars pave the way for the growth of the industry? nah i dont think so. maybe for the growth in the PR and east there was a following on those Rotaries, Starlets, Corollas, but the Import Racing Industry isnt even based on those cars.
So I would say that that class of cars were popular regionally and did influence many racers, but as pioneers of the NHRA Import, IDRC, Battle, and NDRA of today.. they didnt play a significant part.

In my eyes, Import racing did start from the 510s, Corollas, and Datsuns. thats where the Street Import Performance grew in the 80s. It evolved into the late 80s/early 90s with Jackson Racing getting into the Honda/Acura market which then popularized the Civics and Integras. Soon a new crowd of Import Enthusiasts came out fixing up their CRXs/Civics around 92-93. and thats when Battle of the Imports came about. it popularized Honda throughout the next few years and became to what we have today.

I know I may be Biased since living in the west coast but i think its pretty accurate. that what we call Import Racing of today came from that era in time. with Steph P, Wicked Racing/Bergenholtz/DR Charles/Andrew Yang/Viet Lam, Cyber, Tony Fuchs, Lisa Kubo, Dave Shih, and many more WERE the early years of Import racing about 92-93. The top names in the East came out a bit later with John Brown, Gary G., Kenny Tran. and numerous other names popped up all over the country around 95-97.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

i think u nailed it right on the money. well put.

 

Sylmar sounds about right. That is where all the Hondas that made this sport Mainstream started from. We should take some day and night time pics or San Fernando Road for you.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by exospeedAMcrx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

hehe.. you knew you will get responses on this.
Here's my opinion.

well.. ya you have the right idea on that PR did alot of Import car racing, but where are those cars on the Industry today. did the PR cars pave the way for the growth of the industry? nah i dont think so. maybe for the growth in the PR and east there was a following on those Rotaries, Starlets, Corollas, but the Import Racing Industry isnt even based on those cars.
So I would say that that class of cars were popular regionally and did influence many racers, but as pioneers of the NHRA Import, IDRC, Battle, and NDRA of today.. they didnt play a significant part.

In my eyes, Import racing did start from the 510s, Corollas, and Datsuns. thats where the Street Import Performance grew in the 80s. It evolved into the late 80s/early 90s with Jackson Racing getting into the Honda/Acura market which then popularized the Civics and Integras. Soon a new crowd of Import Enthusiasts came out fixing up their CRXs/Civics around 92-93. and thats when Battle of the Imports came about. it popularized Honda throughout the next few years and became to what we have today.

I know I may be Biased since living in the west coast but i think its pretty accurate. that what we call Import Racing of today came from that era in time. with Steph P, Wicked Racing/Bergenholtz/DR Charles/Andrew Yang/Viet Lam, Cyber, Tony Fuchs, Lisa Kubo, Dave Shih, and many more WERE the early years of Import racing about 92-93. The top names in the East came out a bit later with John Brown, Gary G., Kenny Tran. and numerous other names popped up all over the country around 95-97.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

The names you mention are people that are making news today or did so in NIRA

NIRA IDRC battle of the imports was a response "to" the growing "Hot Rodding" as you will of Imports

Lisa was in diapers when import racing was already HOT
you don't think so cause there was not
modified mag, import tuner, honda tunning etc

But you can check Turbo mag which did cover
Import racing before even NIRA and other national events got started

people like PSI, Tropical heat, rafelito, marco acosta, rosado racing (i could name more but gots to go work)

In the east coast
like In Lakeland motorsports park, englishtown etc
there was been import racing since the 80's
alot of you was not even born yet or was too young to know this, so to your memory stuff in the the late 90's is when import racing took off
which is total BS

and If you look a the race entries
there are fewer and fewer cars racing in the NHRA does that mean there is a decline in interest in imports? no just big money has pushed the little mom and pop racer into local racing only

in the mianland the East Coast rains supreme
I can bet there are more East coast "performance" imports then the west coast
which is heavily into accerories compared to the east coast that is more geared towards performance

I can make a list of the est coast racers attending "current" NHRA events
I bet they out number west coaters

 

thanks for some of your imputs. umm i can't really find that much but that stuff about the 70s and that sort is what im looking for with the starlets and corollas. if anyone has anything else feel free to post that. Gotta head to school ill check back if there is anything new up. thanks

 

Ty...this seems to be a good subject. Let us know what your final product is

 

well accuallly this project im rushing cuz the teacher is an idiot and assigned it monday and is due thursday. So it is going to be low budget....lol But im doing my graduation project for my school with rado. so once i get that done but i have like a year to do that. so if anyone has some more stuff to put for the history part it would be a big help.

 

i beleive Super Street covered this a while back. Actually importracing dates back to the 1970's. I beleive in the Torrance and Gardena area in Los Angeles. People were racing corollas (Rich Kids), datzuns, and merkurs. The drivers were primarily Nisei. First generation japanese kids. I guess one of the faster cars back then was a datzun that took down some street bikes. I guess this is more streetracing but its basically the roots for the sanctioning bodies that were to come a little over 10 years later. I beleive the first battle of the imports was in 89-90 at Los Angeles County Raceway. My cousins actually took me to one of the first battles back in the day.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by advertise &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">IMPORT DRAG RACING=<FONT SIZE="6">SYLMAR,CA</FONT> </TD></TR></TABLE>
Hell yeah! What was that exit ... Rockford or something. By the Denny's and Chevron! Damn, I haven't been out there in about 12 years.

 

Roxford

 

Don't forget about the Gardena races in the industrial Compton area. Went to my first street race when I was 16/17 years old (that was about 14 years ago!) and saw about 100-200 Hondas just rippin it up. After that night, i started to save up for an HKS exhaust system (not too many options back then). The funny thing is, I didn't have a CAR or a LICENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sylmar races were **** too!!!!

 

ty, the REAL roots of import drag racing go way back in the mid-sixties, with the vw's:

http://www.calixo.net/~dubois1/history.html

do you know who aaron schley is?? his dad and uncle were racing dub's back then, here is a killer oral account of how it really was: http://www.oceanstreetvideo.co...y.wax

those guys used to travel the u.s., setting up match races with the redneck v-8 types... since there was no internet, they'd have local radio stations hype it up ahead of time.

vw's were the only import car that had any significant market penetration back then, and later on, in the early '80's, they used to pack in 14,000+ people at the orange county raceway for vw-only races.

all import cars were viewed as a threat to the u.s. automotive industry from the git-go, so driving one was a real counter-culture statement.

there are a couple of old farts out here who were around in those days and if there are any real puerto ricans out here, they'll tell you that flat-4's are still real big in puerto rico.

so, to sum it up, import drag racing started with vw's in so cal, followed shortly by the east coast and puerto rico... you would also want to check out australia and new zealand, where rotaries and 4's have been drag raced for decades.

if you can find any old history of the nhra, you'll see a lot of vw records and wins early on, before they essentially got ruled out by the early '70's... by then you'll start to see other rwd import models getting a piece of the nhra action.

another really significant milestone in import drag racing would have to be the fwd guys, probably seriously starting with the battle of the imports in palmdale(?)... it was huge back in the day... i don't know of anything on the east coast that compared to it at the time, so you can probably chalk up fwd drag racing as another so cal first.

 

ook thats a big help thanks.... Can anyone tell me what the first sanctioned import racing body was? And any other links too you guys are helping a lot
THANKS

 

I think it was AIRA