VW drag racing video from Carlsbad. These street legal VW bugs are running Turbos and/or Nitrous. One of the white VW beetles may have belonged to Fat Mike. The light green NOS-powered VW bug is driven by owner Phil Brown, who has been a member of the Paradise Motorsports pit crew for many years. Phil is a low-key kinda guy; he would come out to Carlsbad, run deep in the 10's, then go home. He didn't bring the car out to the HotVWs Drag Days, and he didn't run with the Unlimited Street guys. If you race at Atco or Etown, think of Phil as the West Coast version of "Jersey Joe" Koenig; they both run light green VW bugs on NOS, they are both nice guys, and they have both earned heavyweight status at their local drag strips.
This footage was shot in 2003 or 2004, some of it at the Carlsbad VW vs. Import events. The now-defunct drag strip had been in a state of disrepair for quite some time; after it rained, the track crew would be out there mopping up water, that was seeping up from between cracks in the asphalt.
Despite the dicey conditions, VW drag racers like Scott Fetherolf, Eric Calabrese, and Mike Scott made the trek down from the Simi Valley area. You'll see Scott, in his blue choptop Unlimited Street beetle, matched up against Phil Brown. At that point in time, Scott was still running a factory VW case, but he was a force to be reckoned with.
Mike Scott is the owner/driver of the Unlimited Street silver Autocraft oval, which is running alky. Mike had been taking heat online, from bench racers who thought that the immaculate oval window Beetle was all show and no go, but he proved that wrong with a 9.96(9.98?) pass.
The Carlsbad races tended to be a TNT type of racing, where people were getting their rides dialed in. Cars would either break, or be all over the track, due in part to the track conditions. At one point, Kris Lauffer in the Devils Hotrod was squared off against John Leso in the blue Manx, in what should have been a heavyweight matchup of the decade. They both ended up running down on their numbers, but as you'll see John went on to run a low 9-second pass, at 149 mph. Classic!
6 июл 2014
