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BOYZ 'N TOYZ

Boyz 'n Toyz

Super-imports fill the niche that flathead Merc Lakesters had in 1949-and the smart enthusiast would do well to get familiar. David Colman reports, Charles Illgen Takes the pictures.

The competition tsunami sweeping California will soon be inundating a track near you-and the performance industry better be ready to take advantage of it. Compact imports have swamped the motorsport world so fast that track owners and sanctioning bodies are barely treading water trying to keep abreast of the wave.

The flood-tide has already changed the face of racing in North America, but its wellspring resides in the Orient. Thanks to price, availability, and insurability, Japanese 4- and 6-cylinder imports have become far more popular in the middle 1990s than domestic cars as modification starting points, with Honda's inoffensive Civic (!) emerging as the combatant of first choice. Not far behind comes the Acura Integra, followed by the Mitsubishi Eclipse and various and sundry Toyotas and Mazdas. You've seen them already; you know they're out there; and just about everyone agrees that they're not going away.
The pre-eminent popularity of the Honda can't be traced to any active intercession by its manufacturer. Indeed, American Honda, in its quest for IndyCar stardom and a middle-American status, has all but ignored this popular mandate at the grassroots level. Much the same can be said for Mitsubishi, Toyota, and Mazda, all of whom have largely viewed the skyrocketing popularity of import competition with benign neglect rather than active support.
"We've looked at it recently," says an SCI mole inside Mazda's US headquarters. "We've even talked about addressing it with a concept car. Certainly you can't live in Southern California and not recognize it. But while lots of trends have started in Southern California, lots of trends have also died in Southern California. Look at minitrucks and lowriders, for example."


Despite manufacturers' reluctance to get involved, however, a rash of small tuners and aftermarketers have been cleaning up in this vacuum since the start of the '90s, and now, finally, at least some elements of the mainstream have taken notice. Aftermarket-industry group SEMA (the Specialty Equipment Market Association) cites these microrodders as one of the generally tight market's wide-open niches; established publishing firms such as Miami's Spanish-language Automundo and California's Petersen Group are scrambling to start new titles; and a suspicious number of Mazda and Toyota shills have been spotted prowling the dragstrips in the last 16 months. The bright folks at Acura are even sampling these waters with a factory special aimed at the eye of the hurricane: The lowered, uprated Integra R-type. Even though this car has only been available in Japan so far, in the back-alley speed shops of LA and San Francisco it's been the stuff of dreams for years.

How much money is at stake in this business? Forget about outright vehicle sales and ancillary stuff like magazines for a moment: Every microrodder's must-do list already includes anodized intake tracts, trash-can-sized exhaust tips, plus-3 faux-centerlock wheels, iridium driving lights, and hypersculpted seats. If Vilem B. Haan were still alive he'd be making 6-inch oval end pipes for Civics instead of rock-guards for MGs-and earning tons of cash.
The age group here is primarily 15-30 (most of the younger kids probably want strut-tower braces to match the ones on their teeth), but don't count out the professional set, either. These weekly warriors are the same today as their dry-lakes ancestors were in 1951: Easy to underestimate and passionate to succeed. Tweaking these cars gets real expensive real fast, and the most basic laundry list of modifications can easily tally up $10,000 in parts and labor receipts; the more impressive import sedans you'll find racing weekday nights at the dragstrip often cost more than a brand-new Mustang Cobra or 3000GT. You're more likely to find a dentist than a delivery boy in the opposing lane at the Christmas tree, though of course speed freaks have always come in all sizes and strata.


In addition to being a sport of the young, so far most of this movement's action belongs to Asian-Americans, and there's no doubt that this is another factor-many adherents insist the main factor-confounding its acceptance by established manufacturers. (Certainly the fans of minitrucks and lowriders could argue the same point.)

Personally, I first realized that a seed-change was in the works back in 1989, when I entered my Porsche in a class that was then new to the SCCA called Solo 2 or Open Street Prepared (OSP). The only requirements for OSP were DOT-legal tires, a valid street registration, and a passing grade at tech, and suddenly there were dozens of beautifully prepared Japanese sedans lining up for a run through the cones every weekend.
It was easy to see that a line had been thrown to a vast group of enthusiasts who'd previously had nowhere to go, and yet despite the wildfire popularity of OSP the SCCA has chosen to ignore this class on a national basis. Instead, they prefer to spend their days in Englewood, Colorado worrying about why the SCCA is graying faster than the Navy's mothball fleet. Once again, the mainstream has blundered its way out of an add-water-and-stir success.
While the tricked-out sports sedans on shaved Yokohamas, BFGs, and Hoosiers proliferated in left-coast autocrossing a similar explosion was taking place on the dragstrips of California, where a sport originally dedicated to the thumping V8 was about to find its priorities inverted. Within a year of being recognized in 1994, the sports-compact sedan became the dragracing tool of choice at Sears Point, Sacramento, and Palmdale. In fact, the so-called SportStreet (SPS) class now accounts for more than a third of the total weekly entries at Sears Point's Wednesday-night bracket races. "We used to call them the 'Economy' class," says NHRA administrator Ted Seipel, "but somehow that didn't seem right when you had a $50,000 Porsche coming to the line against a $35,000 Acura. So we changed the class name to SportStreet."
Whatever you call it the class is red-hot, both in terms of popularity and the quality of competition. The coming of the super-import accounts for a 50% annual rise in aftermarket sales for this segment according to racing rep Jim Marino, who's worked for the performance marketing firm of Harward-Allen for the past 12 years. That's more than double the growth rate of the domestic aftermarket industry as a whole over the last two years, so it's no wonder that mainstream organizations are finally taking notice.
You can see the results every time you check the staging line at Sears Point or the pregrid field at an SCCA autocross at Candlestick Park: These cars are hung with every performance accessory known, their look distinctly functional but decidedly racy. If you converted a NATCC Super Touring roadracer for street duty in Blade Runner's Los Angeles you'd end up with a sedan looking very much like these: zero-inch ride height, huge wheels over ultrathin rubber, aerospats, angled signage, pictographic iconography, and dazzling Halo-cinogenic driving lights with iridium reflector shields. (Think of these PIAA minispots as backlit Oakley Blades-just the ticket for staking out your turf during a 12-second run down the strip at night.)
Boyz 'n Toyz Between heats the hoods all pop open, allegedly to let cool air ice the intake plenum. Of course thousands of eyes pop open as well. Just as with the drive-in circuit or yore, the paparazzi of the SportStreet scene do a continual staging-line shuffle to eyeball each other's exposed equipment. It's the automotive equivalent of the posedown at Muscle Beach, and while numbers on the strip may tell the hole story, they don't necessarily tell the whole story.
Gazers generally gravitate to the most gorgeous goodies between runs, regardless of the numbers soaped onto their windshields: Stitched yellow ignition cables, blue-anodized heat sinks, green-foam filtration hats, and cadmium-purple intake stacks as big as yer Hoover's crevice tool make for plenty to ogle. Socializing is as critical to this gang as any other, and it's not unusual to see a driver flip his cell phone to attention between runs. "I just turned a 13.8 at 104, mom." Phone home, ET. Strut your stuff now-you might be eliminated in the next round.
Not that the effectiveness of these cars doesn't deserve respect too. "Some of those kids are doin' damn slick work," offers our resident racing whiz Peter Brock. "They're buildin' roadracers, essentially; they just don't know it yet. Some of that machinery is incredibly well done."


Andy Costello was there before it all began. "I brought a 300ZX Twin Turbo out to the drags back in 1990, and I took all kinds of crap from the guys racing Fords and Chevys. 'Whaddaya wanna drive that thing for?' they'd say. 'Get that foreign junk outta here.'" Then he started running consistent 12.7s in his Z-car, 12.6s in a Toyota Supra Turbo, and the low 13s in a new RX7. Andy Costello doesn't hear much flackback from the pushrod crowd these days.

Of course by now the tide has turned in the imports' favor. By 1994 Costello found himself joined at Sears Point by more than 100 regular practitioners of the import art, an infusion of Samurai warriors that relegated the Mustang-Camaro brigade to incidental status. In California, where imports account for 55% of all new-car sales, the same pattern of dominance had begun to repeat itself at the racetrack. "By last year, you couldn't even get an entry at some of the bigger import meets at Sacramento," recalls Costello. "I arrived once at six a.m. and got one of the last of 700 slots when the gates opened at eight o'clock in the morning. It's insane."
Most of the combatants who flock to the track can't afford the premium weapons favored by Costello, so they start with more humble machinery and try to tweak their way up to dragonslayer status. The idea is to take a 16-second Honda Civic or Acura Integra (preferably a VTEC, please) and massage it into a 13- or 14-second wonder. If the feat requires nitrous oxide or a turbo, well, that's no problem: Here's my wallet.
"I think they enjoy knocking off the more expensive cars," says Al Torrez, who campaigns an automatic Twin Turbo ZX that runs consistent 12.9s. "They're out here to prove that their economy cars are no joke-and I've gotta tell you, when you see a Civic running in the 11s it really does get your attention."
Neal Williamson, who bills himself as "The Racer's Rep," has been racing sports cars and repping speed-part lines since the 1960s. Even he can hardly believe what's happening in import technology. "Think about it: You've got 10-second doorslammer front-wheel-drive Civics for goodness' sake! The key is that the whole scene is developing new entrepreneurs, just like the early days of hotrodding."
One of the most attentive of these is Leo Now, who runs Revolutions Motorsports in Burlingame, California. Leo grew up as a drag-racing brat, watching his dad's Camaro shut people down on San Francisco's oceanfront Great Highway when street racing was still a regular occurrence there in the '70s. If anyone has surfed the wave of the import frenzy it's Now, who stepped up to promote a pair of giant weekend shootouts at Sears Point during 1996.
"The 4-cylinder import is the musclecar of the '90s," Leo insists while looking after his boyz at Sears with almost parental devotion. "All of my guys come out here every Wednesday, and I'm always at the track with a timing light tuning their cars." Leo knows he's found himself on the crest of a big wave, and he intends to ride it. He also publishes a regular newsletter-the Club REV! Racing Update-and plans on hosting more than 500 entries at each running of The Real Import Super Drags at Sears. Like a latter-day Bill France Sr., Leo has also astutely assembled financial backing from more than 35 equipment manufacturers.
Tom Allen, of the famous aftermarket consulting firm Ballard Allen Marketing, sees Leo Now as the second coming of the NHRA's Wally Parks: "Leo could literally be another Wally. The opportunity is there." Ballard, whose reputation is based on litmus reads of the racing industry, zeroes in on the numbers: "Drag racing used to be about the '55 Chevy, but this is the future. Most of the Japanese cars are much more sophisticated than the American V8s, and that's what kids want to race today. Even the NHRA is looking closely at the import market."
But while the establishment studies the phenomenon, Leo Now is busy creating it. During the workday week he holds court inside an industrial-park storefront surrounded by kneecapped Zs and CRXs. The clientele comes in and out all day, invariably young, narrow-focused, and enthusiastic: "Most of my customers are 15 to 30, and as soon as they get their licenses they come in here. They drive their first car off the lot and they want to lower it; after that, they want more horsepower."
Those words are still hanging in the air when John Wong enters Revolutions' homey anteroom waving a dyno sheet from JG Engine Dynamics, Revolutions' Honda-engine tuner of choice. With the gleam of the fanatic in his eyes, Wong announces that his 1.8-liter B18 CRX engine has just posted 144 bhp at the wheels on JG's dyno-with a little help from a pair of JG cams and a DC UltraFlo exhaust, of course. (Later that day, Wong invites me outside to take a whack at his CRX, a real vertebrae-snapping, Saturn V-booster kind of thing with a racing clutch to take up the slack. I tell him I think it'll work just fine.)
Two nights later, John is idling on the line at Sears Point in his electric-blue CRX, twitching with anticipation and eager to find out how 144 ponies translates into elapsed time. But after one run I find him frowning and moaning in the paddock, crestfallen. His Honda has turned a 14.8 @ 92 mph (versus 16.4 @ 84 stock, according to factory figures), which is damn fast for a street-legal Honda but not enough around here. Rattled, Wong redlights his next run and is sent home early. Before leaving, however, he notices that his botched second run was still good enough for a 14.6. It looks like the CRX might make good after all.


In Japan, tuning clubs are all the rage. Countless groups of enthusiasts, banded together by favorite tuners, car makes, and performance ranges, battle it out every weekend on the dragstrip and road course. This same trend is quickly taking root in California, and Jay Morris, the head of a prosperous mail-order suspension business in Fair Oaks, California called Ground Control, plans to cash in on it.

Jay is heavily involved in the super-import market, but at a self-imposed distance: "We don't sell directly to the Asian guys much because they really stick together and feel much more comfortable buying from one another. There are about eight billion tiny shops in the Bay Area and LA where three or four guys go in together and open a store. They all want to be a dealer, buy wholesale, and have their friends come by and visit. If you read the Japanese magazines, that's what happens over there. But in Japan they have formal clubs; that hasn't happened here yet, but I think it will."
If Tuning Concept magazine is any indication, clubs for import racers are in fact on the horizon. This free publication, just launched by Polarize Tuning USA to promote accessory and aftermarket sales in the SF Bay Area, includes ads from dozens of parts providers such as Club Bien Bien, where in addition to demon tweaks you'll also find nightly karaoke contests.
Jay Morris is helping Eibach springs design specialized kits for import dragracing, and the first-ever integrated Honda Civic drag suspension system is on the market already. It consists of a front and rear spring-and-shock set calibrated to lower the Honda and deal with weight transfer at launch. Eibach also sells a Multipro adjustable ride-height kit for autocrossers using the same double-spring technology found on European Super Touring cars.
Morris doesn't mince words when he gets rolling on the subject of the import attraction: "Import cars are so popular because American cars are junk-that's it in a nutshell. You know why these guys aren't out there racing Chevys or GTIs? Because they're no dummies, that's why. You have a guy who's 20 or 21, with no loyalty to anything USA. He doesn't know anybody from WWII, let alone Vietnam. Even if he wanted to he couldn't get a TV made in the USA; there aren't any. Their Walkman, their everything, comes from Japan-for those guys, domestic isn't even a thought."
There's an obvious ethnic theme running here, at which point Morris adds that his customers aren't all Asian-Americans. His company also sells plenty of Honda and Mitsubishi parts over the counter to white kids under the age of 25-"hat punks," in Morris' vernacular. According to the parts vendor, these kids "have an attitude," are typified by "driving like jerks," and listen to lots of Gangsta Rap. I ask him if hat punks wear their baseball caps reversed: "Umm, the brim's over their nose. Is that forward or backward?" he replies.
But while many established businesses continue seeing the super-import market as some kind of Balkanized ethnic minefield, in point of fact this craze not only cuts across makes, models, and ethnicities but even genders. Meet Kathy Ball, the Racin' Realtor: Each time she shuts down another loser with her totally dialed '92 Mitsubishi Diamante she flashes an impish grin, regrids her luxosedan in the ever-shrinking line of bracket survivors, and readies herself for the next victim. Kathy almost never loses in her class because she knows her bone-stock Diamante will invariably turn a 17.65 if she does everything right. But is that why she bought the Mitsu? Not exactly. "I love this car 'cause it's comfortable, has plenty of room for me and my friend Flo Fridolfs, and it's got a real good heater," she says.


In many ways, the trend to imports that has already swept California remains an anomaly elsewhere in the country. In states such as Texas and Florida conventional big-block racing is still very much the norm. But prognosticators like Tom Allen see imports as the inevitable future of the sport: "Land values in California have basically shut our sport down here. Since they closed Orange County Raceway and Irwindale there's almost no place left to run, and there's no sense in owning an expensive, trailered Pro Comp car if there's nowhere to run it. The wave of the future in drag racing is the street car-kids have to be able to race what they drive daily. And since imports are what they're driving, then imports are what they'll be racing."

Finally, Georgia Seipel, a gregarious woman who helps husband Ted run the bracket races at Sears Point, agrees that California's new flood-tide will not be stemmed. "Those old musclecars have become such expensive toys. How can a normal guy, and especially a young person, afford them now? It's awesome what these SportStreet guys are doing; absolutely unbelievable. And," she adds, "it just makes sense."

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