So I recently made a new video about Marc’s car after watching him put together his turbo kit. The piece uses Nine Inch Nails Ghost 3 track, which is creative commons licensed and legal for non-commercial use. My goal with this video was to create a sense of the organic/mechanic processes involved. I shot it with my Canon HG-20 and Nikon D90. I hope you all enjoy it.
The fuel was added to the fire when Chris told Marc “I will trailer your car to the track if you pay for the diesel and we will see how fast your car really is”. Marc just grinned and said “Sweet! Wednesday or Friday?”, Chris replied “Wednesday”. And so what had been a heated debate between the old school and the new school of drag racers erupted into a material proposition.
So the stage was set, we would leave at 4pm on Wednesday from Boost Logic to San Antonio Raceway. As we waited to head out, friendly bets were made, people talked trash. Everyone seemed to have an opinion on how fast they thought Marc would go, small friendly arguments would break out and then quiet down, laughter ringing out as well. Most thought Marc would trap around 135-140mph, with a couple saying 140-144mph.
When all the smoked settled we had a whole crew of people going. Chris and Marc, along with myself and Corina (my wife and photographer for the night) would ride in Chris’s F250 Turbo Diesel truck pulling Marc’s car. S.W. of Elite Motorsports and Cody of American Racing Technologies would bring their BMW M5’s and Justin of Tuning Concepts brought his 2002 Porsche 911 (996) twin turbo (w/Boost Logic turbo kit). Also Nick a fellow drag racers came with his truck and some Mickey Thompson drag radials for Marc to borrow for his run (Mac, his American Bulldog also came along). To say the least a Motely Crew was ad-hocly formed and an adventure started.
Chris’s group was the first to arrive at the track. We unloaded Marc’s car and headed to Tech inspection. The inspection went surprisingly quick for the setup Marc was running.
Note: For those who have not been following my blog here is a video of Marc explaining his cars setup.
After tech inspection everyone started rolling in, Nick showed up and Marc decided to go out on a run with just his street drag radials to do a shake down pass (a shake down pass is when you do not go all out, but just get “feel” for the track and the car). I headed to the stands and prepared to shoot. Marc got to the line and did an initial run in 11.7 seconds at 141.XX miles an hour. As Marc pulled up to the pit area, Justin, Zohair, S.W. and Cody showed up. Chris, Nick and everyone were really excited and as Justin and S.W. got out of their cars, they were told the initial run time, they all cheered. Chris was really proud, as was everyone else.
To see how quickly everyone had gone from talking trash and teasing Marc to instantly being proud and excited was an inspiring moment. Chris instantly started talking about making some promotional videos about Marc’s turbo kit. And everyone began speculating what Marc could potentially run.
What was also just as amazing, at least to me personally, was that Justin had brought out his freshly modified and tuned Porsche 911 Turbo and planned on doing some runs. His shake down run proved the car to be speedy with a trap speed of 126mph. Justin’s 911 Turbo has a custom Boost Logic built twin turbo setup and is of course personally tuned by himself. He was even doing data logging at the track and making adjustments as he made his run, which was refreshing to see, as very few people have the skill’s and/or resources to be able to make computer adjustments at the track due to the fact that you usually need a tuner with you.
S.W. and Cody had a nice drag race as well, with both of their M5’s performing in the teens. I am still amazed how much S.W.’s M5 sounds like a Mustang, even though it is a BMW V10 engine.
In between runs everyone would meet up at the pit area and talk shop. Whether it was about the cars out there or individuals others builds, everyone was excited and having a great time.
As time wore on, people began to get hungry, which by my observations seems to play a big role on when the racing should come to an end if your car hasn’t broken yet.
Oh yeah, that is a whole other story. You see breaking things on your race car is actually what ends most race days. So to have a day when nobody breaks something is pretty amazing and made the whole event that much more enjoyable. Because usually when things break, people tend to get discouraged and/or upset.
So it was decided that everyone was starving and that everyone would get a run or two more in and we would head out. By then Justin had his car pretty well dialed in and Marc had mounted Nick’s drag radials and had gotten a run or two in with them on. So with the sun pretty much set, they headed to the lanes and waited for their turn.
This was where the night went from fun to amazing. Both Justin and Marc ran incredible times and especially trap speeds on their final passes. Justin ran an 11.7 at 133mph and Marc ran a 10.53 at 144.78. The reactions where amazing when we arrived at the pit lanes, everyone was congratulatory and Chris told Marc not to worry about the Diesel, which I thought was a great ending to the whole night.
But it should be noted, Marc literally drove his car up onto the trailer after his final run and after a couple a compliments were paid, everyone jumped in their cars and headed for dinner.
We arrived at a Chili’s down the road and everyone was hungry, the energy was great though and the stories of the night and nights past were shared by everyone. Again, I have to say I was amazed at how everyone was so excited and just happy to be sharing everyone’s company. This was a night I will never forget, much like the Texas Mile, this trip to the track was an amazing nugget of experience.
To say the least I had an action packed weekend and it is still going strong two weeks later! For the past couple of weeks I have been hanging out with Boost Logic, a local Toyota Supra shop who are known for making high horsepower street/strip cars, as well as being some of the best turbo/intake/exhaust fabricators in the world.
As I found out the weekend of the Texas Mile, their work is recognized around the world by all types of car enthusiasts. The way I became involved with Boost Logic is through Marc, their fabricator. I met him at a local Round Rock meet almost a year ago where he had just built out his 86′ 300ZX with a 2JZ (Toyota Supra) motor and I believe a 67mm turbo. To say the least Marc is known around town, not only because of his cool car, but because of his friendly personality, kind instincts and enthusiasm for helping others succeed in making their rides perform well. Here is a short video of the first time I saw Marc’s 300ZX, I had no idea who he was, I just happened to be picking up some footage of the meet:
So one day I asked Marc about his job and he told me about Boost Logic and that I should come by and check it out sometime. He asked me what I did for work and I told him about my dissertation work on car culture in central Texas. He was really interested and again encouraged me to come by. So one day when I was driving around Lime Creek Rd, I ended up right next to Boost Logic and decided to stop by. Mark started showing me what he was up to and I just got out my camera and took photos.
Since then I have been known around Boost Logic as “the Mohawk guy with the camera”. I met the rest of the crew and they have all been very welcoming and inviting. I would go by randomly to say hi and snap shots of them at work. Each time I would go it seemed I was meeting someone I had not previously met and getting to know the people I had already met that much more. Each employee there seems to have a pretty well defined roll while also being able to fill in for someone else at a moments notice. Whether it was giving a car a wash down or pitching in to rebuild an engine in time for an event, their synergy is something I have found to be impressive. It actually reminded me very much of my own ad-hoc groups I work with in the ACTLab.
So one day I was hanging out with them watching Justin, of Tuning Concepts, (an in house car tuner for Boost Logic) prep a car for the dynometer and he mentioned how they were going to the Texas Mile in Goliad and that I should check it out. I had previously found out about the Texas mile on my own through a forum post when doing research for my dissertation. The Texas mile is an event where tuners/racers from around the nation come to Goliad County Airport (which I believe is an old alternate Navy landing space) and one at a time race down the run way for 1 mile and see what types of speeds they trap (trap= the MPH at the finish line).
So I thought about Justin’s suggestion and a day or two later I asked Marc about maybe following them and he said it would be cool, but that they would be leaving at 5:30am from Boost Logic. At 4am that morning I was up preparing to head out. I went to a 7/11 and picked up the necessary water and snacks for such an event and arrived at Boost Logic around 5am. No one was there yet, when I arrived at Boost Logic, but I figured they would be there soon. Long story short, we left around 6:15 and were well on our way out of Austin by 7am. During our unforeseen extra time I took video and photos of their preparation. Sriyantha Weerasuria (aka S.W.), the owner of Elite Motor sports, a high-end car dealership was the person behind the trip. He had Boost Logic prepare his 1995 Toyota Supra Hardtop for the race. Evidently S.W.’s Supra is the fastest 6 speed Supra in the world. (What I didn’t realize at the time, was that it was also the record holder for the race we were heading to!)
Chris, co-owner of Boost Logic showed up second and also prepped the various necessities for the event.
Once everyone showed up and were accounted for Chris and Marc headed out ahead of us to stake out a space. I followed S.W.’s mobile home. As we drove through the early stages of East Texas I was reminded of all the trips I had taken out on these roads, whether it to go to the coast or Goliad itself, the memories flowed. The weather was damp and foggy, as we drove I kept thinking to myself that I wish I could wash my car (and sub consciously their mobile home and race car) so I could have really sharp photos while at the track. Before I knew it S.W. was in my car and we had parked the mobile home to go pickup some washing supplies, evidently having things perfectly clean wasn’t just on my mind!
This is was where I really began to get to know S.W… As we pulled into an Oriely’s Auto parts we were greeted by a group of school kids and an adult who held up a sign that said “Car Wash” on it. S.W. jokingly said, we should have them wash the rig. I smirked and thought to myself that it was a great idea, but I figured he was just joking. Low and behold after we got our supplies S.W. asked me to drive past the children and he rolled down the window and asked them if they would like to wash the rig. They agreed and next thing I knew we had the rig, the race car and my car and were washing away. The experience was hilarious, Justin the tuner seemed to have a good time as well. I talked to the women in charge of the car wash and she informed me that the students were trying to raise money to take a trip to Sea World in San Antonio, Texas. Her statement reminded me of how much it meant when I was a child and got to go to such places for the first time.
Once we hit Goliad City, we headed to the county airport. When we arrived to the actual airport it hit me how remote of a location we were at, while also having a feeling of things potentially being big in terms of experience. I was in the car by myself when I went up to the gate, they asked me what I was doing there and I replied that I was there to take photos, so they just waved me along. As we drove down the run way’s taxi lane I was hit by the immense amount of people and tuners that were there. I felt almost like I was in the opening sequence of Grand Prix. I saw people under their cars making last second changes, people loading and unloading cars. What was different then any other event I had been to thus far was the scale at which people were doing this. Practices varied from people with their race car being their car they showed up in, to full fledged racing trailers with mobile home and a series of race cars to run.
After parking, the Boost Logic crew was quick to unload the race car, clean the race car and then prepare it for it’s first run. They also quickly greeted the trailer that was next to us, who to my surprise turned out to be American Racing Technology and Hennessey , both world renowned high end high performance shops located in Austin, Tx and Houston, Tx, respectively.
Hennessey is one of the first tuner’s I ever read about. I believe I was 14 at the time in 8th grade and it was a Motor Trend Magazine’s tuner F-Body extravaganza that I first began to hear the lore of Hennessey. And low and behold Boost Logic was great friends with them. I was also surprised to learn that one of the 850rwhp Ford GT’s parked in front of ART’s Trailer belonged to S.W.
Shortly after we parked S.W. and the Boost Logic team took the Supra off the trailer and cleaned it up. Everyone seemed to have a job to do. It was pretty amazing to watch them go. They gave off a serious feeling of competitiveness and proud-ness of their work and themselves which was great to see.
After some preparation, Marc suggested he and I go down to the pit lane and see some of the action. So we made our way down the taxi way and looked at all the various rides and people. It was amazing the eclectic groups that showed up. Some had just brought themselves and their car, some had brought full motor homes and trailers for their crotch rockets. Some were in beaten down station wagons using it as a “home base” for preparation.
As we walked we ran into one older fellow who was working under the hood of his custom turbo Mazda Miata. Marc kindly walked up to the fellow and ask him how he was doing and the man commented that he was trying to change his spark plugs out, however in one of the spark plug holes a rubber bung was stuck. He said he had left his tools back home, so seemingly not even thinking about it, Marc asked the man if he had a key ring. The man replied yes and pulled it out of his pocket, Marc said, “oh you only have one… I have two, we can use mine.” Marc then proceeded to create a make shift hook out of the key ring, after couple of adjustments and some tuning he pulled the rubber bung right out. The man was amazed and so was I!
This unsaid comradeship was a theme that seemed to resonate throughout the day, everyone was there for each other. As we kept on walking down the Taxi way Marc would stop and talk to various folks about their bikes or cars, ask questions and complement them on their setups.
As we finally made our way to the pit lanes we laid our eyes on a Bugatti EB110, again, like Hennessey, one of the childhood legendary machines that I had read about in magazines and saw on car shows about super exotic street cars. So it was no surprise when Marc said, “Hey that is Tanner Foust from the speed channel’s ‘Supercars Exposed’”. So we walked up to the Bugatti and checked it out. Marc began asking Tanner questions, I quickly pulled out my cameras and shot some photos and video. I especially liked shooting video of the speed channel shooting video of us, not sure why, it just felt ultra post modern in a completely traditional setting.
So we talked to Tanner for a while. It was interesting to listen to Marc and Tanner talk shop. They both had a free-ness in their voice that commended each others work. After a bit of discussion S.W. came roaring up in the Supra into the pit lanes. They were prepped and primed to go. At first the officials said they were going to have to wait until lunch to run, but then they changed their minds and said they would be the last to go before lunch. I readied my camera and went to work. Marc stood there and watched and Justin went and helped S.W. stage the car (for those unfamiliar with the term “stage the car”, in this case it means Justin went and put water in front of S.W.’s rear tires so as to scrub and heat the tires to be up to temperature to optimize grip when launching.) As the car took off everyone watched, there was some silence after the car’s distance exceeded an audible range. Then the officials stated the car had gone 244.6mph (which later was corrected to 246mph). At that moment Marc jumped up and gave out a howl. I took video and watched as everyone around us congratulated Marc. We then quickly made our way back to the motor home where we met up with everyone. As I approached the motor home I let Marc run ahead of me and I picked up some celebratory photos and video, it was an awesome moment!
As S.W. got out of the Supra, Chris and Justin went to work, Chris checking the physical points of the car and Justin looking at the data log of the run (Data Log: in the Supra there is a computer that logs the temperatures, turbo pressure among other things). S.W. and the Boost Logic crew were quickly surround by fellow racers and tuners, as well as some spectators. Shortly there after Streetfire.net’s correspondents were there ready to interview S.W. about the race. S.W. was very excited.
-Side Note: One observation I must pull us aside to, that was very interesting to me, was how quickly the news of S.W.’s news traveled, by the time he arrived at the mobile home people were texting him to congratulate him. People from all over the nation were contacting him to give him a virtual pat on the back. Also all the Boost Logic guys were receiving and sending texts. It was a very interesting moment where the “meat” and the “cloud” literally pushed an event that happened in the middle of no where into the forefront within seconds of occurring. What I have yet to tell you is that the Speed Channel themselves not only neglected to record S.W.’s run, but even if they had, they had no ready way to upload such an event into the “cloud”. I personally even wished at that moment I still had my 3G AT&T wireless card to upload the event to the net. The “aura” of the event while irreplaceable, is something that even over a youtube squished video gives certain viewers chills and grins.
After the run, S.W. and the Boost Logic crew broke for lunch, S.W. fixed up some roast beef sandwiches. I popped my head into the mobile home to tell them I was going to go get lunch and they invited me to stay and eat with them. I obliged and enjoyed the roast beef sandwich, which admittedly was the first roast beef sandwich I had ever had in my life. As we sat there eating we all reflected on the run and began talking about the next run and when to make it. Sure enough after about 30 minutes S.W. was ready to go again. The preparation process began again and off we went. During lunch Chris made sure to tell me to make sure I was at the finishing line this time to record the run because it offered a vastly different perspective due to the fact that you see the car running at full speed.
So along with Chris and Justin I headed down to the finish line and we waited. After waiting for a while, we got a phone call from the pit area and they said S.W. was up next. All the various media people were ready this time and prepared their cameras, I personally sat on the ground almost on the grass as to be out of everyone’s way and also allow myself an unobstructed view. So as I waited for the S.W.’s car to run, I peered out of my lens, the sun was fully out by then and the Texas coastal plains in drought added a certain burn to run that resonated not only the physicality of the run, but the feeling of potential for success whether S.W. failed or succeeded in breaking the record he had just set.
Just then I saw the Supra in my lens, a black spec, accompanied along with a distant roar and as it got closer and closer it reminded me of a jet taking off, but even faster. As the Supra approached the finish line, engine roaring, a “pop” occurred and white smoke began coming out of the front under body. A gasp out of everyone around me occurred and immediately someone cracked a joke about the tune since Justin (the tuner) was standing there next to me. Immediately Chris and Justin jumped into the golf cart and went down to see what the deal was.
I decided to walk back to the mobile home with a fellow I had just met, as we walked we talked about the various cars there and also about his interests in cars, it was quite a random discussion for having just met the person. As we were about 2 trailers away from S.W.’s mobile home along came the supra with S.W. in it on the cell phone followed by Marc with his feet on the back of the Supra and himself sitting on the front of the golf cart and Chris driving. It was quite the scene to say the least.
When we arrived back to the mobile home Chris and Justin went to work and quickly realized that one of the rods threw itself due to being defective. S.W. fielded questions from random spectators and tuners.
An interesting comment he made was that as soon as he heard the “pop” of the engine rather then letting off of the gas he stayed on it and then gradually let off and applied the brakes and released the parachute. It was also amazing to hear that even with the engine failure they crossed the finish line at 228mph!
After the commotion died down I realized how late in the day it was and that I was still due to make it back into Austin and needed to rest up for the next day, a Porsche Texas Coastal Club of America meet at Harris Hill race track in San Marcos, Tx. So I began packing everything up and preparing to leave, I told everyone good bye. As I told S.W. good bye he asked me if I wouldn’t mind snapping some photos of his Ford GT and I said sure. The photos ended up making S.W.’s wheel supplier H.R.E.’s car of the month.
I then headed back, tired and beat. On the way home I reflected on the day’s happenings, it was a tremendous experience. An experience that if I hadn’t have almost been arrested and thrown in jail by the cops on the way home would probably still be with me today! Alas that is another story for another time 
[Note: This article was written by myself, photo graphed by myself and videographed by myself. The process was very intensive and one which I throughly enjoyed. At one point I was shooting photos with one hand and taking video with the other! I highly recommend people try this approach sometime, it really helps you rethink the idea of needing a "crew". ]