Street Nationals Special

Welcome to a special racing edition of Horsepower TV. You know, it's been called the Biggest Streetcar Shootout on Earth.

And here it is the 10th annual World Street Nationals from Orlando.

And it all starts here Thursday night when the quickest street cars on the planet beat for a pre race. Get together at the race rock.

This year. Thousands of drag racing fans came out to check out the machines for this year's power park.

You know, all the, uh, the cars are trailer,

you know,

brought in by trucks and trailers

and they parked down at the Convention center and the police escort them down because a lot of them aren't street legal. And uh, so we bring down 1015 at a time, but like I said, at the end of the night, we fire them all up and they all leave at one time. They just close off the whole street from here to the Convention center.

We're not gonna hear any burnouts or anything like that, are we? Oh, no,

definitely Nitrous. We got

two pages of nitrous on it.

But

it,

but it's got Nitrous.

We'll take anybody on this

Pola right now.

This is the biggest race of the year period.

And for anybody that's in street car racing, it's the biggest race of the year.

And a lot of people like me build the car specifically to come to this race.

After the racers fill themselves with burgers and fries inside.

They head outside for a traditional parade of power down International Boulevard.

There's a lot of horsepower cutting down this pavement

and it's a cool race event. Ritual fans at all levels seem to love.

Let me,

let me pop the hood off. Let's take a peek

each year. You see many of the same racers and rides engine combinations though, change a lot

this time. Superchargers and Turbos are making power for more racers than ever.

For instance, Bob Rieger

has taken to the turbo trend in a big, big way.

He's got a pair of monster hair dryers to breathe into that 521 cube. Big block has quite a bit of power. It,

dyno to 2700 horsepower.

Uh un unfortunately, uh uh the bad part about that it doesn't have any horsepower down, low, low

RP

or uh we're struggling. We got the two Blues right now. We're trying to focus in on the Turbos to get it to work, throw end and uh hopefully we get that done. It ought to run pretty good.

What's your best expectations? We did? We have no expectations.

Nothing to compare it to, you

know, it's never been done before. And that's what's neat about this stuff

is, you know, we're out, we're out on the island all by ourselves. We just got

to figure it out.

You know, everybody's pretty relaxed. Everybody parties has good time and some of the cars ends up going real fast and somebody's going to take home 10,000 bucks.

Yeah. 10 grand is the top prize for top dog and Super Pro Street. The fastest of the four special classes.

And during Friday's pre race, tech

di tuning and testing,

it was anybody's guess who would earn a crown from either the Mickey Thompson 10.5 class,

the radio tire class,

a new one for this year. Heavy Street. In addition to Super Pro Street,

that's a glass dominated by Mark

d'antoni and his Nipa

Chevys for the past two events.

Uh, this car has been 656 at 215

last year in the shoebox. The best we went was 670 flat at 215.

So I think we got a little bit of an edge coming into this race than we did last year.

Uh, the year before we won it with a late model of Monte Carlo. So we got two years in a row here

and we're shooting for the third. Do

you want to win this as bad as any other race?

I want to win worse than ever.

Ok. That's what end of the competition spectrum you'll find here. This Nova in radio class is yet another

people laugh generally. And then, uh, then they look around the car and realize it's, it's pretty serious.

It's, uh,

uh, my kids always run into my good cars at home,

so I figured I'd just build one that they can just run into and it doesn't really matter what kind of comments do you get about this face game. Seriously.

Um,

anything from, that's the coolest car I've ever seen. So there must be something wrong with you. Yeah, your head needs to be examined. It's time to bring some fun back into racing. Right? Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Is.

It would be a lot more fun if you didn't call me, sir. I tell you, it makes you feel old. Sorry about that. That's a bad habit, I guess first time to sign a car.

Well, if this is your first time for the world street nationals, get comfortable and get ready to light them up,

there's a whole wild day of qualifying ahead right after the break.

Welcome back to the show and to the ultimate street car shoot out. Well, just imagine you've come a long way from home and now you're one of 281 cars competing for 32 spots and four classes.

No wonder a qualifying day is a hot one here at the World Street National

people come here

just to be here.

This is the most prestige race of the year

in probably all of drag racing.

Just continue to say it's absolutely the biggest street car shoot out on the planet. And

uh uh maybe because we keep saying that people keep coming.

They sure do early on qualifying day. Fans were lined up way down to the highway just waiting to get in.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Orlando Speed World, the home opener ready to start here at the World Street Nationals

in the almost anything goes super pro street class. Tom Shepherd's

hemi powered 62 wagon was the proud favorite

Ron

Hs in his 63 bet made the first six second qualifying pass of the day.

But it was this supercharged 2000 Trans

Am that went 671 at 208 qualifying first after round one,

Kevin mccurdy gives credit to his blower and torque converter on this hot slippery track.

90% of the cars out here have a clutch in and if you're not very, very good at what you're doing,

you won't get that crazy

track with a clutch. Uh,

torque converter is a lot more forgiving,

but they're gonna step it up tonight and I know the whole field is gonna step up. So, you know, if we can go back to the number one spot, that'll be fine. If not, we'll just finish the race wherever we end up.

Now, qualifying in the second hottest class Mickey team is 10.5

where the Hunt VC track made a lot of smoke and no hook with this Camaro. A

1957

called Old Yeller proved to be quite a jumping dog off the line.

Then street car legend, Billy Clinton could manage only a 760, best effort for 13th place in his 90 LX.

But Elias De La Torre and his old one, Mustang made it home with a 738 at 191 miles an hour to lead the pack. After round one,

the track was a little weird. We, we had about 100 and 20 cars in our class. We were about 100 and 17th to run.

Uh,

and all the big names are here. It, it, it's a little tough to judge.

They weren't really getting down. Uh, the speeds weren't there.

Um,

I just tried to catch a little bit. I, the track felt good. We short shifted a little bit just to make sure we can get it down the track. All I wanted to go was from A to B,

the new heavy street class was added to fill a void among hunt riders who need a place to race their special breed of muscle machines.

A lot of fellow years ago, bought earlier cars that were much heavier,

decided not to cut them up, not put two chassis in them.

They have no place to race

now. They're 3500 pounds and they can run any size tires. So we're getting great excitement on the ground.

The radio guys are absolutely wild.

You are taking a drag radio tire that you can put on your family's van

and a guy builds 1000 horsepower motor.

Yeah. And here's what can happen when you overpower those little radios, you wind up, rolling them off the track. The hard way

when the sun goes down here at the world street nationals count on two things. The track gets cooler so the ETS are lower

and the competition for number one qualifier is hotter than you've ever seen

in the final qualifying round of Super Pro Street Bob Rigger finally found some traction with an eight place 880

Von

but briefly grabbed the lead with the 669 at 212.

Then mccarty tried to get back in the saddle but held to third place here going 680.

Then it was Jeff Miller, his Viper powered by a 541.

Hemi going 665 to grab the top spot.

Setting up a Super Sunday of finals here at the World Street National

want the latest on horsepower. Check out our website at Horsepower tv.com.

There's a glory button. I've always said to the guy who can put down

the main man in the program, man that head on the mantle is beautiful.

Welcome back to speed world and to Sunday's eliminations here at the World Street Nationals

a place where for 10 years, the kingpins of street car racing have come for a year end, shoot out of shootouts.

A power party full of high times

and amazingly low ETS

where the Florida Sun beats down on the fans and the track making for some wild and, I mean, wild runs for the money

and yes, sometimes the guard rail,

you know, it's a funny situation because there's no points involved,

but they're trying to win this event. It's a big event and they want to win. I mean, it's just a typical deal. Racers want to win.

There's guys that build their cars all year just to run this race

is not racing this year, but most of the heavy hitters of Super Pro Street are and today's finals, the man to beat may be the new number one qualifier, Jeff Miller in his

hemi powered supercharged Piper.

As you'll recall, the speedy snake struck with a 665 et Saturday night to grab the coveted top spot after a fairly slow afternoon.

I can't blame it all on track conditions and sun yesterday, we didn't have her act together on some other things.

Just made a few changes and track tightened up a little bit and life was good. It went for me to be really fast. You know, I really like the motor.

I can lean on it. I can do whatever I want. It's very forgiving. Uh,

my other motors in the past, I lean on them. They didn't like it.

We're gonna go into the first round and we're not gonna be real aggressive.

Am I correct there? We're not gonna be real aggressive.

He's the man calling the shots. He knows what's going on with these cars.

I'm just gonna do my job the best I can.

I think it'll go A to b if it rattles the tires at all. We've got a guy that's not real, real fast this morning. Hopefully I can pedal it

and run him down.

Everything being good, you know, luck, luck. A lot of it for us.

This is the 706 cubic inch motor with two nitrous stages. It's Steve Kirk's Camaro

veteran, Steve knows about the pressures of eliminations here.

What do you think it's gonna take to win this thing?

I'll tell you where we went last night to win in the finals.

These guys are tough.

Oh, man, they really know where it's for it. I mean, you got 100 and 28 cars in this class this year, which is the biggest field ever in it.

And uh to be number one, man, ain't no words for it.

Miller gets a warm up with a solo pass in the first round of eliminations

while mccurdy loses round one to Todd Schefer.

Meanwhile, don't forget the defending Super Pro Street champ Mark

d'antoni in this first round. It's Nitrous versus Turbo

and d'antoni sprays his way to a win over John G's

Mustang.

Then after Mike Bowman puts the traction trouble Miller away.

Mark sends Bowman to the trailer setting up a finals meeting with Ronnie

in our other spotlighted class Vicky Thompson 10.5. It's Brian Herzog against Steve Kirk

after a great weekend, Kirk's luck runs out spinning the tires on the hot slick track

handing Herzog the win

this 749 run by De La

Torre keeps him in the running

up to the semifinals. That is when he red lights against Tony Bis.

Then there was the intrepid legend himself, Billy Clinton in the far lane

winning in his nitrous augmented pony

and winning again to reach the finals in the 10 5 class.

We'll have the final showdown of all four classes of the Wall Street Nationals. We come back.

Oh,

welcome back to the track. Well, we're down to the survivors of street car racing. That's right. It's finals time here at the World Street Nationals

first. The radio tire class where it's a battle of fox body mustang and Wayne Gutridge breaks as Chris Little goes 872 for the wind light.

I wasn't even gonna come. I thought it was gonna rain. I traveled 1000 miles to come here

and it paid off when we started out qualified third. Um,

we just kept getting closer to the tune of every pass and the last pass we just went for it and stayed together and

got a very good pass. The best pass we ever made

in heavy street It's John Schroeder and his 89 Camaro pitted against Sean Carpenter in a 1971 Nova

and Schroeder who also got top speed honors wins as Carpenter. Red lights.

Oh, it was, it was a tough weekend. It was a lot of fast cars and stuff and uh,

you know, I wanna thank all my crew, you know, that got me here, especially my friend Scott Gu

dyno and stuff and uh, Tony and PD and without all the help, I couldn't have done it without all these guys. You know,

next, it's the 10, 5 tire guys and Billy Clinton who was born in this sport is up against Tony Bichu.

And as he's done so many times when the chips are down, Clinton grabs the win and modestly takes the trophy.

When I first ran into you this weekend, you said you were really out of your league. We are,

you know, the,

the attrition of,

you know,

many, many runs and, and in the beginning rounds of the track was real bad.

So it kind of threw everybody off, you know, lucky for us. We just,

uh, this is a 28 race this year for this car.

So, you know, we've got a lot of time with the car and, uh,

you know, we changed to a bigger tire and it just really made a lot of difference.

Now, in the finale Super Pro streak, Can Ronnie Gardner and his 63 bet upset the two time champion. Well, it's a great race but Mark d'antoni is not to be denied, as they say, winning by 4, 10,

a

third consecutive championship for the young Staten Island icon of street car racing.

This race is real special to us because we dedicated this season to a good friend, Steve Rebeck who died earlier in the year in a bad car crash. So

Steve this one was for you and we worked real hard just for you.

And so a bidding finish for a great weekend.

A tradition in American Real World car race.

A true horse power habiting in Orlando

horsepower TV S hot parts is brought to you by Jags. One call gets it all. One click, gets it quick.

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Well, I hope you enjoyed today's trip to the World Street Nationals. I know I did next week, Chuck and I are back in the shop to show you how to handle a performance tune up on your engine. For what else? More horse power? See you then.