Evo X Mitsubishi Performance With the turn of the global economy and the effects it had on the automobile industry, one must ask; who actually gets sponsored these days? In these hard times, its a meaningless question to pursue; however sponsorships are directly related to the exposure and good brand image of the company. The life of Jason Macgill's EVO builds actually started as a plain sponsorship from Tomei Powered, the engine specialists. This relationship was mainly fueled by Macgill's undying pursuit of maintaining the positive status of the company, and actually carried the burden of proper representation of a 40 year old brand image.  Over the years, Tomei Powered recognized that Macgill was no ordinary enthusiast, but one that devoted his valuable time for the success of the company. The Mitsubishi  EVO X was immediately acquired at the US release date, even before some hit the dealer lots. Then began the networking to various Japanese companies such as Voltex, Colt Speed, and even Ralliart since these companies were already producing aftermarket performance parts for this fresh chassis. Sure the car looks pretty with its body kit and carbon...

Bonneville Salt Flat Racing Vintage Studebakers #898 obviously isn't a coupe, but it's still Speedy. And most importantly, it's a Studebaker! This 1949 Studebaker farm truck out of Kansas took the second of the two records for this years Speed Week. And break a record did it ever! With Chevy power under the hood in it's AA/MP class, the old record was blown away by nearly 18 miles per hour! Norris Anderson definitely knows how to build one, as he powered this truck down the line at 219.331mph! And you know what that means, its a record-breaking run over 200mph... so Norris Anderson gets his well-deserved Bonneville 200mph Club admission. He'll be a happy man wearing that red hat. In fact... he was already wearing it, even as he did broom duty around the pits! It looks like Norris Anderson and his Broom Crew have a lot of fun out on the salt! It was in 2004 that Norris first found the old farm truck and began building it into a salt flats racer in 2004. Their motto? "Safe Trucks Travel Fast." Start here for All Speed Seeking...

Bonneville Salt Flats Race Car At the Bonneville Salt Flats, fast is fast, that's one thing that can't be disputed and it's what separates land speed racing from other automotive events... the lack of subjectivity! It's funny that there aren't really any awards at Bonneville Speed Week save for the "Hot Rod" trophy for the fastest race car of the week from any class. And did you know that there's no money? You have to buy your jacket if you get into the 200mph club!  These guys do it for the pure pursuit of speed and that's why this 200mph Flathead powered streamliner is one of the Baddest Race cars of the 2010 Bonneville Speed Week! I already told you about this streamliner in another story called: Arizona Model T Streamliner Destroys a Record! But that was 2009! Tom Brawner of Scottsdale, a MyRideisMe.com member, crew member (and driver now, right Tom??) and fellow hot rodder with a too cool 1956 Chevy told me about this streamliner called the "Matrix Machine". The record set last year started at under 100mph in 2004, then went to 160 last year and...

Bonneville Salt Flats Race Car What's the baddest race car at Bonneville Speed Week 2010? If you asked 100 people, you might get 90 different answers. (Where does he come up with that crap?) Who cares what you think, it's my website, so I'm posting what I think are the baddest rides on the salt. From there, lets discuss... this is an interactive magazine, not some glued together pile of pages sittin' in your bathroom! Interact and leave a comment below.   First up: The Fiat Simca of George Fields of Newark, TX Bonneville Speed Week Race Class: E/BFCC   That long enough for you? I found out from Tom Burkland (more about him later) tuner and friend to George that the competition coupe rules allow for some slight modifications to the stock body... the SCTA rulebook states: "Production coupe or sedan body unaltered in width or contour." But what they don't say is, from the cowl back.  From the cowl forward, anything goes! The car can be as long as you like as long as the engine only has a 50% setback. Contrast this modern day racer to...

Bonneville Salt Flats Racer at Speed Week 2010 Bonneville Salt Flats is full of cool car guy stories.  Here's another one for you.  This one is from Ford Y Block lover, Tim McMaster (Y Block Guy) who built a land speed racing motor for this Yellow Fridge Cab pickup owned by Charlie Burns.   This Y powered pickup runs in the E/PP class, which is E motor (184-260 cu in), Production Pickup, where the record is 126.073 MPH.  On Saturday when I took these pictures, Tim ran 113 MPH while making his "Rookie Run" since he's a new driver at Speed Week. Tim McMaster tells us about his Y Block love story: "Y-Blocks, you could say, have always been a part of my life from the time I can remember riding between my dad and uncle in the 292 powered F-600 hauling a load of oranges to the Blue Goose packing house in Strathmore, CA, I know that goes a ways back and I didn't even know what an engine was back then but that truck is still working on the ranch today and I have some other stories that involve that...

Bonneville Salt Flats Race Car Sometimes it's easy to pick a feature car. The reasons why I dig the 1964 Ford Fairlane were spelled out in the feature I did about the Ring Brothers 64 Fairlane. Beyond the family tie and the legend of the Thunderbolt, this Fairlane just looks BAD! I searched for this car at Speed Week last year, but never did find it. I wanted to get a t-shirt for pops too... For Speed Week 2010, I caught up with Brian and Celia Dean and their AA/CGC Fairlane known as "Thundersalt". The CGC stands for Classic Unblown Gas Coupe. (I guess the U is silent?) The AA in the class title for this thump'n Fairlane stands for greater than 500 cubic inches.  Thundersalt runs a 557 inch big block Ford.  (thank goodness it ain't a Chevy! It would have broken my pop's heart!) Based on a bored and stroked 429 Cobra Jet block, the CJ is then topped with Trick Flow A460 heads.  Brian estimates about 925 horsepower on racing gas flowing through the Holley 1650 Dominator carb. Brian explained, "We build shit to go fast!"...

James is a custom car guy, and has been for years. Before the Lincoln, he owned an ’86 Prelude, ’88 Toyota truck, and a ’95 Accord wagon. That wagon was beyond amazing, featuring lots of chrome, lots of painted accessories, and it was way beyond its time. After he sold the Accord, he laid back for a bit and focused on his job as a Honda Technician. Then he stumbled upon his dream ride, a 1966 Lincoln Continental. His parents had bought one brand new and sold it in the 1980’s for way less than it was worth, and ever since then he knew he had to have one. After he found the ’66 for $4k, he snatched it up and got to work. The car was in excellent running condition, so that really wasn’t a problem. The real issue was that he wanted to get it painted and done up in a fairly short amount of time. Enter Adam Hartley, a custom car builder and good friend of James. Adam’s built a few SEMA cars in his time, and has quite a few features and sponsors to show...

Custom Truck: Nissan Frontier Sometimes you’ve got to go against the grain. Take Clint McDowell, for example. If you saw the 20 year old on the streets of Phoenix, you’d wonder how one person could get so many piercings in their face, and how they were able to dig up a set of Max Headroom style glasses out of the 1985 parts bin. To say Clint is unique is an understatement in its highest form. Seriously on his tech sheet under “other interests” he put: “Hockey and Monkeys.” It’s probably  no surprise then to know that this bright pink Frontier used to be a Desert Runner. Yes, Nissan’s factory pre-runner truck was in Clint’s driveway just a few years ago, really high off the ground with a funky blue color. It was neat for a while, but seriously, Clint doesn’t go for what regular people do. He couldn’t leave the truck stock, that’d be too… normal. He wanted to reduce the daylight underneath the truck, and knew it wasn’t going to be an easy task. After searching far and wide, he came across Kevin Blysdale from Just Plain Trick...

If you've read MyRideisMe.com long, you know we don't do many stockers, but the unrestored and original 1960 Starliner from part 1 was special. Contrast that with the billet-wheeled'n candy painted sweetheart you see here. Or is it? I met Mel and Lynda Swafford at the NorCal Knockout in Vallejo, CA. From the pics you can see it was a cool show nestled in the trees of the Solano County Fairgrounds. As the first annual, it wasn't that big, but everyone who showed enjoyed a perfect California July day. (Look for Nick K and my pics soon...) Back to this "sweetheart" known to the Swafford's and their friends as, "Christine". Oh you remember! Stephen King's 1958 Plymouth Fury that didn't mind running folks off the road... It's not a nickname you give to a car that's been nice during a rebuild. (Are they ever nice?) It all started well. Mel's dad owned a white 1960 Starliner way-back-when and Mel, "Always loved it." It's often a special memory a car brings back that make it, "My Ride is Me." To get started, in about 2006, Mel traveled to Denver to...

When you're cruzin' the LA Roadster show, you never know what you'll find. Roadsters, yea, but like I've said before, the LA Roadsters brings out the best in all of SoCal. Here's one of the best you'll see anywhere from Rod Barrett of Rancho Dominguez, CA. This original and unrestored 1960 Galaxie Starliner has a little over 10,000 miles on the odo. This is part 1 of 2 Ford Starliners found this summer, but maybe there was a part ZERO?  KIRK! from Billetproof and now Goodguys Gazette fame has  (had, he sold it now) one of the finest 60 Starliners ever built. If you've never seen it, check it out in Kirk's garage here. So much has been written about Kirk's ride, I'm skipping to this bad black beauty. One thing 60 Starliner folks are happy to tell you is that they own the longest and widest Ford ever built. At 5.7 inches longer and five inches wider than the 1959 Ford, they're still shorties compared to the 1959-60 Caddy coming in at 213.7 inches compared to the Cad's 225. Looking around the web, I found numerous mentions of...

There are a lot of famous street rod builders out there. Guys like  Chip Foose get a lot of the press, but out of one quiet shop in the corner of Phoenix, Arizona, Rick Dore has been building some of the cleanest rides in the country. It’s not like his name is unheard of. Rick is in 6 hall of fames, has won tons of awards at the prestigious Oakland Rod & Custom show, and has even been on TV a few times. The man is huge in the hot rod world, having built dozens of immaculate vehicles over the years, even before he opened his shop. For the past 10 years he’s been building head-turning rods, customs and trucks. For 9 months out of the year, Rick and his crew of customizers are building customs for customers. High profile people such as rock stars, athletes and others come to him when they require that one-off look. And then, for a three-month span, the shop shuts down to regular customers and becomes a factory for SEMA cars and trucks. Rick does a lot of image work for major manufacturers...

Let's introduce John Trevino of Glendale, Arizona. John’s one of those guys who really goes 110% on everything he does, and this truck is no exception. Just a few years ago, this truck was romping through the desert without a care in the world. Oh that’s right, John originally built this truck as a prerunner, designed to go 50 through the desert without a care in the world. Then, one day, something happened. Maybe it was something in the water, or meeting some buddies who were into mini truckin’, but whatever it was, John was hooked. He now had a new mission, and it was now just a matter of doing. Under the hood, John focused a good amount of attention. The 4.8l V8 has a host of bolt on mods, like an AEM intake, JBA headers, MSD plug wires, and a Flowmaster exhaust. The tranny was completely gone through by Cottman Transmissions, and while they were there, they installed a high output torque converter, a shift kit, and Corvette servos for good measure. The rear end now houses a set of 4:10 gears too. Most people cut out...