One Lap Camaro Takes First!

James and David hit the proverbial road on the 2010 Tire Rack One Lap of America, and pushed 3528 miles in eight days, competing in road course (long and short variations), 1/4 mile and skidpad events. The entire event pushes man and machine, and the guys placed first in Vintage American! An outstanding achievement and well-deserving of praise indeed!

We in the Studio were stoked to be a part of it all, and were sponsors alongside the big dogs like OPTIMA Batteries, Hellwig Products, ISIS Power, Camaro Performers Magazine, Currie Enterprises, Heighton Restorations, Speed Tech Products, Spectre Performance, FM3 Performance Marketing, Pozzi Racing, and Mothers Wax’s and Polishes… Hell, we even rode along (logo-wise on the spoiler, anyway! As the wife said, it gives us some street cred, making us kinda like the “Carlton Banks of street cred… known for doing something well, but still funny to watch dance.”)…

…making this our near-official domination, appearing on and off-road, in the air, and on the sea. All we need now is to sponsor a submarine, a train and some form of spacecraft, and we’re golden (we’ll settle for a hoagie wrapper, a scale model of the Enterprise and a few laps around a Christmas tree on a Lionel. Not picky, you know…).

Our sincerest congratulations and a hefty swelling of pride for the team, and best wishes on the next conquest! HUGE thanks, too, to all who grabbed a t-shirt and helped to support grass-roots racing at it’s finest.

No doubt that this win puts a little something extra in the meaning of the shirts, and I can’t begin to tell you how cool it was to have the opportunity to play a part!
(if you haven’t grabbed one yet, hit the boys up HERE, and grab a few!)

One Lap T-Shirts!

How cool is this:

I get a call from James one afternoon, and he starts to tell me the story of his Camaro, and how he runs the One Lap of America event... and I immediately think "I know the car.... and this guy's nuts to do it!"

Long story short (I know... since when does Brian do THAT??! ...it's VERY busy in the mighty Studio, and I gotta get back at it), we talked for a while, and he asked if I'd be so kind as to whip up a t-shirt to help them promote their effort, and hopefully buy a few tanks of gas, as well as some road food for he and David, his co-pilot. Suffice to say, I was sketching before we hung up.

Anyway, that's what I came up with, and we think it hammers home the whole idea quite neatly... Here's a closer look at the artwork:

The front features the One Lap Camaro logo (as seen on the back in the artwork above) on the left chest... kinda like this:

They're VERY cool, and the reception so far has been nothing short of awesome. These are high-=quality, 6-oz. tee's, and are printed by one of the best-known, highest quality shops on the West Coast... And you can grab a few by simply firing off an email to the guys at: shirts@onelapcamaro.com, and letting them know how many you'd like, and in what sizes... The cost will be $20 for the shirt and $5 for shipping and handling (within the Continental US). Pre-orders will start today and they hope to have shirts available at the Run To The Coast event the first weekend in April (Goodguys Del Mar the weekend after at the latest).

All of the proceeds will go to feeding David and James for the week; your purchase will guarantee that they can enjoy as many as 2 meals a day at some of the finest establishments ever to grace the side of an interstate.

Thanks for checking 'em out, and for supporting some true grass-roots racing gone good!

...and hey.... if I can be of use to design YOUR next killer shirt, hit me up on the site at www.problemchildkustoms.com!

Quick Update

Project "Sick Seconds" is getting closer to moving under its own power. The team at SunCoast Racecars has been busy putting their final touches on the car, and once out of the body shop there, the first gen-bodied missile heads on home to ProRides for the next build phase. Be on the lookout for engine build pics, as the heart of the beast is slated to be completed in about 45 days. We'll keep you posted, and you can see the earlier mill work, if you happened to miss it the first time out HERE. This is promising to be a fun build with some SERIOUS results!



In the meantime, we're all stoked and looking forward to the car's debut in the GearVendors booth at the SEMA Show (look for precise date and time info soon, as well). Currently, though, the car is available for PRI, and anyone interested in displaying the Camaro in their booth can give us a shout, and we'll make sure you get connected to do so!

Stay tuned for more, and thanks, as always for looking in!

Remake VS re-work...

...is often a touchy subject.

Consider re-makes of movies, for instance. You run he risk of there being a complete division of fans... some loving the new and improved version, and others hating it, claiming its inferiority to the original. Rare cases like Dawn of the Dead (the original is a big favorite of mine, and played a BIG role in my youth...more on that sometime...) have had remakes that are excellent, much like Ocean's 11, as well. ...and then you have crap like the Omen.

Occasionally, someone re-works a story, and it's gets me all psyched up... such is the case with Todd McFarlane and Josh Olson teaming up on their feature film, Twisted Land of Oz (of course, you know there'll be LOTS more on this in the near future!! Anything from the house of Spawn is relished in this studio!). Taking what is quite possibly the most widely-known and cherished film of all time, and re-working it with a twisted vision is a great idea, and takes some original and wickedly creative characters even further:

After all, which one looks like a more intense time in the theater to you?

It's not a far throw, then, to talk about re-makes of classsic custom cars or hot rods... I'm all for re-makes of cars like the Hirohata Merc, and even a lost car.. say, for instance a lost Roth car that gets re-made in pure tribute. How cool is that to share history with people who may have never seen it otherwise?

Re-working something take a special brand of creativity, not to mention an ability to walk the line between showing reverence and profaning the memory of the original. Taking a historical custom and re-working it has been done before, and occasionally with good results. It gets me thinking, though... what if I could re-work a classic like the Aztec, or the Jade Idol what would I do? There would be HUGE challenge in each, and improving on either would be an incredible challenge, not to mention running the risk of being chased from town Frankenstein-style if I got it wrong. There have been well-known rides (like the Golden Sahara, with it's re-done multi-finned persona altered from its original incarnation by Jim Skonzakis -- aka "Jim Street") mildly re-worked and accepted by fans of the first incarnation, certainly. But look back on others that were re-worked and over-done to the point of becoming monstrosities, like most show cars did in the early-to-mid 1960's, and it's easy to see where taste can be overcome by the need to "do more" and score more judging points. The risk of toppling over the line from "cool car" to Corvette Summer garishness is but a few gallons of Bondo and some madness away from one another, it seems.

With the new Camaro and Challenger hittingg showrooms, you can't help but wonder what the public will make of these cars. Both are, in essence, re-makes... The latest Mustang has done well to capitalize on the historical reverence of the model, going so far as to offer classic Shelby, King of the Road, and even Drag Pack options in the Motorsport catalog. Should there be a race-only, lightweight Hemi Challenger available? COPO Camaro's being fitted wih race parts in dealerships? Why not? (Imagine a Hemi Dart built on the new LY platform?! Wowza.) It all boils down to doing something well, and taking creative license down the right road... and avoiding the flying monkeys, of course. Goes without saying, I suppose...

A (40-lb!) chip off the NEW block...

Like a Hollywood starlet, the mighty Camaro is mill dieting... think of it as a "crash diet", but on a CNC machine. The goal is 2700-lbs (about 70-lbs less than someone whose name rhymes with "Dozy O'Ronnell"), and by golly, we're not leaving anything to chance.



Project "Sick Seconds" is racing toward its debut at the SEMA Show (see it live in the Gear Vendors booth!), and a big part of the assembly process has been removing things... namely any pesky poundage. As a testimony to the serious approach being taken in this respect, imagine looking at the engine block and thinking "yeah, we can lose a few pounds there, too", and then milling 40 lbs. from the brand new piece? That's just what the gang at LSM Systems Engineering did, chiseling with fine precision at the outside of the block, working toward the valley tray:



As KMP Performance and Machine (the engine builder) said, "It's almost too nice to use!", and I think you'll agree with the photos here!

You can read more in the June 2009 Popular Hot Rodding Magazine, and be on the lookout for this monster on the show floor, the track... and even the street! The Camaro will be running 1,200 miles between tracks as part of Drag Week, so you'll have plenty of time to check it out in full race set-up, as well as street guise, wearing a set of absolutely killer Bilet Specialties wheels (16x16-inch beadlocks on the strip, and massive 20-inch rollers for street use) on Mickey Thompson rubber! More updates coming soon over on Studio PCK...