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Saturday December 13,
2003 Hawaii Raceway Park opened its gates once again for the Pro Gas
South Pac championships. Usually, we don't pay much attention to
drag racing here in Hawaii, but this event was special in that Drift
Session driver, Kell Komatsubara, and his team from Sport Craft were
debuting their top alcohol rail dragster in competition.
By the time I arrived
at the track at 9pm, the infield was already littered with parked
cars. Didn't look like anyone was there to assist with the parking
as there were no distinguishable rows or parking patterns. I also
found out that the gate price was raised to $15 without
notification; this sudden change probably surprised more than a few
drag race fans.
The Sport Craft pit
area was located near the track bathrooms and consisted of two full
size race trailers, some tents, and lots of tables and chairs.
Neatly set in the middle of the display was the Sport Craft dragster
built by Kell Komatsubara and Tom Brown, Jr. Kell is crew chief for
the car and could be seen throughout the night running around,
fixing the car, tearing down and rebuilding again. At Kell's side
was Jack Burr from Pasadena, California, drag race tuning expert and
special advisor brought in to assist with the fuel system setup in
the dragster.
Shortly after 10pm,
the drag races were ready to begin, as drivers lined their vehicles
up for eliminations. Just after the junior dragsters were finished
running, a 7 second rail dragster made a pass and connected with the
Racing School side guardrail. As the car bounced off the guardrail,
the front went into the air, landing on the guardrail and causing
the car to barrel roll down the straightaway.
The crowd jumped to
their feet to examine the damage and await word from the emergency
team sent down to the vehicle. Luckily, the driver was quickly
pulled from his car and the crowd cheered as he waived and walked
away. His car though, wasn't so lucky. Races were held up for nearly
2 hours as the drag race staff frantically tried to clean up the
mess on the straightaway. The rail car had it's entire frame twisted
and could no longer roll, let alone run.
In addition to the
debris on the track, the rail car had also severed the drag race
timing wires lining the guardrails on the quarter mile straightaway.
Drag race workers quickly went to work trying to splice wires
together to get the timing lights working again. While the crowd sat
during the delay, the drag racers in the pits are staging laces were
getting restless waiting for their chance to race.
During the Sport
Craft dragster's first pass of the night, one of the sparkplugs went
bad, causing the dragster to fire only on 7 cylinders instead of its
normal supercharged 8. This caused the Sport Craft car to give up
its number one qualifying place in the Top Gun shootout. Only 4 cars
qualified for this year's Top Gun: Alvin Kubo with the New Eagle
Cafe funny car, Myles Togioka of Kauai in his A / Fuel Dragster, and
Mike Bell from Hilo in his funny car.
During the first
round of eliminations, the Sport Craft car was paired up against
Mike Bell's funny car. A tough opponent from Hilo that had
previously set the record for the quckest car in Hawaii with a high
5 second pass in Hilo. As both cars lined up, they let loose a
roaring burnout to the 1/8 mile mark to heat their tires. "The
Burnout King" Tom Brown Jr. choked the grandstands with smoke
before reversing slowly back to the starting line.
As the green light
dropped, the Sport Craft dragster roared down the track. Mike Bell
ran into traction problems at the start and decided to back off the
throttle rather than send his car into the rails. Tom Brown and the
Sport Craft dragster were victorious in the first round of
competition with their quickest pass of the night at 6.2 seconds at
211 mph.
No time was to be
wasted on celebration at the Sport Craft pit as the entire team went
into the process of methodically tearing down and rebuilding the
engine. Without words, the entire team knew their role as the car
was prepped for the next round of competition. 30 minutes later, the
entire engine was back together, ready for the finals against Myles
Togioka.
In the final round of
competition, the Sport Craft dragster lined up against Myles
Togioka's A / Fuel dragster from Kauai who beat out the New Eagle
Cafe funny car in the previous round. After a blazing head to head
race, it was the Sport Craft car, victorious after a 6.24 pass at
224 mph. The partnership of Kell Komatsubara and Tom Brown keep
their winning streak alive as they have never lost in the debut of a
new vehicle. Great work for Kell and Tom who are considered by many
to be newcomers in this level of competition.
Stay tuned as Kell
Komatsubara continues his work on his new drift project S2000
powered FC3S driven by himself and top junior dragster Chad
Lau.
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