Adam Sorokin has taken the Champion Speed Shop Van Dyke Motorsports hemi-powered dragster to victory at the 2010 Bakersfield March Meet with a 5.76-second at 241 MPH run. Sorokin charged on Howard Haight’s 5.93-second 246 MPH challenge, and tripped the win light for the first ever March Meet win for the South San Francisco crew. Co-crew Chief Bob McLennan was wearing a smile in the staging lanes, as the team waited to roll the car into the Winner’s Circle at Famoso Raceway.
“We haven’t been in the Winner’s Circle for so long, our Champagne has aged”, said McLennan jokingly of the win.
The triumph has been a long time coming for the team, who brought the all-new hemi-powered dragster to the March Meet with but a single test run completed only one week before the race. Once at the March Meet the car went quicker and faster with each pass.
Winning the March Meet is the realization of a dream for driver Adam Sorokin, who said he has always wanted to follow on the legendary lines of his own father Mike Sorokin, who took the 1966 March Meet win in The Surfers hemi-powered AA/Fuel dragster.
“It is almost too big of a dream to actually realize”, said Sorokin fresh from the winning charge that brought his longtime dream into reality.
Back when race cars and association with motor sport worked to sell motor oil and go-fast parts, advertising success hinged on successful creative. Getting the right shot meant doing whatever it takes. In this case a cowboy photo shoot on the streets of San Francisco had Jim McLennan holding onto the brake of an injected version of the Special on a famously steep San Francisco hill. Jim had called upon Gene Icardi just hours before the photo shoot to motor over in his Shelby Mustang. That’s Gene himself blocking traffic between the Champion Special and the cable car. The photographer got the job done almost as quick as the crew appeared for the shoot. Jim and Bob McLennan loaded the dragster back onto the trailer. Gene dumped the clutch and mashed the throttle in his 4-speed pony car and made like Steve McQueen. The cable car clanged its way over the top of the hill. The photographer packed up his gear and took the film off to the lab to produce the shot. The resulting Castrol print advertisement is seen here, even though there might have been a little Valvoline in the crankcase of the small block Chevy. [Click on the smaller image for a larger view, click again to close the image.]
The Champion Speed Shop is fine-tuning the Chevrolet-powered Special in preparation to motor far further south than South San Francisco for the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green Kentucky, June 19-21. Putting together an all-new race car and getting the fresh clutch and tire combination to mesh with almost three thousand horsepower can be a little tricky – especially when races last a mere 5.96 seconds each. Even with two test sessions and two races in the past, the Special has had less than five minutes of actual on-track measured run time. Bowling Green, Kentucky will be the next stop on the road towards quicker and faster quarter mile assaults. The entire crew is geared up for the drag race, and will once again bring a Chevrolet and nitromethane to the lush grounds of Beech Bend Raceway Park.
“It’s like going to Churchill Downs to drag race. Bowling Green is truly beautiful, and unlike any other drag strip. It’s one of my favorite races of the year”, said driver Adam Sorokin.
The long haul to the Bakersfield started before sunrise on Friday at the Champion Speed Shop world headquarters in South San Francisco. The Special and trailer were already under way. The Champion Speed Shop 1934 Ford pickup’s blown small block Chevrolet was idling ready. Crew members motored towards Famoso Raceway from all points on the California map. A little over a month after the return of the small block Chevy on nitromethane to the March Meet, the Destination was once again the same. Bakersfield, California. This time it was Dragfest. (more…)
With the recollection of memories and good times of the Half Moon Bay Dragstrip 50th Reunion just a few days in the past, the Champion Speed Shop is loading up the gear, the nitromethane, and the gang to motor down to the Rod and Kulture Dragfest for some drag racing action at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield. The Champion Speed Shop Special will join top fuel forces with eight nitro-huffing diggers, altereds, and even some funny looking cars for three action-packed days of quarter mile mayhem. Live music, a cacklefest, and a drive-in movie with drag racing features on Saturday night are part of the scheduled events.
The Champion Speed Shop in association with Miramar Events is proud to announce a return to the Pebble Beach of Drag Racing. The Pacific Coast Dream Machines show will host the 50th Reunion of the Half Moon Bay Drag Strip on April 26th, 2009. Bob McLennan along with Andy “Rodfather” Brizio, son Roy Brizio, and the entire Champion Speed Shop team would like to extend a welcome to anyone who ever worked, raced, or simply enjoyed the spectacle of drag racing by-the-sea. The latest Champion Speed Shop top fuel streamliner will be on display, along with a replica of the Kent Fuller built dragster that belonged to Champion Speed Shop founder Jim McLennan. There will also be plenty of memorabilia and memories at the very place where a bread van loaded with speakers, timing equipment, fences, and a generator made its way down from Champion Speed Shop South San Francisco headquarters and transformed the Half Moon Bay Airport into a drag strip where records were broken. photo from the Sammy Hale collection
The Pacific Coast Dream Machines Show is a celebration of velocity and innovation featuring everything from the Nebulous Theorem land speed record cars to the World’s Largest Airship Zeppelin. Read more for the full press release on the Pacific Coast Dream Machines and the Half Moon Bay Reunion. For show information go to Pacific Coast Dream Machines
Delivering a race car from a concept to 240 plus miles per hour of genuine velocity involves a herculean team effort. In the case of the Champion Speed Shop Streamliner, the concept evolved from an initial design suggestion to the latest incarnation of the small block Chevy on nitromethane dragster. The four plus year development timeline began with a common vision of retro liners like the Glass Slipper. Bob McLennan called on Jeff Teaford, who took the vision into a series of drawings and models that eventually led the development and construction of the finished race car. Read on for more about Jeff and some original drawings. (more…)
Half Moon Bay, The Pebble Beach of Drag Racing, welcomes you to the greatest drag racing spectacle ever held in Northern California. – Jim McLennan and Don Smith. Half Moon Bay Program March 1962
A great deal of San Francisco bay area drag racing action played out by-the-sea at the Half Moon Bay Drag Strip. Shown here is Swinging Sammy Hale in the Champion Speed Shop special getting out against against Lee Pendleton’s Allison V-12 powered monster machine at Half Moon Bay. The inverted wings on Pendleton’s car were an early Jocko Johnson effort at rear wheel downforce, and a reminder of how aeronautics and aerospace knowledge played into drag racing and motorsports innovation throughout the sixties.
The Champion Speed Shop has been a name synonymous with velocity and innovation for over 50 years. Founder Jim McLennan built his first dragster in 1953. By 1957 the Champion Speed Shop legend was born. It has been a little over two years since the “Smiling Irishman” motored onto the great dragstrip. The Champion Speed Shop lives on in celebration of his pioneering spirit. This video was produced in honor of Jim’s induction into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame. For more information on the IDRHF head on over to the Big Daddy Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing.
The Champion Speed Shop Special is set to run the March Meet at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield, California. The 51st running of the premiere nostalgia drag racing event will mark the official end of a six year hiatus of the legendary nitromethane powered Chevrolet dragster from the nostalgia AA/FD drag racing ranks.
The latest incarnation of the Champion Speed Shop Special continues the tradition of lightweight small block Chevrolet powered dragsters set in motion by Jim McLennan in 1953, and carried on by son Bobby McLennan into the modern era. The Champion Speed Shop Special will be driven by Adam Sorokin, whose own father Mike Sorokin drove The Surfers front engine top fuel dragster in the sixties.
While the small block Chevy is itself an anachronism in the hemi fueled AA/FD field, the Champion Speed Shop Special furthers the innovative evolution of the front engine top fuel dragster with a streamlined carbon fiber canopy that envelops the cockpit.
“The genesis of the car started long ago with cars like the Glass Slipper and other streamliners. If the engine had stayed out front, this is where the class may have gone”, said Bobby McLennan.
Adam Sorokin has taken the Champion Speed Shop Van Dyke Motorsports hemi-powered dragster to victory at the 2010 Bakersfield March Meet with a 5.76-second at 241 MPH run. Sorokin charged on Howard Haight’s 5.93-second 246 MPH challenge, and tripped the win light for the first ever March Meet win for the South San Francisco crew. Co-crew Chief Bob McLennan was wearing a smile in the staging lanes, as the team waited to roll the car into the Winner’s Circle at Famoso Raceway.
The Champion Speed Shop is fine-tuning the Chevrolet-powered Special in preparation to motor far further south than South San Francisco for the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green Kentucky, June 19-21. Putting together an all-new race car and getting the fresh clutch and tire combination to mesh with almost three thousand horsepower can be a little tricky – especially when races last a mere 5.96 seconds each. Even with two test sessions and two races in the past, the Special has had less than five minutes of actual on-track measured run time. Bowling Green, Kentucky will be the next stop on the road towards quicker and faster quarter mile assaults. The entire crew is geared up for the drag race, and will once again bring a Chevrolet and nitromethane to the lush grounds of Beech Bend Raceway Park.
With the recollection of memories and good times of the Half Moon Bay Dragstrip 50th Reunion just a few days in the past, the Champion Speed Shop is loading up the gear, the nitromethane, and the gang to motor down to the Rod and Kulture Dragfest for some drag racing action at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield. The Champion Speed Shop Special will join top fuel forces with eight nitro-huffing diggers, altereds, and even some funny looking cars for three action-packed days of quarter mile mayhem. Live music, a cacklefest, and a drive-in movie with drag racing features on Saturday night are part of the scheduled events.
