Autoclub Famoso Raceway, 3-19-2011–After two sessions of qualifying for the 53rd March Meet, the Van Dykes Motorsports/Champion Speed Shop fuelers are provisionally qualified 11th and 12th for Sunday’s 16-car eliminator, with Adam Sorokin posting an elapsed time of 6.22 seconds at a top end speed of 219 mph in his Chrysler-powered machine and Larry Gotelli residing a notch behind at 6.41, after clicking it off early in his Chevy-powered streamliner.

On the down side, during Friday’s qualifier, the Chrysler mill is completely deconstructed. The catalyst? A rod through the block.

“The first hit was real soft on the clutch, as we are trying get a baseline on (Famoso’s) new track surface,” Adam explained. “So it left soft, and never really pulled—never really got up on the tire… I kinda plugged it on through, and when I shut it off, it kicked a rod again.”

The Champion pit after first round of qualifying

He’s only had one swing of the shovel, but Sorokin said it’s been a long day in the proverbial salt mines. “The salt mines would be a step up,” he said. “This has been more like a bad day in the blood diamond mines in the heat of the day….”

On a more positive note, after a long hiatus, Larry Gotelli Jr. is playing catch-up with driving a AA/Fueler, but, according to Sorokin, is making impressive strides.

“After six years out of the saddle, Larry’s coming up to speed pretty quickly,” Adam noted. “You have to realize the small-block Chevy has a different sound and a different power band. And then you take a driver used to fresh air and stuff him into a canopy… well, SFI hasn’t made a snorkel long enough for what he’s used to.”

Qualifying resumes Saturday at noon, PST, with the first round of eliminations this evening. All the action can be streamed on bangshift.com

Larry Gotelli and Adam Soroking discuss driving a streamliner

March 8, 2011, South City, CA–Step aside Hollywood: In what is arguably the most anticipated interview since Charlie Sheen explained the new definition of the word “winning,” tonight on the Speed Scene Live podcast defending March Meet Top Fuel champ Adam Sorokin will grab the microphone and explain the word’s more traditional meaning, while also discussing his chances at “re-winning” this year’s upcoming March Meet in the Van Dyke Motorsports/Champion Speed Shop dragster.

Besides revealing whether or not the Champion team runs on the same “tiger blood” that Sheen has credited with his success, this will be an opportunity for Sorokin to publicly reflect on last year’s conquest, a feat that had a special, familial resonance for him as his father, the late Mike Sorokin, claimed the same event title in 1966, an event that some historians claim was the most epic Top Fuel drag race ever.

Held annually at Bakersfield’s AutoClub Famoso Raceway, the March Meet is the first event for Top Fuel in the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series 2011 season, and has the entire Champion team wringing their hands in anticipation, as last year’s triumph propelled them towards eventually claiming the NHRA Heritage Series 2010 season title.

Tonight’s show runs live at 6 pm PST and can be accessed at www.SpeedSceneRacing.com

Listeners with any questions for Sorokin can call in to the talk show at 1-800-809-0802.

Van Dyke/Champion shoe Adam Sorokin gauges the pressure at Pomona

November 16, 2010, Champion Speed Shop HQ, South San Francisco, CA—The 2010 AA/Fuel Dragster wars culminated in a fiery bang Sunday at Pomona’s NHRA Finals, as the postponed, deciding round of October’s California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield—rescheduled for Pomona last weekend because of inclement weather last month—saw a see-sawing donnybrook of a drag race between Adam Sorokin at the helm of the Van Dyke Motorsports/Champion Speed Shop Top Fuel Dragster and Brett Harris’ Utah-based Nitro Thunder machine, with Harris claiming the belated CHRR Event Title against a burst-panel bursting Sorokin.

For the Van Dyke entry, the loss was disappointing yet somewhat immaterial, as the rescheduled match served as a punctuation mark to the Champion team being crowned 2010 NHRA Heritage Series Top Fuel Champions last month, by virtue of their eliminating Jim “Holy Smokes” Murphy and his WW2 dragster during CHRR’s semi-finals in Bakersfield.

In that heat, Sorokin posted a stunning 1/4-mile elapsed time of 5.63 seconds, with a fearsome terminal speed of 252 mph. Champion’s nitromaniacal braintrust of Tony Bernardini and Bob McLennan decided to keep that tune-up intact for Pomona’s postponed-Reunion final round—albeit, perhaps to their own peril…

Sorokin in a pre-race nitro bath (photo by Cole Coonce)

Moments before the season’s final customary warm-up and leak test, when asked about the specifics of the Bakersfield-cum-Pomona tune-up, McLennan replied: “98 percent”—a nitro/alcohol mixture good for then-current  atmospheric conditions of 3000′ altitude and Pomona’s superlatively-prepped race track. After the warm-up the sun set however, and temperatures cooled while the adjusted elevation dropped to 2500′.  The improved air—and increased oxygen—was tantamount to more nitromethane in the tank, all of which added up to an explosive situation—and a shorter fuse.

At the hit, Adam cut a quick-as-cat’s-feet .016 reaction time and had a wheel out on the Nitro Thunder machine. Sorokin’s stellar starting light was inspired by the ambiance and intensity of the NHRA’s season-closing race:  “The opportunity to run in front of that many people, on that caliber of race track was a very savory prospect,” he noted. “After the burnout and moving my car forward in preparation of the run, was the first time I became aware of just how many people were watching. It was a very cool sight.

“The car felt strong going down the track,” he explained. “I had strong, high header flames all the way until a rocker arm broke at around 1000′, followed by a burst-panel explosion.”

The engine damage slowed the hard-charging steed, enabling Harris to blast by Sorokin and take the event win.

“They won it with a 5.74 to our 5.88,” Sorokin concluded. “But I could not be more proud to be a part of the team—we made a valiant effort. The ride back up the return road blew me away. I could not believe the great reception we received from all the fans! It made the whole journey worthwhile.”

Perhaps the fans’ accolades were in recognition of the notion that—as the drag-racing punditocracy has already noted—Champion and Van Dyke Motorsports may have lost Pomona’s battle, but they had already won the war. They are the 2010  NHRA Heritage Series Top Fuel Champions.–Cole Coonce-

“To have the car run that hard in the round that decided the championship was pretty cool. The thing was a rocket ship, and pulled all the way to the lights”, said Sorokin

With the points win in the bag the team was ready to reload and come back out for the final event battle. The weather had other ideas. A raindrop decision on Sunday postponed the racing action until Monday. The new day brought more rain, and the event was called once more. The remaining top fuel racers decided to pick things up again in Pomona, California at the 2010 NHRA World Finals on November 11-14th. Adam Sorokin will go up against Brett Harris in a race to decide the winner of the rained-out California Hot Rod Reunion. The team is back in South San Francisco preparing the launch vehicle for the final round, less than a month away in Southern California.

Photo Sean Work of the Bakersfield Californian. Click here for tickets and information on the upcoming 2010 NHRA World Finals

“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.

“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.

For more information on the 2009 Holley NHRA Hot Rod Reunion head on over to the NHRA Motorsports Wally Parks Museum. Note: That’s Jim McLennan wearing a suit and tie in the cockpit of the circa-1966 Champion Speed Shop Special in a photo shoot on the streets of San Francisco.

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.

Friday started out early and ended just as fast. Less than an hour after the car was out of the trailer and fired up to seat in the clutch discs, skies darkened and a wind pushed ahead of something that doesn’t happen all that often out at the Famoso. Rain. And lots of it. Buckets of rain stopped the race for the day. The car and all the equipment were pushed back into the trailer without even one run. This rain would pass, and Saturday brought a blue sky and nitromethane back out to the lanes.

Saturday Chicago Style

After nipping at the fives with 6.01-second 234 MPH first round qualifying blast, the Champion Speed Shop Special was back and ready for the late afternoon Chicago-style eliminations round at the Rod and Kulture Dragfest. The team was ready to rock when a jammed reverser felled Brad Thompson after both cars heated up the tires with a burnout. Adam Sorokin was able to back up and was in the beams when the order came to shut it down. With not enough fuel in the tank to complete another burnout and run, the team was sidelined until after fuel altereds and funny cars.

Just seconds later a medical emergency in the stands had the only ambulance leaving the grounds, and resulted in two blinking reds flashing on the tree. The entire show was postponed until another ambulance could make it back out to Famoso. Champion Speed Shop veteran Tom Homer joked that he could call the Auto Club to bring some nitro combusted during the burnout and backup. The 400 cubic inch small block huffs thirteen gallons of the good stuff on a stout pass, and can evaporate five gallons on the burnout alone.

The crew was dispatched to the pits to pick up a few gallons of the good stuff. With the tank topped off, engine cooled down, and any extra nitromethane backed out of the cylinders, the starter kicked over the small block Chevy to life. The Champion team worked with the clockwork precision required to get a 2500 horsepower race car consistently down the quarter mile. With the staging bulbs lit, driver Adam Sorokin took it and motored down the quarter mile to click off the quickest time and fastest run yet for the new setup. The clock lit up with a 5.96-second elapsed time and 235 MPH speed.

“It didn’t even throw up on me”, said Sorokin.

Despite the five-second time, the race was over for the Champion Speed Shop. The AA/Fuel top fuel dragster show at Dragfest was run Chicago Style. This means that every car makes one run. After the tire smoke clears, the two quickest and fastest cars come back to run for the win. In this particular Famoso-style Chicago sangwich, Rick Williamson bested Adam Sorokin’s 5.96 by a mere one hundredth of a second. While racing was a wrap for the Champion Speed Shop, the show was not finished.

Race and Run Again

The car was torn down and reassembled as night fell and the Dragfest transformed from race to entertainment mode. The crowd gathered underneath a drive-in movie sized screen running drag strip visuals to a period correct soundtrack by the Dynatones. Nitro action would continue come sun up, with exhibitions of nitro altereds, funny cars and kustom kontraptions running non-stop. The Sunday sessions netted two more runs for the Champion Speed Shop, with a 5.99 and a late afternoon 6.06 to wrap up the weekend for the South City crew.

Next stop – Bowling Green, Kentucky for the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion. June 19th-21st 2009.

MORE: Rod and Kulture Dragfest May 1-3 2009

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

More: Dream Machines Hosts 50th Half Moon Bay Reunion

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

Dream Machines Hosts 50th Reunion of Half Moon Bay Drag Strip

Harrison Ford may have made an unforgettable debut in “American Graffiti,” but one of the other major stars of that film was the hot rod he raced against. Voted #7 in Cars.com’s list of Top 10 Movie Cars, the souped-up, yellow 1932 Ford coupe epitomizes America’s ardor for automobiles.

For the late Jim McLennan, it wasn’t just a love affair. It was a way of life. He made it a way of life for 1959 Coastsiders, as well, when he brought drag racing to the Half Moon Bay Airport.

According to his son, Bob, McLennan was “was already a complete ‘gearhead’ while attending San Francisco’s Balboa High School. He worked at a gas station all through school and was constantly fixing people’s cars and making them go faster.”

Being the son of a police officer did little to curb young McLennan’s devotion to drag racing on the mean streets. Marriage, however, was apparently a different matter.

Soon after tying the knot with his high school sweetheart, McLennan –– who was passionate about racing the 1950 Chevrolet he had hopped up with an Oldsmobile engine — decided it was time to take dragging to a more legitimate (and safer) venue.

Thus was born the Half Moon Bay Drag Strip. Bob McLennan remembers how, as a young boy, he tagged along with his father on race day.

“It drew an enormous number of spectators, as well as racing entries, often 500 or more,” he says. “The drivers loved Half Moon Bay because the closer you get to the ocean, the faster the cars race. So you could get amazing times.”

Bob says that the strip was known by two key phrases. “It was called ‘the Pebble Beach of racing’ because of its proximity to the ocean. And its motto was ‘Half Moon Bay Drag Strip –– Where World Records Are Broken.’”

Held at the Half Moon Bay Airport on alternating Sundays, the drag strip was basically a marvel of mobility.

“I remember leaving the house with my dad, always early in the morning, in this old bread truck he had,” recalls Bob. “It was jammed with speakers, towers, a generator, timing equipment, fences to hold back the crowds, you name it. Everything was portable.”

Another key player was Andy Brizio. A fellow gearhead from Balboa High School, Brizio was the drag strip’s official starter. The drag strip closed down in the early 70s, but Brizio went on to fame as a master builder of super-fast cars. Known as “The Rodfather,” Bob McLennan says that Brizio “has earned huge respect for innovation in building cars. He has won every award out there.”

Brizio, Jim McLennan and others will be championed as part of a special display celebrating Half Moon Bay Drag Strip’s 50th Reunion at this year’s Pacific Coast Dream Machines Show, April 26 at Half Moon Bay Airport.

Although McLennan passed away in 2005, his son, Bob, will be at the show with a replica of his father’s Champion Speed Shop slingshot Fuller car, built by the dragster guru Kent Fuller.

McLennan also plans to show an authentic racing “fire suit” and many rare photos from the great old days when Half Moon Bay Drag Strip was the place to race. “We look forward to sharing stories and fond memories from back in the day,” McLennan said.

Brizio, hale and hearty in retirement, will be there with his famous, one-of-a-kind 1932 Ford Roadster. Accompanying him will be his son. Roy Brizio has inherited the “go fast” gene and has taken over his father’s hot rod building business.

Bob McLennan inherited a similar gene from his father, Jim, and races in the NHRA Heritage Series.

McLennan is looking forward to seeing Andy Brizio at Dream Machines. “It’s going to be great to see my dad’s good friend back at the place where the two of them made history.”