Winner of the Import Face Off at Nat'l Trail AND 40th NHRA/IHRA Champ is....

ME!
Sunday, Sept 30th I entered my Matchbox (84 Plymouth Horizon with nearly 300,000 miles) in the Import Face Off drags at National Trail near Columbus, OH...and won! It has been a LONG time since I had to win 7 rounds to win a race. The bracket class was all run and these import/domestic compact guys have gotten their stuff together, I was treed on half the runs and got the bye into the final when I had the better RT in the semis. I knew that the starting line would be junk since a vast majority of the cars were fwd, me too, so instead of running my tiny 20.5x7x13 slicks I left the 24 inch tall M/T Street Strip III on the car...their overall diameter along with being a whopping 55 lbs heavier than the baby slicks would allow me to drag in the rain and not spin! I was never the faster car and the 14.8 Honda I ran in the final was by far the slowest car I met. Three supercharged Mercedes Benz went home with their tails between their legs...2 were AMG supercharged versions with V8s and one was the 320 V6 supercharged version. Both AMGs dialed 11.50 since they did not have roll bars, both broke out, but one only ran under by .012 to my under .002...and he treed me! The 320 V6 dialed 12.6 and broke out too...in fact, all but one broke out to me while I only broke out in that one pass. Oh yeah, and this was my 40th NHRA/IHRA Championship! BTW, this car has less mph in the 1/4 than the wifes bone stock 2011 Prius...but the Horizon is more than a second quicker to the stripe. (Prius 82 mph - Horizon 77 only mph!)
http://www.importfaceoff.net/
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...c8dee9&theater

 

IFO Ohio 2012 Sept

 

Hey there ammObob, I also won the Corvette Nationals with this same car back in 1993 and 1995. They allowed any make in....they don't do that anymore though...at least at Indy.

 

It IS an American tradtion for sure, but it is now in the vast majority of the countries of the world! It is called the Import Face Off, but they allow 4 and 6 cylinder US domestic compact cars in too. The quickest car there was a rwd Toyota Starlet with a big turbo and NOT streetable....but at our Shelby/Dodge Nationals back in June at Milan, MI (yeah, I won a championships there too) our 2nd quickest car was a mid 10 second STREET driven Dodge Omni GLH turbo. The quickest car at that event was normally running high 8 seconds with fwd, but with marginal traction it still won the quick 8 at the Shelby event running low 9s...at over 150 mph....four banger Dodge Shadow...turbo of course. My 2005 Neon SRT4 with 335 hp is more streetable than the Horizon that I drive everywhere and gets better mpgs too! If I had the money to take the same drivetrain from that car and stick it in the 1940 lb Horizon it would get over 33 mpg and should run high 10 second quarter mile times, be quieter and more comfortable! All it takes is cubic $$$. What is funny is that the Horizon only hits 77 mph in the quarter mile, but gets there in the 16.5 range, 16.9s with the tall, heaavy street tires....the wifes 2011 Prius II hits 82 mph, but takes 17.8 seconds....a decent roll racer compared to the Horizon!

 

Most of the people there were in their teens or twentys and most of the racers were in their 20s t0 VERY low 40's. I got a good laugh out of some young bucks talking about the antique (yes, it has antique plates on it) being out on the track with some old fart thinking he could drive it. When I turned 60 last year my wife asked me when I was going to retire from drag racing....I told her to ask me again in 40 years!

 

Do you mean this one?
IFO Ohio 2012 Sept
He was not fast enough to win or even runner up, but cool car anyhow. My street driven, street driven Horizon with wipers, heater, Neon seat, roll up windows, gas tank, and working lights is over 200 lbs lighter!