05/07/08 Congratulations!!! 2RZ engines are running things in Aruba!!! Paradise Racing freinds and customers Danny and Vick both ran personal best times making them the fastest Toyota 4 cylinders in Aruba!!! Vick ran a 8.34 and Danny ran a 8.07 at Palo Marga Raceway Royal Nationals!!! Both are running Toyota Starlets powered by Paradise Racing packed 2RZ Tacoma engines!!! With plenty of power left to go, you can rest assured that both of these guys will be in the 7 second zone shortly!!! The race for the 7 second zone is on!!! My crew and I can not wait to go back to Aruba!!! Here is some videos of both record passes!!! Vicks 8.34 pass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaXYAmunBoo Danny 8.07 pass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul1-NFkEj0Q 04/11/08 Race Season Has begun!!! Wow, were do I start. Between preparations and traveling, we have been out of the office the last 3 weeks!!! As you may remember, we left last season running some serious numbers!!! But the thing is that at Paradise Racing, fast is not fast enough and good is not good enough. So we began testing on phase 4 of our engine development program. We made quite a few changes that included high compression, head work, cams, turbo and clutch. Our first and only test hit made the car do a 4 foot wheelie!!! We figured we had something good and hit the road on the NOPI southern tour. The event in Commerce Georgia which was shaping up to have one of the largest turnouts I had seen in a while was rained out. We went south to Moroso Florida where we made an attempt at our first full pull and encountered a lean out at only 36lb of boost!!! Ok you do the math. 8 1600cc injectors and it goes lean at only 36 pounds of boost??? That means this Paradise Racing 2RZ is making some steam!!! So we have begun preparations for more fuel and if everything goes well, the Paradise Racing 2RZ should see some serious numbers.
02/29/08 Short??? Whos Short??? While we were racing at English Town last October, one of the crew members brought his 8 year old son to the track!!! This is a picture of him wearing a crew shirt and a fake mustache. Hes testing security at the track and if he passes the test here, its off to the strip club!!!
02/22/08 The year 2007 in review!!! 2007 in my opinion, tested the limits of patience and devotion of all the Paradise Racing crew!!! We had a great begining to the year with the new design by Roberto of Fate Media Group & the install by Mike & the Hydeyourride Gang!!! We made the switch to methanol and at out first event run a 7.77 which was faster than our personal best from 2006 and we did it at 25lbs of boost less!!! But it stoped there. We hit a wall that lasted through August and nearlly led some of the crew into madness!!! Just before we ship the car to Aruba we sit down and spent a few weeks tweaking some items. We get to Aruba and the tweaking pays off with a 7.76 @175mph. We come back from Aruba and enlist our friend Dave Zientara help us with some chassis work and it pays off with our fastest run ever of 7.55 @181mph!!! We then slapped some 10.5" tires on and go racing with the big dogs!!! This was fun and led us to a 4.73 @ 147mph!!! Finally we participated at the Southern Pan American Nationals in Lakeland Florida and had a blast!!! So in short, 2007 was a learning year that ended great and has left us with great anticipation for 2008 to come in!!! In addition to our great performances the Paradise Racing Celica was featured on the Pan Americans flyers in New Jersey and Florida as well as it was featured and participated in the One Cool Summer Aruba event. Not shaby at all!!! Stay tuned!!! We have some new sponsors that we will be featuring shortly, some more news and comments and most importantly, Paradise Racing.com version 3.0!!! Comming soon!!! 02/07/08 Imports VS Domestics @ Capitol Raceway!!! Our good freind Terris Hicks is doing it big again!!! Classes for everyone; Drag Radial, True Street, Outlaw 10.5 and the dragsters!!! Come and see the fastest 4 cylinder in the world!!! Don Nase Jr in his 4 cylinder GM Ecotec Powered Dragster 6.41 @ 215 mph ++++
01/30/08 Paradise Racing would like to wish everyone a happy, safe & prosperous 2008 race season!!! We are in the middle of quite a few upgrades and updates!!! New products and new manufactures!!! The biggest is our new website V3.0!!! Were hoping that it will be ready to launch in a few weeks. Stay tuned!!! 11/16/07 Engine Please!!! For years everyone has known Paradise Racing as the ultimate source for just about any performance engine part that you could imagine!!! What most of you may not know is that Paradise Racing also has an engine program available!!! Thats right we can offer you the same high quality / high tech engine work that our amazing Celica uses to run 7.55 @ 181mph!!! We can build you anything from a complete turn key setup to a short block to a long block!!! Here are some pictures of our latest customer Michael Fraser from Cailfornia!!! Mike has been a Paradise Racing customer for some time now and already has one of our race heads, Borg Warner/Bullseye Power T3/T4 installed on his 2RZ-FE 2.4 Turbo Tacoma!!! This short block along with some Paradise Racing Spec Web Cams are going to be his next upgrade!!! If your in need of a beast for your ride, please feel free to contact us for a price quote!!!
11/15/07 Pan American Nationals in Florida!!! Thats right were on the road again!!! December 1st & 2nd all roads lead down to the famous Lakeland Motorsports Park in Lakeland Florirda!!! It will be a war of the fastest 4 cylinder and rotaries from the north against the fastest from the south!!! With 4 classes to race in, there will be alot of action to see!!! Paradise Racing will also have in stock at the track Fidanza products, turbos from Borg Warner/Bullseye Power, Nitrous Express Kits, Cometic Gaskets, Tial waste gates & blow off valves, QA1 Suspension Products and much more!!! Call and place your order ealry and if it is special order we will deliver it to you at the track!!!
11/14/07 X Files!!! As the creepy x files music plays in the back ground!!! Ok guys this picture is out of the Tacoma X Files Case Number 2RZ-7!!! The owner has asked me to keep his name and the cars identity top secret but agreed to let me post this one engine picture!!! The car could be located here in the U.S., or over seas, in Aruba or even Puerto Rico!!! Who knows!!! This thing is bilt like a brick shit house and has almost a duplicate of whats in our car!!! What do you think it will run??? We will find out shortly!!! Click on the picture for a better look!!!
11/09/07 New Product Focus!!! OK guys, I wanted to let you know about some new products that were carrying and focus on some unique items as well!!! First things first we are now a stocking distributor of the AMS-1000 Boost Controller!!! This is the ultimate in boost control!!! For a limited time we are running a sale!!! Free Shipping & Free Paradise Racing T-Shirt!!!
11/09/07 Back by popular demand!!! This
one is for our Tacoma customers!!! We are having a sale on our Tacoma
6 pad unsprung clutch kits They come complete with clutch,
pressure plate, release bearing, pilot shaft bearing, clutch alignement
tool and ARP flywheel & pressure plate bolts!!! All
this for only $345.00 delivered in the U.S.
11/07/07 Exclusive!!! Paradise Racing is the only place on the planet with Multi Layer Metal Head Gaskets for the Toyota 4AGE 20 Valve engine!!! We have them in stock in standard 1mm, 2mm & 3mm thickness as well as we can make them in custom sizes!!! 11/06/07 Paradise Racing on 10.5 tires!!! This weekend we attended Cecil Countys Outlaw 10.5 tire event and had a blast!!! The Paradise Racing Celica was on a rip all weekend running in the 4.79 zone and qualifying 6th. First round we run up against Todd Harris with his 540CI Blown Camaro!!! In hopes of putting on a good show we gave the Celica a little to much boost of the line and it got a little loose but we still went a 4.84 to Todds 4.70 Todd went on to win the event. Congratulations to Todd and his crew!!! Were hooked!!! We are now 10.5 junkies and were hoping that a few of the organizations will let us come out to play!!! Most everyones rules allow for 6 cylinder cars but lump 4 cylinder cars in with the 6 cylinder rules. We know that aint right!!! Guys keep in mind that we only have 143CI!!! Orsca, Shake Down, Orlando Street Nationals, Piedmont, Cecil County, Street Freaks OPS and all the rest!!! Stay tuned!!!
10/15/07 Oh oh!!! I think were in trouble!!! Tire check!!! On Friday 10/12/07 we attended our local tracks 10.5" race tire event and I think we not only upset some people but we put the V8 community on notice that 4 cylinders can play in their arenas!!! We roll the car off of the trailer and with the same setup from English Town last week we pop off a 4.87 @143. This gives us our first carreer number one qualifier!!! And not mention gets the attention of the local V8 guys!!! "Damn he just ran a 4.87 with a lawn mower motor!!!" First round comes up and we run against a Blown Vega. I cut a .047 light and this guy puts it on the back bumper and we get our first round win with a 4.84 @ 142mph with a 1.08 60ft!!!. We go into the semifinals against a Super Charged Mustang. This guy gets me out of the hole but we put on our best run of the night to take the win from him with our 4.73 @ 147mph to his 5.05 at 142mph. To date this is our best 1/8 mile et & mph!!! The finals come up and we have to run against a blown Chevelle. Well this wasnt our night to win as the motor in the car had over 35 documented hits on it and it started spweing oil like the Exon Valdes!!! That got under the tires and as soon as I launched the car, it took a turn headed to the wall and I had no choice but to lift giving the win to the Chevelle. But the night was not a total waste. We got our first number one qualifier, we ran our best 60ft 1.07, we ran our best 330ft 3.06 and we ran our quickest & fastest 1/8 mile 4.73 @ 147 mph!!! For us, the best news came by being able to run 4 solid sub 4 second passes and all with 1.09 60ft times or better!!! This gives us a lot of confidence that we will finally have a contender at next years NOPI events!!! Stay tuned for more testing news!!! 10/08/07 E Town was a blast!!! This race always has a great turnout!!! The stands were packed and the racing action was hot!!!
We said we were coming with a big gun and boy did we!!! After the chassis problems we had in Aruba, we flew in our old friend Dave Zientara to come in and fix us up!!! Dave is one of if not the best race car consultant/builder/tuner in the industry. Dave has worked for and with some of the bigest names in the industry; Jerry Haas, Jerry Bickel, Tim McAmis, Rayhall Racing, John Lingenfelter, CSI Racing & Gardella Racing just to name a few. Well Dave came in and he fixed us up in a big way!!! He came in and made some changes to the chassis and suspension. Dave also helped us to tune up our race day procedures and operations. After 2 days of dialing in our puppy we take off to E Town!!! But before we left for E Town, we had to make an emergency pit stop!!! I would like to thank Steve Kramer at Kramer Brothers Race Craft for giving us an emergency wheelie-bar-ectamy!!! (He fixed our banged up and bent wheelie bars!!!) We get there and decide to make the first hit a soft one and set the car on low boost. We get into the field with a 8.07 @ 166 mph. Confident that our setup is on point and ready to kill, we turn it up and go up for the 2nd qualifier and run our carreer best of 7.55 @ 181 mph!!! This gets us up to the # 6 position!!! Click on the link below for the video!!! Being in a good position and on what we feel is the good side of the ladder we decide to skip the 3rd qualifire.
First round of eliminations come up on Sunday and were up against the Maijallin. A 13B powered Toyota Starlet thats been known to run in the 7.30s!! We both launch, Maijallin whole shots me with a .079 light to my .193 light but I run her down by the 60 foot marker with a 1.09 60ft to Maijallins 1.17 60ft. Thats where it got crazy!!! Right after the 60ft marker the car darted to the center of the track and I had to lift and it still went a 3.12 to the 330ft!!! Based on the numbers we figured the car was on a high 7.2 to a low 7.3 pass!!!
You know whats funny? A few years ago when we made the decision to switch to the Tacoma 2RZ engine there were a lot of doubters. A lot of people that said that this engine would not produce anywhere near to where we are. We like to call them Taco-Haters!!! Well, what do you think now???!!! Oh and its only just begun!!! Our goal is to have the fastest Toyota 4 cylinder in the world!!! I think we just took a step in the right direction!!! We would also like to thank all of the online magazines that provided coverage for this event. www.agracingphoto.com www.prsportcompact.com www.nyce1s.com www.tunerzine.com www.thespeedlounge.com We will update this list as we see more sites with coverage. We strongly recomend that you pop into these sites and check out their event coverage!!! We have to thank the badest crew in the game!!! Rolan, Aaron, Mark & Jerome!!! Keep doing it!!! We want to thank all of our sponsors for supporting us in our 2007 effort. Were finally on track with our program and we know that 2008 is going to be a great year!!! Arias, Aeromotive, Air Werks by Borg Warner, Bullseye Power, Cometic Gaskets, Competition Clutch, Dave Zientara Race Craft, East West Performance Clutches, Fidanza, G-Force Transmissions, Good Year, Infotech Associates, Kramer Brothers Race Craft, Lucas Oils, Lincoln Electric & Welders, Mancini Machine, Moser Engineering, NGK, Nitrous Express, Powertrain Control Solutions, Power Master, Racing Crew Wear, Ross Machine, V&M Cylinder Heads, Web Cam and 13-3 Motorsports, we thank you for your support!!! 10/1/07 Aruba.....One Cool Island!!!! After a strong showing at the Pan Americans and a stronger showing at the NOPI New Hamshire Nationals, Team Paradise Racing packed their bags to take part in the "One Cool Summer" "Iron Man Classic". Team USA consisted of 4 cars. My good freind Tony Negron in The Racing Store's Daphne Turbo, Roger in La Sabandija, Marcos in la Minana and our Paradie Racing Celica. On Thursday night right off of the trailer or in this case out of the container our Celica runs a 7.91 @ 171 mph!!! This was a mild low boost tune up to figure the track out. We com back on the Friday night and for the first time in our career we get the Number One Qualifier and our fastest E.T. and Mile Per Hour Ever 7.76 @ 175 mph!!! That pass gives us a lot of hope as the car only ran a 1.27 60ft, 3.32 to the 330ft and 5.03 @ 141mph to the 1/8th mile!!! On Saturday night we make a few changes and line up for what we know is going to be a good pass. The car launches and runs a 1.16 60ft, 3.25 330ft, it gets out of control and swings to the left....swings to the right.....I pull the parachutes.....its still all over the track and nearly flips......and it still runs a 1/8th mile of 5.19 @ 111mph!!! Based on the data from our PCS Dataloger, we were on a high 7.40 to a low 7.50 pass!!! So we will be making some changes, fixing a few things and bringing in a secret weapon for the NHRA Englishtown event!!! Stay tuned!!! We were not the only ones breaking records. My good freind Tony Negron in The Racing Store's Daphne Turbo 2RZFE powered Starlet ran their best time of 7.83 @ 171mph!!! Danny Geerman of Aruba in his 2RZFE powered Starlet ran a 8.34, Alvin ran a 8.83 in his 2RZFE powered 1973 Corolla, Alexander ran a 9.24 in his 2RZFE powered 1971 Toyota Corolla and Vick not only ran personal best times while backing off but won his class in his 2RZFE powered Starlet!!! Racing coverage for the event was provided by Cristobal of Race Connection, www.prsportcompact.com and Magda of Racing Scene Magazine!!! Click on the Racing Scene Magazine logo for an exclusive interview. I hope you have brushed up on your Spanish!!!
!!!Videos are now available on the media section of our web page!!! I would have to say that everyone on the Paradise Racing Team felt that the opportunity to race in Aruba was the highlight of our career!!! I think this ranks right up there with qualifying for Team USA in the Pan American Nationals!!! Everyone on the team would like to thank Lucho and all of his staff at the Palo Margo Intl. Race Way Park!!! I can tell you that the track hooks and their safety crew is up to par!!! We also want to thank Darcy Franken!!! Darcy kept us all updated, organized and was Lucho's right hand man. Couldnt have done it with out you. We would also like to thank all of our friends over there, Danny, Vick, Alvin, Alexander, Shaniro, Coffy, Calistro, and the list goes on and on!!! If I didnt list you its not that I dont love ya, just the web page is not that big!!! Finally we want to thank the most important people, the fans!!! Thank you for making us feel welcome!!! A very special hello and thanks to Jim Taylor of PCS!!! If you have ever considered an island get away, then you should consider Aruba. The beaches are beautiful, the people are incredibly freindly!!! The breeze is phenominal!!! I could fall a sleep anywhere!!! The shopping was great!!! The Casinos are off the hook. And oh yes our new favorite restaurant in the world, Texas de Brazil!!! A++++ Finally my crew would kill me if I didnt mention the women!!! I won't mention names to protect the guilty, but there were guys that were about to stay there to live!!! Grown men had tears in their eyes at the airport!!! These guys wanted to relocate and deffect to the island of Aruba!!! We can not wait to come back!!! Thank you Aruba!!! For more information on Aruba please click the link below!!!
08/10/07 Nopi in New Hampshire!!! As usual this event has turned into an East Coast favorite with gerat crowds and great racing!!! The Paradise Racing Celica is making some good steam and that has caused us a new problem. The car has picked up a serious tire shake problem. Now I know what milk shakes feel like!!! Our first 2 qualifying attempts met us with some serious tire shake. So we decide to slip the clutch so that we can qualify and that results in a 7.82 pass @ 174mph!!! The funny thing is that the clutch never engaged. I mean it slipped from begining to end of the track and this gave us our best 1/8th mile mph 139mph and our best 1/4 mile time of 174mph!!! So we calculated that with proper clutch engagement, this would have been a 7.50 to a 7.60 pass!!! So stay tuned as we continue to work at this!!! I would like to thank Craig Nyce and J Nyce of www.nyce1s.com for the video and picture coverage!!! Check out the video!!!
08/01/07 The 15th Annual Pan Americans were off the hook!!! Wow what a race!!! Wow what a crowd. No where else on the planet can you go and have 40,000 spectators to see 4 cylinders and rotaries!!! The Paradise Racing Celica was detuned (it's a bracket race!!!) and we qualified for Team USA with a 8.05 @168mph. This was done at only 29 psi!!! Hey we werent there to break records, we were there to have fun!!! First round comes up and were racing against the West Racing Mazda RX3. And luck was on our side as we stepped up the tune up and the car launched and headed to the wall so I lifted. But the West Racing Mazda RX3 was on a pass and ran out with a 7.48 to his 7.50 dial. Second round comes up and were up against one of the fastest rotaries in Puerto Rico La Sarita. We dialed a 7.70 but forgot to turn on our boost controller and ran a 8.35 at only 22 psi!!! It was most deffinatley a fun weekend. I would like to thank Dave at Bullseye Power for their support and for making the trip from Michigan. Dave hablas ingles??? We also would like to thank Joe Sway JR & SR at Atco Raceway for including us on their flyer!!!
07/09/07 Collector AE86!!! Check these puppies out!!!
7/02/07 Another Paradise Racing First!!! Fuel Rail Kits for the 2RZ & 3RZ!!! Thats right!!! These are bolt on fuel rail kits for the 2/3RZFE!!! Kit includess all hardware!!! The kit requires one minor modification. You will have to cut off the little stupid aluminum ear on your head that does nothing!!! Special introductory price $249.00 and to make the deal sweeter, were offering free shipping in the U.S. and $20.00 shipping anywhere in the world!!!
06/20/07 Exclusive!!! Paradise Racing is the only place on the planet with Multi Layer Metal Head Gaskets for the Toyota 4AGE 20 Valve engine!!! We have them in stock in standard 1mm, 2mm & 3mm thickness as well as we can make them in custom sizes!!! 06/18/07 We had a great weekend at the NHRA North East Sport Compact Nationals!!! With a new setup in the car and some tuning help from Paul Effantis of M.S.P. we headed up to Atco N.J. for a great weekend of racing!!! The new setup & Pauls tuning was on point!!! As witnessed in this 8.27 @ 171mph pass!!! The car bogged of the line, bounced around in first & second gear and didn’t get moving until third gear and it still went 171mph!!! http://68.178.140.70/videos/07-06-10-008.wmv http://www.agracingvideo.com/videos/atco/nhra07/corujo171.wmv
5/16/07 Shout out!!! Paradise Racing would like to thank our friends over at Capitol Carbonics!!! They have been hooking us up with all of our dry ice needs and they are cool!!! Thats www.capitolcarbonic.com for all of your dry ice needs!!! 05/10/07 Racing Update!!! Over the winter we mentioned that we were making some changes to the Paradise Racing Celica. Well the first one was in the power department. We upgraded the Paradise Racing 2.4 2RZ-FE to VP Methanol. Chris Anderson at AAP hooked us up on the tune (Special thanks to Jim Nixon). Web Cams laid some radical sticks in there and V&M Cylinder Heads and REV hooked up a full flow head. The end result was 900 plus horse power!!! The results a career best 7.77 et at only 35 psi!!! Our next change came in the looks department. Roberto and the Fate Media Group came up with a wild and tropical desing and Mike and the Hide Your Ride crew printed and laid down what I think is one of the hottest vinyl wraps I have seen!!! We will let you be the judge!!!
01/08/06 Happy 2007!!! Paradise Racing would also like to introuduce you to our newest piece of machinery!!! We are now proud owners of a New Age NA4DFV Injector Diagnostic and Servicing machine!!! We are now capable of flowing, testing and reparing any and all of your injectors with a wide variety of test ranges from 500 to 9,900 rpms and 1.5ms to 17ms pulse duration!!! We have frequent user rates, shop rates as well as club and forum rates!!! Please call us up!!!
11/16/06 Here is a really nice launching picture of the Paradise Racing Celica, courtesy of Rich at 13-3 Motorsports!!!
11/15/06 Customer Features!!! We always get customers and competitors alike asking, "what can Paradise Racing really do for me?" Well we have decided to show you!!! Ralphy Fuentes has been my freind and customer for
a very long time!!! So when he decided to try out the famed 2RZ
power, we were more than excited to be involved with his project!!!
Ralph's project is a """fully streetable"""
"""10 second""" 1980 Toyota
Corolla Powered by the Toyota 2RZ power plant and a slew of Paradise
Racing parts. Heres the list. Now, Ralphy is no joke!!! He put this all together and tuned it all himself!!! Infact, Ralph has some serious back ground as one of the former engineers at Moroso Inc. and as the owner and tuner of the 3TC powered Gringo Racing Tercel (7.92) So if your in the Conneticut area and need fabrication, tuning, alarms or stereo work, call up his shop!!! 203-752-0683!!! Click on his picture to check out one of his 10 second runs!!!
Enjoy the video courtesy of www.agracingphoto.com Our next customer spot light is on Stephen De Nobrega!!! Stephen has allowed us to show case our versatility in tuning by letting Paradise Racing get involved with his Circuit Racing 1971 Toyota Corolla!!! Stephens car is powered by an all motor beast of a Toyota 3SGE!!! Stephen races on his home island of Guyana!!! Stephen called me up the other day and let me know that since he has switched to Paradise Racing Power, we will have to work on the suspension tune as the car is making so much power now that it is uncontrolable!!! Not a bad problem to have huh???
Here is his build list!!! Paradise Racing Custom Port, Polished, Flow Bench
3SGE Head Stay tuned as we continue to feature some of our customers builds!!! 10/17/06 OK our website updates have been a little behind but were back on track and were going to up date you for the last few months!!! The last time we spoke to you guys was back in early August when we ran our personal best 7.79 @ 172mph pass (yeah those were the days). Since then, we attended the NHRA Sport Compact Nationals in West Palm Beach Florida. But the Paradise Racing Celica was re-invaded by the electrical gremlins again!!! Try all that we tried this made for a very bad outing. So we packed up the Paradise Racing Celica and vowed for revenge. But the time gremlins got us and we were unable to repair the Celica before NOPI returned to Maryland International Raceway. The results were not good. We qualified in the number 6 spot and we went out first round. But we want to thank Thom Miles from Borg Warner Airwerks and Dan and Dave at Bullseye Power for being on hand to support us.
From there we headed out to the world famous NOPI Nationals!!! What a show, what a show!!!!! With all of the hard time we had been having at the track, it was a little relaxing to be able to sit back and talk to fans and enjoy their company. We want to send some special shout outs. All of the beautiful people at Carbufz.com!!! These are some of the nicest people we have met in a long time. Check them out for some of the Hottest Aftermarket Automotive Apparel!!! Again Carbufz.com 877-473-2279!!! We would also like to thank the Carbuz.com models!!! Wow were they hot!!! Well you be the judge!!!
Finally we want to thank Streetfire.net for the awesome
interview!!! Well back to racing!!! We know that we have some major issues and were not going any where until we fix them. So we enlist the assistance of Chris Anderson and the AAP Motorsports Crew!!! Chris, Yamil, Travis, Kevin and Gene worked day and night for 7 days straight (with short breaks to go over to Taco Mac!!! Thumbs up to the Taco Mac Crew!!!) and we finally found a few problems. Tackled and repaired them. Now let me tell you guys something, these guys care!!! If you are in the Georgia / Atlanta Metro area and need Dyno service, AEM / Motec / Haltech tuning, custom wiring, engine building, parts, fabrication, high end stereo work and a great and overall knowledge of Toyota / turbo power? Then call AAP Motorsports 770-923-5703 or contact them at www.aapmotorsports.com !!! OK so we think we had everything figured out and we head of to the NHRA Sport Compact Fall Nationals at English Town Raceway. Notice that we say, “we think we had everything figured out”. To make a long story short, a $10.00 clamp ended our weekend. So once again we pack the Paradise Racing Celica up and hit the road. Knowing that were in the middle of a points battle at NOPI, we go back into the laboratory get a few more clamps and leave for Ohio!!! We get to Ohio early and drop in on some of our sponsors. On Wednesday we visited Fidanza. What a great time!!! We met the owner and world famous racer Lou Fidanza and we also got to see some old friends, Tim, Jeff, Brad and Shaun. Sorry that we missed you Bob but congratulations on your sons graduation. We also got to meet some of the people behind the scenes that make Fidanza Aluminum / Steel flywheels, Cam Gears and Short Shifters the number one U.S. Made products!!! On Thursday we visited Design Engineering Inc. What a facility!!! DEI is housed in a beautiful state of that art building that has R&D rooms, Quality assurance and control rooms, a huge warehouse and much more!!! We saw enough product on the shelf to supply your largest W.D. without a problem!!! But what impressed us the most was the machinery to manufacture the DEI Chemical Thermal Relief product line!!! Owner David Markley, Tom and Mark were great host and we cant wait until were in Ohio to stop by their facility again!!! Onto NOPI in Ohio!!! The extreme cold weather hindered our qualifying efforts to a 8.40 @ 147mph with a lot of gas pedal lifting and steering. Raceday comes up and were facing our friend the #3 qualifier and #1 in points Carl Stevens JR. We figure we only get one chance at it and we win with a whole shot!!! Our 7.92 @ 167mph to his 7.77 @168mph. So we now head for the semi-finals and face our friend and #2 qualifier Brent Rau. But this win was just not meant for us. Luis launches the car and it pulls hard to the left wall. He lifts and re-engages the throttle but it pulls him to the wall again. We later found out that our front left strut had popped out of the hole. So we guess the racing gods were with us on this round because if this had happened in the top end, it would have been ugly!!!! But we left Ohio pretty happy. The Paradise Racing Celica is back in the 7s and we made another semi-final appearance!!! We now end the NOPI Season 4th in points!!!!
We would first like to thanks our fans!!! We have some of the most awesome die hard fans in the sport!!! They stuck with us with our change from the AE86 to the 2004 Celica and they stuck with us through our rough periods. They would always stop by at the track or send us emails of encouragement. For that, we thank you!!! We want to thank all of our sponsors for having patience with our 2006 effort. It wasn’t easy but its coming around and we know that 2007 is going to be a great year!!! Arias, Aeromotive, AEM, Air Werks by Borg Warner, AR Fabrication, Bullseye Power, Cometic Gaskets, Competition Clutch, Cryo2, Design Engineering Inc, East West Performance Clutches, Fidanza, G-Force Transmissions, Good Year, Head Games, Infotech Associates, Kramer Brothers Race Craft, Lucas Oils, Mancini Machine, Moser Engineering, NGK, NTO Motorsports, Nitrous Express, Powertrain Control Solutions, Power Master, Racing Crew Wear, Ross Machine, Web Cam and 13-3 Motorsports, we thank you for your support!!! Finally, we want to thank the most dedicated guys in the game, the Paradise Racing crew!!! Crew Chief Rolan Monsanto, Clutch & Chassis Man Aaron Brown, Mark Morusiewicz Operations Cordinator, Jerome Hodge Transportation, Shawn Brown Data Aquisition. You guys work the sleepless nights and literally work while bleeding. And your only motivation to do this is for the love of the sport. For this, we thank you and we will be forever in your debt. Well guys, I hope you enjoyed the 2006 season. I can tell you that we learned alot and are very anxious for the 2007 season to officially begin. I say officially because for us, it has already begun. We are already in deep engine development and can gaurantee you that we intend to make 2007 the most "intriguing" season of racing ever in the Modified / Outlaw classes ever!!! Stay tuned!!! 08/08/06 Finally!!! 7.79 @ 172mph!!! and
another semi final finish for Paradise Racing!!! Paradise Racing would like to thank the people that
made our success a reality this weekend.
08/01/06 Another personal best 8.01 @163mph!!!
and a semi final finish for Paradise Racing!!! Paradise Racing would like to thank the people that
made our success a reality this weekend.
07/12/06 Paradise Racing runs a personal
best E.T. 8.03 @ 164mph and is in the finals @ The Rock!!! 05/25/06 For immediate release Glenndale Maryland: Today, Paradise Racing participated in the Glenndale Elementary School Career Day Fair. Team owner and driver Luis Corujo gave kids from Kindergarten to Grade 6 tours of the Paradise Racing Celica, their race rig and of course what all kids love, stickers from the gracious Paradise Racing sponsors!!! While all of the kids and even some of the teachers were impressed by the looks of the Paradise Racing Celica, Luis spent time explaining that while the car looks cool and racing is fun, safety is #1. He also emphasized the use and importance of safety products in the racing industry. Some of the kids were surprised to find out just how strict of a safety inspection the car and driver have to go through before being allowed to race on the track. What really made the teachers extremely happy, was to hear Luis lecturing the kids on the dangers of street racing. Luis said, “not only is it dangerous but its illegal and just plain stupid!!!” The teachers were also estatic at Luis’s ability encourage the kids to study hard by explaining some of the uses of Math & Science in the racing world. When asked why do this Luis said, “I did this for the kids. My wife and my neighbor, friend and new crew member Mark told me about it and encouraged me to do it. They said, it would be cool for the kids to see someone else other than the usual fireman, police man and so forth. Not saying that these guys are not important because they are very important but the kids would love to see something different. Also my 8 year old son Keion attends Glenndale and my heavy racing schedule doesn’t allow me to spend as much time with him as I would like to so I thought this would be something special for him.”
05/24/06 We always have a good time at NOPI events but when they are in our home town, its gauranteed to be a fun time!!! This past weekend, The NOPI Nationals were held at our home track Maryland International Raceway. We showed up knowing that we were making some power and were ready for action but a little misshap prevented us from participating in the action. Saturday morning as we were getting ready for first round qualifying action, we blew a head. When we went to swap it, we realized that we had forgoten some parts back at the shop. Luckily enough we were still in Maryland so we ran and got the parts but by the time we got back it was to late to qualify. Being at our home track we had to at least make a pass and we ran open session on Sunday.We were able to get by our first goal, it did a burn out!!! The first pass ever for the Paradise Racing Celica neted us a 9.92 @ 152mph. This is very promising considering that the clutch splipped from end to end of the track and that this was at a very low boost setting (those Borg Warner/Bullseye Power turbos make some serious power). We will head to a test & tune this week to continue our learning curve on the clutch and chassis. If everything goes well, we will be on the way to the NOPI Nationals in St. Louis!!! As usual, I want to thnank some of the hardest working guys in the game, my crew. Special thanks also go out to the guys at NTO, Mr. David Zientara and Devin @ AEM. But I want to take this chance to thank my neighbor and freind Mark and his family. These guys are the best fans and freinds that a person could ever ask for!!!
05/03/06 I remember back in the days watching new cars come out on the scene and 90% of the time you would see these new cars come out and run slow or not run at all. I always wondered what was up with that. Well now I know first hand. Its the gremlins!!! Gremlins have taken control of the Paradise Racing Celica!!!! No, back to reality, we are having some electrical issues and are experiencing the new car blues. But its a challenge that the Paradise Racing crew, friends and sponsors are prepared to meet head on!!! We would like to thank Russ and the crew @ Powertrain Control Solutions, Jason AKA Jdogg and his crew, Terry @ Boostfed and Devin at AEM. They have been working very hard on removing the gremlins!!! Also special thanks go out to Nero and the crew @ Titan Motorsports and Jay & Matt Scranton. We will see you guys at Englishtown this weekend!!!
04/25/06 The Paradise Racing Celica is now broken in and ready for action. This past weekend we attended the NHRA Sport Compact Virginia Nationals. We showed up with hopes of using the 3 qualifying rounds as very much needed shake down passes for our new Celica but the weather got the best of us and all qualifying passes for Saturday were canceled. Knowing that we needed to make the field and with absouloutley ZERO passes on the car we decided to just coast it down the track. This allowed us to make sure that the car was tracking straight, that all mechanical and electrical components were up to par and most important, that the brakes worked. This qualified us 6th with a 18.00 @ 79mph....yeah I know thats funny!!! First round comes up and we decide to put a little power to it. Well its a new car and I dont have it down packed yet so I didnt put enough line pressure in the line lock and the car rolled through the beams giving us a red light. (The crew chief only allows me 3 red lights per year but he said this one wouldnt count since its a new car.) We want our sponsors and our fans to know that we are working hard at figuring this new car out. Its going to take a few outings but once dialed in, we anticipate being able to run with the best. So hang with us for a bit. 04/13/06 SEMA IAS 2006 was off the hook!!! First things first, I want to thank all of our customers for being so understanding while we shut dow last week to get the Paradise Racing Celica ready for it's first public appearance. Second I want to thank all of the people that made that appearance a reality. Bob, Tim, Brad & the crew at Fidanza, Tim, Mark & the crew at DEI, Randall & the crew at NX, John @ Speedesign, Kayo, Paul & Vince @ Clark Racing Chassis, Jose and his crew @ Racing Crew Wear and Sean Glazar and his crew @ Extrememotorsports. But there are some people that deserve some special recognition. Without their help, there was no way we would have made it. NTO (Nasty Toyz Organization) Thanks!!! Billy, Walt, Miguel, Caleb, Blanco, Chubbs, Mr. Hephner, Jaimeto. Oh and I cant forget the 2 super star sales ladies, Michele & Lorena. The NTO 1UZFE powered, Paradise Racing equipped AE86 was on display at the car show and it blew some minds right out of the building!!! Bet you didnt think a Lexus V8 would fit in a AE86??? Well, now you know!!! Coming to some magazine pages near you soon!!!
The Paradise Racing Celica was on display at the Fidanza booth and this being the first time that we went out without our old faithfull Corolla we were worried about public reaction. But soon after people saw it our doubts were erased as everyone that saw it was simply ecstatic!!! Everyone from sponsors, manufactures, racers to fans came by to congratulate us and wish us well for the 2006 season. We want to thank everyone that stopped by. We do this for you!!! We also participated in the NHRA Sport Compact Drivers autograph session. That was an awesome time!!! Here are some pictures of the weekend, hope you enjoy. If our testing goes well, we will see you at the NHRA Sport Compact Virginia event!!!
03/20/06 Hey guys we have been working day and night on the Paradise Racing Celica. We missed the NOPI season opener in Arizona and we wanted to applogize to our west coast fans. But dont dispare, we will be in Pamona CA for the NHRA season finals!!! We expect to be testing shortly and we will keep you posted. For now, check out some pictures of the Celica!!!
02/21/06 Ok guys what were going to do is give you some big news along with some major updates. First off, we want to thank all of our previous sponsors that have resigned for the 2006 season. Some of these sponsors have also raised their level of involvment with us for the 2006 season. Fidanza, DEI (Design Engineering Inc.), and Nitrous Express have stepped up to Associate level sponsors!!! We also want to welcome Competition Clutch as an associate sponsor. Along with this stellar line up, we are also extending the welcome mat to Powertrain Control Solutions, Borg Warner Air Werks Turbos, Bullseye Power, East West Performance Clutches, Aeromotive Inc and Power-Master Motorsports. All these people along with our previous sponsors provide us with an arsenal loaded with fire power!!! If you want to see what some of these top level manufactures make for your ride, check out our "Sponsors" section for a link to their website. We have set our goals and they are lot higher than in the past. We are anxious for the 2006 season to get on the way!!! Can we see a picture of the car??? That is the 6 million dollar question!!! We are getting an average of 50 calls a day for pictures of our 2004 Celica Pro Outlaw / Modfied ride. Well we have decided to give you a sneak preview. It's off to the paint shop as we speak and we will have some new photos for you shortly. But for now, enjoy these.
Also new for the 2006 season, we have gotten us a bigger set of wheels to get to the track. Im still learning to drive this big truck so if you see me on the road, stay far away :-) !!!
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