2005 News

11/28/05 Were back from the Performance Racing Industry show!!! Stay tuned as we will have some announcements coming up very soon!!!

11/18/05 Ok guys were back from SEMA and we will have some good announcements for you shortly. On another note, NOPI TV aired coverage of the NOPI finals in Norwalk Ohio the other night. Well I guess the way they showed our run during the first round of eliminations it looked like I temporarily lost control of the Paradise Racing Corolla. We have had quite a few phone calls asking if we wrecked the car. The answer is no. I was able to drive through it as you see in the pictures below and only brush the wall with my wheelie bars. So the car is in one piece and for sale!!! Call me up for a smoking deal if your interested!!!

10/20/05 We love Ohio!!! In what was a bitter sweet weekend, we fielded our faithful Toyota Corolla AE86 for it’s last race ever!!! (At least under our ownership) Is it possible to get attached to a hunk of metal??? I think so. The Corolla has been racing in our camp for the last 7 years. And like a growing child, we watched it progress from running 18 second et’s all the way down to our career best 8.06 et!!! Hoping for a spectacular weekend, we turned up the boost and went for gold!!! We got it in the first round of qualifying running our career best 8.06 @ 164.69mph!!! Wanting to enter the 7 second zone, for the second round of qualifying we turned up the boost just a hair more. This didn’t go well as we blew the head gasket. My crew Rolan, Shawn & Arron changed out the gasket and we went out for 3rd round but our tune up was a little off and she coughed & sputtered to a 8.40 et down the track. First round of elimination pits us against our friend D Karragianis and knowing that he ran his career best of a 7.62, we knew we had to go hard. We turned up the boost to 55psi and let her rip!!! I catch D sleeping and cut a .098 to his .180 but that was the best part of the race for either of us. As I take off, the head lifted and pressurized the oil system. This caused the O-Ring on the oil filter to fly out and it overfilled out safety blanket and started spewing oil everywhere. From there, we went for a ride!!! Well look at the pictures. Thanks to Stew Lawson @ Modified Magazine www.modified.com and my Canadian Beer Fairy Greg Bodor for all the pictures. You will have to click on the links to see the pictures.

So we retire the Paradise Racing Toyota Corolla AE86 with a personal best of 8.06 @164.63mph!!! Let me tell you why I think that this time is so special. The car is a >>>true<<< back halved car!!! In the history of Sport Compact Racing, there has only been one other car to do this, the Rosado Racing Corolla. We are proud to be in his company in the record books. Another important factor is tire size. Due to the fact that the car was built 7 years ago with the intent of only running 9 and 10 second et’s, we never provisioned for big tires. So we could only fit 30X12.5 Goodyear’s!!! Oops!!! The stock cams, how could I forget those!!! Finally, the most important factor is the weight of the car. 2440 pounds with the driver!!! This is significant because we were 440 pounds overweight!!! And there are other 4 cyl Toyotas that weigh less and are having a hard time running close to these numbers.

The truth is that none of this would happen without the support of you our fans, the help of my crew and our sponsors. I would like to thank my crew. Rolan, Shawn, Aaron, Jerome, Marcos and Sandy. You worked your butts off this season!!! Special thanks go out to the guys at N.T.O. Remember this name as it will soon become one of the best known Toyota clubs in the country!!! I also want to thank my neighbor and freind Mark and his kids. Thanks for all the help and we will bring home a winners trophy for you next year. Most of all, I would like to thank my wife and 2 boys for allowing me to chase my dreams!!!

I would like to thank all of our sponsors. Extreme Motorsports, Tokico Shocks, Arias Pistons, ACT, Cometic Gaskets, Fidanza, G Force Transmissions, Goodyear, Innovative Turbo Systems, Lucas Oils, Moser Engineering, NGK Spark Plugs, Nitrous Express, R3 Head Restraints, Racing Engine Valves and Web Cams.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank one of my sponsors in specific. Sean Glazar at Extreme Motorsports. I met Sean about 5 years ago and I have never looked back again. Sean has tunned, fabricated and built our engines. So its safe to say that he has been the key person responsible for taking our car from running 13 second e.t.'s all the way down to 8.06 e.t.'s Thanks for the help and freindship.

10/03/05 What an awesome event!!! The Paradise Racing Corolla was on fire this weekend!!! No the car didn't burn down :-) It just ran great!!! On our first qualifiying pass, we go out and with sever tire shake, short shifting the first 3 gears we run a 8.35 @146mph!!! We come back in, look at the data log and determine were a little lean. We add some fuel go back up again and tire shake kills us but I drove throught it and we run a 8.33 @159mph!!! My crew is a little worried about the one lean pass so they decide to change the head gasket and these guys are good. They look like John Force's crew and change our head gasket in 1 hour and 10 minutes!!! We make a few changes in chassis and launch controls and head for the line. In our last qualifiying pass of the night we line up against Justin Humphries in the GS300 Lexus. I gave him a whole shot, he catches up but never leaves me behind to far. So we get out of the cars in the top end and he says, "man you were on my quarter pannel all the way up". So I have a good feeling this is the pass we have been waiting for. My crew runs up screaming 8.16 @159mph!!! This provided us with a #2 qualifier spot!!! On race day, the tire shake from the previous day shook the main computer relay loose and when I poped the clutch, I also poped the relay so the car shut off. Funny how a $45.00 part can end your race day. But still, we go home happy with our accomplishment of a 8.16 pass and a #2 qualifier!!!

09/29/05 Were headed to E Town!!! Hey guys, we will be at the English Town N.J. NHRA Sport Compact Lucas Oil Sponsored event this weekend. English Town NJ holds a special spot in our heart. Our first 9 second competition pass and our first wheel stand pass was done there. So it will be a sentimental weekend as it will be the last time the Paradise Racing Corolla will do battle there. But we will be trying very hard to send it off with a bang!!! So pack your bags and we will see you in E Town this weeked!!!

09/26/05 The Pan American Nationals were a great success!!! And what a way to retire the Paradise Racing Corolla from Pan American competition!!! We qualified 6th in a 16 car field for Team USA!!! We made it to the semi finals were we lost due to our waste gate tube being broken. Paradise Racing would like to thank Matt, Dwayne and Kathy from Lucas Oils & Cycles!!! They were there on hand with information and products on display. We would also like to thank the thousands of fans that came by to say hello. Stay tuned guys, we will let you know our next event shortly.

09/15/05 Paradise Racing will be at the make up of the 2005 Pan American Nationals at Atco Raceway in Atco New Jersey!!! September 25th 2005!!! Gates open at 8am!!! This might be one of the last times you see this car run so dont miss it!!! See you there!!!

08/31/05 Ok, were back and so are our web updates!!! On to Atco New Jersey and the NOPI NDRA event we go. We have been working on the Paradise Racing Corolla and it showed this weekend. In what is now and will be the toghest ever Outlaw field we were able to qualify in the 7th spot with a 8.24 @161mph!!! However, on race day we were not as lucky and Justin Humphreys (2003 Lexus GS300) took us out. We went back to the pits and our crew chief (Rolan) and on track chassis man (Aaron) made a few chassis changes. We went up for a test hit and ran a 8.27 @ 159mph. Stay tunned and we will let you know were we will be next!!!

08/25/05 Hey guys, sorry!!! I know we have been slacking on the website update dept. But we are working very hard at it and will up date everything here shortly. Paradise Racing has been recieveing quite a bit of press coverage and we have those articles and pictures scanned up so we can post them up for you. For now, were headed for NOPI at Atco Race way in New Jersey. See you there!!!

06/10/05 The farewell tour!!! Ok guys if you didnt know by now, this will be the last season for our now famous Paradise Racing AE86 Corolla!!! Were working on a new car that will possibly debut by the end of this season. So dont miss your chance to see a piece of sport compact history. Also the Paradise Racing AE86 Corolla is for sale!!! As much as I would love to keep it and put it in a meuseum, I cant. We can ship it to Please feel free to call me for a price quote. It can be sold turn key or rolling chassis.

05/16/05 8.20!!! Thats not the time but what we ran!!! I will get to that in one second. In what had to be the toughest Modified/Outlaw filed ever, we were able to qualify with our best time to date of 8.20 @ 158mph!!! This was good enough for a number 7 qualifier!!! Once again thanks to Josh & Brian at Nitrous Express for hooking us up with our direct port nitrous system!!! Once again were at the borderline of over powering our chassis and tire shake got us in the first round, allowing the easy win to the eventual winner of the event, La Atrevida from P.R. We will do some more work and get it ready. See you at the NOPI event in Moroso Florida!!!

05/02/05 Rain Rain Go Away!!! And it did for one day. We get up to Englishtown NJ on Saturday morning and are wondering if we should have brought the turbo boat instead of the race car. NHRA wisely called the event for the day but said the sun would shine Sunday morning. Sunday it rained until 11am. It clears up and we get one chance to qualify!!! We head up and in a beatifull pass we run a 8.39 @ only 143mph!!! This is our astest pass to date!!! So when my crew gets to the top end they ask why the car slowed down? I had to explain that there was a user error on board. I went through all 5 gears but thought that I didnt so I went looking for 6th gear in our 5 speed tranny!!! Well, this pass was good enough to land us in the #2 qualifying spot!!! Our highest qualifying effort to date!!! We go out first round and win against Ali Ashfar. Second round we get to race against our sponser Sean Glazar of Extreme Motorsports. Lets just say that there was another user error and I red lighted giving Sean the easy win. And for those of you spreading rumors, I didnt throw the race!!! See you in 2 weeks at the NHRA Atco NJ event!!!

04/24/05 To much power!!! Is there such a thing in racing??? Could it be??? The answer, yes!!! After the Maryland event, we went ahead and dropped in a fresh bullet in the Paradise Racing Toyota Corolla. This bullet also had a new head done by Dave Locallio of Head Games Motorworks. With no time to test and get our new found power in check, We head out to Virginia. What a beast it turns out to be!!! The car tire shakes so hard that we are unable to launch it straight or even get second gear in!!! While this is good news it is bad news come race day. Same thing happens and we loose in the first round to Brent Rau. We will go testing next week at the NHRA Englishtown NJ event!!!

04/16/05 Since the beginning of time, mans biggest enemy has been time. This past weekend at the NOPI DC Nationals, Paradise Racing succumbed to time. We ran out of time and were unable to refresh our motor. Knowing that we were going to be in front of our home town fans, we opted to drop in our old faithful motor that had over 60 passes on it. This paid of well as we were able to make a 8.81 @ 151mph no nitrous pass during the first round of qualifying. But the situation went down hill from there as we were unable to make complete second and third round qualifying passes. Knowing that we couldn’t leave our fans without trying, we worked all night on the Paradise Racing Corolla. We made it up to the starting line for the first round of eliminations for what we thought would be a repeat of Arizona. We lined up against Demetrious with his RX7 and not with our best light (our .143 to his .442) hole shot him. We ran through three gears and pressurized our oiling system and had to shut it down as the Paradise Racing Corolla was squirting more oil than a Texas gusher. So once again our Sean Glazer built Toyota 2RZFE motor shows its potential by running a 8.77 @ 134MPH after being shut down in 3rd gear. I would like to thank my crew. Rolan, Shawn, Jerome & Arron. I would also like to thank Tony, his cousin, and Marcos for all the help!!!

While we were disappointed because we were unable to put on the best show possible for our home town fans, we are excited at the amount of data we were able to gather. We are now hoping to translate this data into horse power. See you guys at the Virginia NOPI event!!!

In other news, Paradise Racing debuted a new brake kit especially designed for the Toyota Corolla AE86 that converts the standard 4 bolt circle to a Chevy 5 bolt circle. This kit features Aerospace billet calipers and cross drilled rotors. This kit was designed by Tony Negron of The Racing Store and installed for us by Nasty Toys Toyota Club. This kit is available for resale by Paradise Racing $575.00 We then topped it off with a set of Weld Polished Magnums wrapped around some Goodyear front runners!!! Well, just take a look!!!

04/01/05 Check out our Paradise Racing T Shirts!!! Available in L, XL, & XXL $15.00 each or free with your purchase of $500.00 or more.

03/31/05 We are back from N.O.P.I. Phoenix Arizona!!! What a blast!!! The fans in Arizona are the bomb!!! It was an awesome weekend of racing for the Paradise Racing Crew. It was the first time we have ever raced this far out west. We were fortunate enough to be offered a lift out to Arizona by the most generous persons that I have ever known, Don Nase Sr. & Jr. Thank you guys!!!

Knowing that we could easily make more power with our Toyota 2RZ-FE power plant, we spent the off season concentrating on safety and drive line upgrades. The Moser Engineering drive line upgrades paid off in a BIG way!!! As we were able to qualify fourth on the ladder with a 8.57 @ 157 mph. We were able to accomplish this even through some of the most sever tire shake that I have ever seen in my driving career. Tire shake that would have broken our old drive line to pieces.

My crew worked really hard all weekend long using all of the data gathered during the qualifying rounds and our first round win to figure out the tire shake issue. And they did figure it out, fixed it and we would have given Brent one hell of race. But in the end a simple driver mistake (I forgot to engage the line lock) ended our weekend with a red light. I feel like I disappointed my crew and most of all the awesome fans of Arizona. Speaking of awesome fans, Arizona rules!!! Out on the east coast, we are a recognized team with a few fans. But coming out this far west for the first time we didn't know what to expect. But the response we got was simply amazing!!! The Arizona fans made us feel greatly welcomed and showed us just how much they love the old school cars. We would like to thank them for their enthusiasm & support.

We are feverishly getting ready for the Maryland event. After all, Maryland International Raceway is our home track so were going to step it up and try our best to put on a show for our local fans and sponsors. My team feels like we are ready for some more power, so were going after it. Were dropping in some Crane Cams, a new head ported by Head Games Dave Localio, a new Innovative Turbo Systems unit and some serious tuning by Sean Glazar of Extreme Motorsports!!! So we will see you at M.I.R.!!

03/14/05 We are back from Puerto Rico were we saw Paradise Racing Customers Caneca, PJuan, Ralph Fuentes & Mike Improta represent the U.S. Toyota Crew to its fullest!!! Also on hand were the guys from Team Toyminator http://www.teamtoyminator.org and the guys from the Old School Toyota Bridge Port Connecticut Club http://www.ostcbpt.com/ Check out their websites for pictures of the event!!!

02/05/05 Hey guys, here is the first update of a few to come. We would like to welcome our newest partner, Moser Engineering!!! We new that with all of the power and torque that the Paradise Racing Corolla was going to be producing this year, we might be in danger with our old setup. So we decided to go with the leader in the industry!!! Moser set us up with a new light weight heavy duty "Aluminum Center Section". Its loaded with our secret spec "Pro Gear" and a 40 spline spool. They then hooked us up with a set of their "Ultimate Axles"!!! 40 spline, Gun Drilled and Star Flanged!!! We now know that the Paradise Racing Corolla will be able to handle over 1000 horse power and 1000 foot pounds of torque!!! Watch out now!!!

In other news, the good people over at N.O.P.I. ran an article on our team.

Check it out: http://ndra.nopi.com/ndra_2k4/kd_dsp_art_detail.cfm?vaid=302