Scotty Guadagno is way better known as Scotty G at the race track. A well known engine builder from Florida (by way of Brooklyn) his stuff is hard running and his nitrous No Time Camaro called the G Unit is about as bad as the come in the world of clocks off racing. Sporting a massive (no one really knows for sure) nitrous engine of at least 900ci and likely closer to 1,000ci along with a Jerry Bickel chassis, the thing is set up to roll. Being a no-time car, I have never actually seen numbers on the boards or on the screen when the thing runs but it has many of the same parts and pieces that radial vs the world cars have. The major different? These no time guys like to make big money on the side bets and stuff that come along with their match ups.

Coming into Saturday eliminations at the DuckX Productions Sweet 16, the G-Unit was looking strong. Scotty had made more than a half dozen runs over the last day or two and the thing was going down the killer track at South Georgia Motorsports Park like butter. Like lightning powered butter. It always amazes me that a nitrous car can work on the little tire. It is insanity that they can get it and keep it hooked down the track with all that power coming at it like howitzer shells. Anyway, on this pass that was not the problem.

After literally mentioning how amazing it was to see Scotty running the car as hard and as frequently as he had over the weekend, this happened. The machine left the starting line, broke a rocker arm and then it let the fire out…big time. See, in a nitrous car like this problems of the explosive variety start in one of two places. They start in the ignition or the valve train. If the ignition mis-fires and lights off a cylinder with an intake valve open the entire intake manifold is filled with fuel and nitrous and it explodes like a small nuclear weapon. The same thing is true if there is a valve train/valve timing issue. The broken rocker arm started a near spontaneous series of events that brought the same result, a massive explosion.

Back in the “old days” before billet intakes, you’d blow a sheetmetal one apart and be screwed. Believe it or not, Scotty just reattached the top of the intake with a new set of plastic bolts that are designed to break away just as these did and he was back in business about 2 hours (or less) later! He’s a racer and this thing is a bad ass even when it blows up.