One of the cool things that happened during the California Hot Rod Reunion was the Champion Speed Shop’s top fuel victory. It was cool for the history involved with driver Adam Sorokin, it was cool because the car is completely bad ass looking with its enclosed driver’s area, and it was cool because the car made the quickest quarter mile pass by a small block Chevy in history. Now sammy stickler will quickly jump in and decry this some sort of falsity because the engine isn’t using a stock block or because it has bad ass Alan Johnson heads on it, but the fact is that the engine is a small block Chevy, a ragged edged example of one, but a mighty pissed mouse motor nonetheless. Commence throwing rocks at us.
Anyway, man on the scene Les Mayhew was at the event and captured lots of killer video, including a muli-angle documentation of this 5.67-second run into the history books. Since the departure of even the most diehard big block Chevy guys from the nostalgia top fuel ranks aside from a determined few, the Champion Speed Shop car often finds itself as the only non-Hemi powered dragster at events like the California Hot Rod Reunion. Despite being out numbers and surrounded by elephants, the mouse managed the big win this year and it did so in fine fashion.
This is an awesome Les Mayhew video showing the car’s historic 5.67 run with great announcing work by Mike English and Donnie Couch from the tower at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield, California. Small block Chevy history! We’re in an age of drag racing where these type of “records” don’t fall every week. Back in the 1960s it was a HUGE deal to have the “world’s quickest” or “world’s fastest”. These guys can now lay claim to a cool piece of drag racing history with the quickest Chevy small block in the annals of drag racing.
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE ADAM SOROKIN STORM TO THE QUICKEST QUARTER MILE LAP IN SMALL BLOCK CHEVY HISTORY –
I think he might have hurt it…………
This is the fastest and quickest quarter mile chevy in history. And it ain’t over yet !!! Go kill some elephants Adam.
I didn’t even think that it is the quickest Chevrolet engine ever. The cylinder heads are a design from Alan Johnson (The top fuel AJ) based off of the GM corporate, canted valve head used in Pro Stock truck and Competition eliminator, basically a mini-big block head. But they are meant to fit over a SBC bore centerline, and still it is a wedge combustion chamber design that is very hard to tune to run with the Hemis since the spark plug is in the worst position to fire a cylinder full of Nitro. This run breaks Rick Santos’ record of 5.685 from 1995, the year before he started driving a hemi car.
What incredible history Champion Speed Shop has made. Bobby and the crew have stuck with this deal for a long time and boy has it payed off.
It would make Jim very happy to know that the whole team has kept the tradition going full speed.
Thanks for the memories!
AWESOME!! Thanks for posting, Congratulations to the whole Champion Speed Shop team 🙂
That looks like an LS chevy to me
Was just curious, so I went back and looked up some of Rick & George Santo’s TAD times from the late 80’s, early ’90’s. I found a best of 5.319 & 254 mph and that was just on a quick search. So basically, this car ain’t even close. And Rick was doing his thing 25 years ago.
That was a Hemi car owned by Jack O’ Bannon that Rick drove from 1996 to 2002. In 1996 NHRA added weight to the small-block car, losing it’s advantage against the Hemis.
Nitro America you are very correct. I just wish others would do their home work before they spout off regarding the topic.
It was such a thrill to see Adam and the Champion Speed Shop team run this career best with the small block Chevy car at the CHRR. I’ve been a huge fan of this team starting back when Sammy Hale was the driver. I’ve been watching them run now for about 15 years! I went back to the pits after this pass and spoke with Adam. I told him about the 247 mph speed which is huge for this small block car. He knew about the ET but not the MPH. Then they won the meet on top of that. This after being Heritage Series Top Fuel Chanps for 2012. This car is not just competitive, it wins races.
No the car is not an LS small block. It has the Small Block Two style heads like the NASCAR Chevys ran a few years back. Or the heads similar to those that Kenny Duttweiller has on the Poteet & Main Speed Demon and the Drag Week car of Dave Ahokas. I asked Bob McLennan at the March Meet about running an LS and he told me it would not be a good fit for a Nitro motor. It truly is amazing how much performance this team keeps finding in this little small block.
And I have to again say what a great job my friend Les Mayhew does with his video talent. Did Bang Shift run his video of the Champion Speed Shop’s tribute to Steve “Nitro Man” Wallace yet? Well you should if you have not yet done so.
I’ll stop now because I could talk about this great bunch of guys for quite a while. This team, this driver, and this car are some of my favorite topics of gearhead conversation. Thanks for posting it. Les when are you going to put the whole CHRR video together like you’ve done in the past? The world is waiting. Thanks, great job everyone.