San Antonio, TX October 19th and 20th

For the second and final time this season NDRA brought the K&N NOPI Race Wars to the River City Raceway. Only this time, it was the "war to settle the score" since it was the World Finals. The event was scheduled to kick off with qualifying on Saturday, but Mother Nature apparently had better plans. She rained on our parade so to speak, and qualifying was postponed until Sunday morning. With clouds looming overhead, racers were finally given the opportunity to qualify on Sunday morning. Off the trailer, Kenny posted a 9.12@163mph. It was a good pass, but he was just getting started… Kenny, Bob, and Tony made some minor changes in preparation for the second round of qualifying, and Kenny was ready to show the world something they had never seen.

After a smoky burnout, a violent launch, and a run through the gears Kenny Tran piloted the Jotech/AC Civic down "the 1320" in 8.591 seconds with a terminal speed of 170 miles per hour. Did you hear that? Yes, that was the sound of the World Record falling. Kenny brought the title of "World's Quickest and Fastest Uni-body Honda" back home to Texas. But for the record to stand, it had to be backed up, within 1% according to NDRA rules. The 8.591 was good enough to put Kenny in the Number One qualifying spot. "Good enough"…now there's an understatement.

After a first round bye-run Kenny went on to eliminate Len Ayala's Hanhn Racecraft-sponsored Dodge Neon in the second round. The stage was set for Kenny to race NDRA points-leader Lisa Kubo in her Extrude Hone/Nitto-backed Civic hatch for the final race of the day. By this time Mother Nature had decided to cooperate, and the sun was shining. As both cars left the line, you could tell it was going to be close. In the end, Kenny had a lightning-quick .480 reaction time matched with an 8.61 e.t. (vs. Lisa's 8.82) giving him the win and the first place trophy for the Toyo Tires Pro-4 cyl. class.

The final round e.t. was also quick enough to back up the 8.591 and secure the new World Record for Kenny and the Jotech/AC Civic. However, it was a bitter-sweet victory for Kenny and a moment of sadness because as Lisa's car crossed the finish line tragedy struck. While it's unclear at this point exactly what happened, it seems as though her front tires locked up and sent the rear end of the car up, around and into the wall before finally stopping.

The Medical Team was on the scene in a matter of seconds and loaded Lisa into the ambulance and took her to the hospital for minor injuries. Lisa was coherent, and was quick to let us know the "she'll be ready for next week". That's a hard-core racer if I've ever seen one. Congratulations to Lisa, Gary and the whole Lisa Kubo Racing team for winning the NDRA Championship for the 2002 season, in quite spectacular fashion I might add. And last but certainly not least…big, big congratulations to Kenny Tran, Bob Norwood, Tony Palo and the entire Jotech Motorsports family for bringing the Trophy and the World Record back home. Look for us next at the NHRA/Mazda World Finals in Pomona, CA on Oct. 26-27…where we'll be pullin' out all the stops, and havin' our gun's a-blazin'…Texas-style baby!