Fastest Car (2018) s01e08 Episode Script
Showdown at El Mirage
Welcome to El Mirage.
You seven raced it out against some of the fastest cars in America and won.
Today, we have five sleeper cars racing against a Ferrari and a Lamborghini in a quarter-mile, seven-wide desert race like no other.
I want to congratulate you for making it to the finals.
So this is what you've worked for.
This is what you had all those sleepless nights for, the trials and tribulations to come out here and race.
The only thing I know about El Mirage is it looks like a Mad Max landscape.
It's not a raceway.
It's gonna be a pretty intense race.
It's gonna be awesome.
The biggest thing on my mind is obviously going seven-wide.
With the last event, you know, going four-wide, things can happen.
Oh, my God! It's unlike anything in racing, to have supercars and then sleeper cars on dirt.
I think a supercar is a car for someone who has more money than sense.
I'm not out here to play.
I'm out here to win this race, and whoop all their asses.
Being the underdog, I have nothing to lose.
I'm trying to be on top.
By winning this race, people will see that me being in a wheelchair doesn't really matter.
It's all the winners, everybody in the winner's circle.
So the last man standing will have the fastest car.
My name is Corey Caouette.
I'm from Huntington Beach, California.
I live for the competition.
I'm very competitive, so I felt great to win the first race.
Fuck yeah, Corey.
Get it.
That is sick.
I was proud to win, and proved that a garage-built hot rod could beat a supercar.
- Yeah.
Was it close? - Fuck, yeah.
I never broke a bone in my body until my accident.
Driving a car, I thought it was gonna be impossible, until I built Lunch Money.
Driving it for the first time, I was definitely proud.
The fact that I built it myself in my garage.
And as far as the throttle, it's just as simple as pulling a lever.
Corey definitely doesn't realize how much of an inspiration he is to people.
There are so many things that get in his way.
His disability, all these things, but it never stops him.
We're just excited to get out there and see what we're going up against.
At El Mirage, if I were to win, I'd just think, it's just perfect scenario for the guy with the hot rod to beat any supercar or other sleeper competitor.
My name is Lisa Clark and I live in Beverly Hills.
I'm driving the 488 Ferrari, twin turbo V8.
I think they did a really good job on creating a supercar that you can drive on the streets, and yet take it out on a track and get the full benefits of really what the car is meant to do.
Being a racer at this stage in life, and being a female, you really have to fight a lot harder to get up there and kind of prove yourself.
All I need now is a red Ferrari with a female driving it with big boobs.
- Okay, hi.
- Oh, my God.
To win the race at Barstow was definitely a fun, interesting experience.
I have to say I've never done anything like that.
But it's always fun to beat the boys.
Hate to say that, but it is.
Yay, I got first place.
The Ferrari, for sure, is one of the top cars ever made.
So it's gonna be interesting to see what my car can do on the dirt in El Mirage.
- What time did we leave? - I think we left, like, at 10.
- It was, it was like 11:00.
- No.
Yeah, it was like 'cause we had to stop Hold on.
I'll tell you right now.
No, I'll tell you all, 'cause my truck gots all this fancy shit on it.
- Mimo.
- We been on the road for 22 hours.
I'm Stefan Slisz from Fort Worth, Texas.
My team is my sister Sarah and my wife Eileen.
We're getting ready to whip some ass.
I beat a $200,000 car with a $25,000 car.
It's an ego booster.
- Good job.
- Thanks.
I would bet the supercar people would be arrogant, really think that they can buy their way into the world.
Probably most of them don't work on their own car, don't know to fix nothing.
Do you know to race on this type of Absolutely not.
The only thing I know about El Mirage is we better come up with a game plan when we get out there.
I didn't really do much research.
I just said I'm gonna come out here, see what it is and just go from there.
The car is my heart and soul.
Hopefully, we'll go out to El Mirage, go kick some ass and win it.
My name's Pepper Yandell from Texas.
I'm a car photographer.
My clients are the top ten richest people in the world.
They're princes, they're sheikhs.
I've driven close to 400 million dollars worth of cars.
It's nuts.
As I learned from my first race, a lot of the people present didn't expect me to win.
You learned how to drive it on YouTube? I've been practicing watching YouTube.
It's understandable.
I don't have any professional racing experience.
I come from a background of taking pictures of cars, not necessarily racing them.
I grew up in kind of a shell.
My parents are amazing.
They took really good care of me.
But unfortunately, I found myself in trouble with the law multiple times.
And when I started shooting cars, that allowed me to get out of that lifestyle, surround yourself with positive, hopeful people.
That's what keeps driving me, because my parents are now proud.
So I want to prove to them that I'm capable of winning this race.
I think my best advantage is gonna come from the finely-tuned Italian launch control on the Huracán and all-wheel drive.
Hopefully those two factors, you know, I can bring home a win.
My name's Ryan Vuich.
I'm from Jackson, Michigan, representing Detroit, Michigan.
I have a '94 GMC Sonoma.
I built it about 10 years ago and it has a 3.
8-liter Grand National motor in it, twin turbo.
The motor makes about 14,1500 horsepower, and it's all pretty much custom stuff, all done not something you can buy off the shelf.
The last race kind of got hot.
The rules were one fucking burnout! We all agreed to a set of rules, and them rules got broken.
So, Dave, unfortunately, you had two burnouts, so you're disqualified.
Nick, same thing.
What we think the fairest thing to do is have a runoff between Ryan and Cedric.
You know, I won.
I felt great.
All my friends were telling me, "We're supporting you.
" They thought my truck was pretty fast.
I'm glad I won.
Glad I'm representing Detroit.
Drag racing seven wide, I think, is gonna be a really cool experience.
But a lot of people, they doubt me, and don't want to see me succeed.
So I have everything to lose.
My name is Ron Schneider.
I live in Nuevo, California and my car is a 2005 Dodge Ram 3500 diesel.
Been racing in one form or another pretty much my whole life.
You know, from remote control cars, BMX racing, you know, buggies, high school drags.
It literally is like a drug.
It just hooks you and keeps you, and you just, you never stop.
The last race was an awesome event.
The light went green and we took off.
And when I came up on the stripe, couldn't believe that we took the win, especially against the supercar.
It was a big win.
It meant a lot to me and the rest of my crew.
Feeling like a million bucks.
Brought my life back around full circle through the struggles that I've had, divorce four or five years ago, back where I'm supposed to be, and that's racing.
You did good, bro.
You did good.
To have the support from everybody behind me it's awesome.
Love it! It was definitely an emotional day.
Biggest thing going through my mind heading out to the next event is just, you know, what are the conditions of the day? And see how the tires are gonna hook up, and I know she's going straight no matter what.
I couldn't have asked for a better support team than my family, and a better group of guys to help me out.
When push comes to shove, we'll wrench 'till, you know, we can't wrench anymore to make sure that that truck crosses the stripe in first place.
My car is a '92 Plymouth Colt, that I swapped with a 4G 6.
3 engine out of a '91 Mitsubishi Eclipse.
It's loud, obnoxious, kind of like me.
It is a bad-ass machine that I created from a pile of junk.
What makes it fast is that I built the car.
I'm Turbo Tony.
You got to remember that.
My whole life, I've been the underdog.
I think that's where the whole sleeper thing really attracts to me the most.
Growing up to be who I am today really didn't come from where I was.
I mean, I learned how I didn't want to be.
I didn't have any money.
My father, he was an alcoholic.
He likes to drink.
That's what he liked to do.
He just wasn't a father.
I didn't have that direction when I was growing up.
It made me not want to be like him.
So if you were to know me then versus knowing me now, you'd be like, you'd be like, "Wow, he actually made it, he did all right.
" I got here just from lots of hard work.
It felt really good to win the first race.
- You did it! - I know.
Especially with my '92 Plymouth Colt.
It blows my mind.
It was designed to get you from A to B, get you about 40 miles a gallon with its 1.
5-liter engine.
They're throwaway cars.
It's such a shitbox, but now, instead of three other guys, I've got to beat six other guys.
And they all want to win, too.
I'm not the only one out here that wants to win.
I love my Colt so much, 'cause it's like family to me at this point.
I've gone through some really bad times in my life with this car, and the car helped me get through that.
I'm confident saying my Colt, she'll do she'll do just fine, against even the most expensive car.
So I did a little research on the Internet and found this guy, David Gomer, who's a record holder, land speed racer, El Mirage.
And he's gonna give me some tips for the final race.
- How are you? - Good, nice to meet you.
- Yeah.
How are you, guys? - What's up, man? I'm Rob.
- Hey, Rob, nice to meet you.
- You too.
Dave Gomer.
We hold the land speed record out there for El Mirage, and that's at 201.
7.
We just set that last year in October.
What I know about the history of El Mirage is that our grandfathers pretty much started out there, and they were taking their Model As that they put a bigger engine in and souped up.
They basically just started hot rodding.
This is no smooth concrete strip he's traveling.
The dry lake bed is full of ruts and bumps.
When those guys go out there, they're going 200 miles an hour at El Mirage.
Different from what we are doing, but going out there definitely is some serious history, and I think it'd be awesome to bring my 1927 Dodge out there and clean up the competition, you know? It's just like throwing it back to when it originally started.
We have the nitrous on a progressor.
Do you? I mean, out there, I've seen guys hit that nitrous, and they've spun these things out.
They've ended up on their lids.
I would say don't even run the nitrous.
He thinks that I shouldn't use the nitrous, but I'm going to have to use the nitrous.
I don't make enough power on the motor to get it done.
What did you do now to get ready? We got the nitrous controller working great.
- Which is a progressive one.
- Yeah.
We want to progress it really easy.
Safety is not the first on his mind.
Safety is first on my mind, and we kind of butt heads when it comes to that.
I don't know what I would do if anything happened to him.
She hates when I add more nitrous to it, and safety's very important.
So I try to do safety, and then a little more speed.
And then safety and a little more speed to keep her happy.
She thinks I'm nuts and I'm gonna die.
Wow, look at this.
Dude, if this is what we're racing on, we're in trouble.
The desert's gonna be really tricky for everyone.
Do you know how to race on this type of Absolutely not.
I have no idea.
Sarah, did you research dirt racing? 'Cause you had one job.
No, I didn't.
We just need to find somewhere that's smooth, not a whole bunch of dirt, like not sandy.
Look.
Right here.
Rabbit Lake.
It's 25 minutes from here.
Sarah, if the car don't hook, we're gonna have to put you in the trunk, get a little extra weight back there for traction.
I hate you.
Look at all the dirt's that picking up I've never made any test passes on a dry lake bed, so hopefully it'll give us some good data, see what we need to do to prepare for El Mirage.
Here, we should probably put the air filter on now.
My Thunderbird is definitely a tribute car for my friend Blake, after he died.
We built it in remembrance of Blake, 'cause he had a Thunderbird.
It was good for my sister to get a guy that truly cared about her.
Blake was a genuine, good person.
So it made me happy that, you know, they got together.
After Blake died, Stefan watched over me.
It's helped me a lot.
Stefan's a great guy, and I'm very thankful that he's my brother.
- How was it? - It was slow.
Oh, boy.
I don't know.
It was it was spinning a little bit.
I mean, it's not that easy.
The sleeper cars and the supercars are gonna have a hard time.
The feeling of racing a Ferrari, the engineering of it when you press on the throttle, is an invigorating feeling.
Because you just feel completely surrounded by this amazing sound and thrill of power, is unlike any other.
Especially when you do full throttle on that car, it's a blast.
The last thing I thought I would ever be doing, a drag race in dirt, in El Mirage.
I mean, that's funny.
I've only ever tried that car on a track.
So what do you think, you excited? Yeah, I'm excited and a little nervous, just wondering how everyone's gonna handle the craziness of it all.
I don't know anything about El Mirage, so I'm trying to do some research with my coach.
Dry lakebed in northwestern Victor Valley of the central Mojave Desert.
On the surface, there's gonna be dust, real fine dust, and that's where the difficulty, I think, is gonna be, in the launch.
Yeah, because I feel like those other cars, like the sleepers, they're gonna really get a good start.
But I don't know about them furthering it down the road where I think I'm gonna have that advantage.
We won't know, you know, what it's like until we get there.
But the great part about that is, same thing with the six other people Yeah, that's what makes it fun.
So we've got to remember, like, as nervous as you get - Right.
- There's always somebody more nervous.
What did I get myself into here? - There she is.
- There she is.
The yellow beast.
You've got the Michelin Pilot Supersports.
I mean, sticky tires, you know.
So it's gonna get us ideal traction, and it still is a street-based tire, so it's meant to evacuate water and other debris.
- Right.
- And we've got 660 horsepower.
Once it gets moving, man, I mean, that's where reliability You know, the engineering built into the car is gonna be fantastic.
Yeah, it's pretty funny that Turbo Tony, the street racing legend from Connecticut is spreading out to the west coast now.
We did drive 3000 miles to fuck up everyone.
It is how it's gonna be.
We're gonna take out everyone.
That's it.
There's no other way to do it.
Never thought I'd be racing in a dry lakebed in California.
I found this place locally called Rabbit Lake.
It's another dry lakebed.
It's not the same as El Mirage, but it's similar.
So I'm gonna go over there and test it so I have some type of experience on it, so I know how much power to take in and out of the car.
What I'm doing in a front-wheel drive car, nobody has done in my car.
Nobody.
Like, the people that go fast in these cars make them all-wheel drive.
So you use a softer tire.
So I bought a different tire this time, and we're gonna try it out and give it absolutely the best I can possibly do with what I'm given.
- He didn't ev - Definitely babied it out of the hole too.
I mean, he's gone, but you didn't hear him get into it.
Still can't even see him.
With the dirt, like, if I'm behind everybody, which I notoriously am behind everybody, I have to drive through the dirt as well as no visibility to get around these people.
So I'm kind of hoping that I get out ahead so I can see.
I wanna be able to see what I'm doing.
That's it.
I've seen all I need to see.
Being the underdog, I have nothing to lose.
- Hello.
- Hi.
So, Mom, what do you think about the race? Of course, I'm always a little bit worried every time you do anything.
I hope I make you proud by winning this race.
Well, I hope you do too.
But I'm pretty sure you will.
You will let me know, won't you? - I'll call you right after the race.
- Oh, that'd be awesome.
All right.
Well, I love you.
Bye.
I just picked up the car this morning.
My experience is none driving on dirt.
There's a lot of unknown factors involved.
But, you know, I've been thinking about this race for a while.
And I'm trying to figure out what can I do to give me any sort of advantage? I'm going to pull out every little bit of weight that I can from the car.
Personally, I've been eating super healthy for the past month, to try to cut off a few pounds.
I'm doing everything I can to win this race.
I'm just gonna use all the wisdom and experience I've gained driving these cars in the past, and hopefully it can do me good out there.
I will say I'm surprised you're actually doing this after that.
Yeah, everybody told me I should just, probably just lay at home and rest my leg.
So I go to light a fire, I'm on the phone, I'm in the middle of doing 20 things.
And I'm like, hey, yeah, I'm gonna have to let you go.
Well, the gas can caught on fire.
So I walk over there and I kick the gas can into the fire pit, thinking, "Hey, let's get it out of the grass.
" Well, when I kicked it, it obviously squirted on my foot.
So I jumped in the pond.
My sock and my shoe was pretty much melted to my foot.
Ripped it off.
I'm looking at it.
I'm like, yeah, it don't look that bad, you know, running cold water on it.
But soon as I took the water off of it, man, it started to blister up and got pretty bad.
It was stupid, wasn't thinking.
But you would have to cut my foot off so I wouldn't be able to drive.
I've got a race tomorrow at El Mirage, and I got second and third degree burns on my leg.
It's my driving foot.
You're looking at three months' recovery on that.
Yeah.
I'm good.
I think it's all right.
I feel like most people would've quit at this point.
But Detroit doesn't quit.
We hustle harder.
All right, let's test-fit this thing and let's see if this will be our key to keeping everything clean going down the dirt.
Sure hope so.
I think the El Mirage is gonna be a lot of fun, especially for my situation and my truck.
I mean, what better vehicle to go to an event that's a drag race on dirt than a truck? I mean, cars don't belong on the dirt.
That's why cars are on the street.
All right.
There we go.
That's what I'm talking about.
Should keep everything clean.
That'll definitely keep the dust out of it.
Tire choice is always a huge deal.
So what we're gonna do, instead of running our slicks, we're gonna switch over to all-terrains on this particular one.
Obviously, out on the dirt, you need that traction.
I've ordered them.
They're not in yet.
They're supposed to be in right before we have to leave.
So I know we don't have the tires yet, but it's gonna be the same idea.
So let's launch out, and let's just kind of see what the all-terrains do in the dirt.
Yeah, there we go.
That's what I'm talking about.
The all-terrains are gonna be perfect for the dirt.
We're gonna take all of our tires with us just in case, conditions are different than what I'm expecting.
I'm thinking we leave on a little bit lower boost than normal, to make sure we don't spin too much and we can get out of the hole quick.
I think with the all-terrains, though, she may kick just a touch sideways, you know, at the beginning.
But I think after that, it's gonna start shooting straight just like she always does.
Being 18 foot long, it's a little hard to keep it sideways.
Exactly.
It's a lot of pressure on me to make sure that going into this next event, that I put that truck in the winner's circle.
So my plan is, is just to get off the line first, leave everybody behind me, and just make sure that I get to that stripe before anyone else.
I'm ready to race, but if something does show up that's lighter and has a little bit more horsepower, I'll be worried about them.
But as of right now, I'm pretty confident.
The last thing I thought, is I would ever be doing a seven-wide drag race with supercars and then sleeper cars in dirt, in El Mirage.
It's unlike anything in racing, so it's gonna be really pretty cool to watch.
I'm kind of worried about some inexperienced driver losing control on this surface.
But I'm probably the most experienced driver out of all of them.
I feel like I should be able to out-drive them.
There's rarely an occasion that you get to go 3000 miles away from home to race your car, to try to be the fastest car.
I hate losing.
Anybody that knows me, they will attest to it, that I'm a very competitive person in anything I do, so.
I feel like the pressure is extremely on me now to take home the victory.
I'm in a supercar, I can't let a sleeper car win.
So how many supercars you think there is? - I think it's all gonna be supercars.
- No.
I think there's at least three, four of them.
- No.
- I believe, I think so.
- I hope there's some sweet shit, though.
- I hope there's some fast shit.
- That's what I'm hoping.
- What? Whose side are you on here? - We're faster, so it don't matter! - You just said fast shit! In order to be nervous requires some bit of knowledge.
I have almost none when it comes to drag racing, and literally none when it comes to racing on dirt.
None of us really know what to expect, so I guess I'm the first to find out.
I'm definitely getting excited.
Excited to see what shows up, and figure out what it's gonna take to beat them.
- Hey, Corey.
How's it going? - How's it going? Good to see you again.
Pepper, this is Corey.
- Corey, Pepper.
- Nice to meet you.
- Good to meet you.
- Yeah.
Coming from the distance, it looks a lot like Mad Max.
Yeah, pretty much.
- That's awesome.
- I'm pretty sure it belongs out here, so.
- Oh, 100 percent.
- Yeah.
So I don't know a lot about these motors.
This is an LS-1 out of a, like, 2002 Corvette.
And it's a, like, sequential shifter? It's actually a two-speed transmission.
So basically one shift and - Okay.
- that's it.
That makes it easy.
Mind if I take a picture? Go for it.
So what do you got over here? Lamborghini Huracán? Yeah.
Just a Huracán.
It's bone stock, four-wheel drive on.
I'm interested to see how it does out here.
- Yeah, me too.
- What do you think? I'm curious how the electronics work on the dirt.
Well, when you do the launch mode, all the traction, - stability control's completely off.
- Oh, really? - Uh-huh.
- Ooh.
If I wind up facing the wrong way, then, you know, come up with plan B.
Don't look too close at the turbos.
How much does an oil change cost? Don't know.
So this actually isn't my car.
- Whose car is it? - My friend's.
I borrowed it.
- Yeah, that's a nice friend.
- Yeah.
So you haven't driven this car a whole lot? This next launch I'm gonna do on my test run will be - my fourth launch in it ever.
- Okay.
And to be honest, it's probably my fifth quarter-mile race ever.
So I'm extreme amateur.
I'm just curious to what your computer does - to what my hand does, you know? - Right.
- Man versus machine.
- It totally is.
If I win, can I have your emblem off the back? He's only raced it, I guess, four times, so the experience isn't really there.
But the car does have a computer, and literally, he said it's like playing a video game.
So we're pretty much man versus machine, you know? Lunch Money.
You know, he knows what he's doing.
He's got the setup.
He's definitely a serious contender out here.
- All right.
Bring it.
What's next? - I know.
Here it comes, I think.
On a trailer.
This ain't my type of racing, so I've never raced dirt before.
It's not my cup of tea.
It's gonna be interesting.
I'm actually excited.
- So good to see you again.
- Hey, buddy.
How y'all doing? - I'm Stefan.
- Stefan, Pepper.
- Which car you got? - The Lambo.
- The Lambo? Corey, how you doing? - Corey.
You want to give us some hints? What's going on here? It's just a small-block Ford with one stage of nitrous.
- How small-block? - 427.
- Oh, that's big, big small block.
- Yeah, big small.
- What about y'all? - 1927 Dodge, LS-1.
- Oh, God.
- Small shot.
How small of a shot? - Small.
- Cool.
- What you gonna try to do, hard launch? - I don't know.
- You gonna see how your test runs go? - Yeah.
We're just gonna play it by ear.
Come on, guys.
You got balls.
- Do you want to bet anything? - Yeah.
- How much? - Well, let's see what all shows up.
Well, come on, let's get them balls out.
I mean, you know, if we want to act arrogant.
- All right.
- Yeah, I don't like him.
He really rubbed me the wrong way.
I don't know.
There's a lot going on in my head, and I'm really just trying to, like, stay calm and just race my own race.
We'll see.
We'll see.
This is like my fifth time drag racing, anyways.
- So it's pretty much all new to me.
- Yeah.
I think the El Mirage is gonna be a lot of fun, especially for my situation and my truck.
I mean, what better vehicle to go to an event that's a drag race on dirt than a truck.
I mean, you know, cars don't belong on the dirt.
That's why cars are on the street.
- Yeah, good morning.
- I'm good.
That Dodge truck's tires, you know? He's got four massive off-road tires.
It was made for this.
I love that it's a Dodge, you know? And it's good that we can put the Dodges in first and second.
Can't guarantee which position you'll be in, but we'll be in first and second.
I think the diesel's going to do very well.
I think so too.
I think we're gonna be surprised by it.
I don't think any of these cars here can beat me, but we'll see what happens.
It's gonna be a learning experience.
How many more supercars are gonna show up or is it all sleeper cars? I don't know.
I think it's gonna be a good mix.
Ron, he's a nice guy, really nice guy.
Seems pretty cool.
Got a really cool truck.
I think he probably has an advantage on leaving on the line, but I think I'm gonna do a high gear drive-by, so.
Since the last race, I had motor problems, and I was very upset with it.
I did the opposite of what everybody else told me to do, and it actually worked.
But I got it running better enough for this race.
Uh-oh.
Fuck it! Sick of fucking starting this thing.
I knew nothing about El Mirage dry lake bed until a couple weeks ago, kind of researched it, and I looked it up.
And I was like, holy shit.
Of course I've got to take a piss.
Introduce yourself.
Everyone, this is Ryan.
- Ryan, this is everyone.
- Ryan, welcome to the lake bed.
- Nice to meet you.
Ryan.
- I'm Ron.
- So you haven't raced here.
- What's up? I'm Pepper.
- Ryan.
- Ryan, good to meet you.
- What you driving? - The Lamborghini way down there.
- Have you raced out here? No? - No.
No.
- They got lots of in Texas.
- Have you raced out here? Fuck, no! I'm all the way from Michigan.
I'd have came with tires like that if I'd have known.
You've got to put on the right dancing shoes for the area you're going.
- I'm just winging it.
- What happened to your foot? - Fucking burned my leg.
- Oh, boy.
- How? - Kicked the fire like a dumbass.
- Where are you from, again? - Fort Worth, Texas.
- Texas? - Yeah.
- Blake Williams.
- My best friend.
He had an identical car to this.
We built this as a duplicate.
Guy lost control at one of our tracks and hit him and killed him.
Sorry to hear about that.
So we built this car as a tribute car, if you will.
Yeah, my truck's kind of in memory of my buddy Brandon Newman.
He passed away, so we're in the same thing.
- Yeah.
So - Bad-ass.
My buddy Brandon Newman, he was a good friend to everybody.
If you needed anything, he would be there.
Basically, I made my truck fast in memory of him.
He got mixed up in a wrong crowd.
I believe someone dared him to do some drugs, and, you know, they thought it was funny or something.
He actually did it, and they were like, "Oh, fuck.
" And then, he didn't wake up.
If I win, he's gonna love it.
When I see a car in memory of somebody, I want to hear the story and see what happened.
But you don't want to keep bringing it up, if it's a touchy story.
When someone asks me what happened to my buddy, or asks us why it says that, I get goosebumps.
I get chills.
It really gets to me.
I'm feeling kind of lonely out here.
I was expecting at least maybe, you know, a healthy mix, but so far, I'm the only guy in a car that hasn't been built by their bare hands.
Got two more cars coming.
There has to be one, at least, one exotic coming.
I can't be the only one.
El Mirage is extremely dangerous.
It's just dirt.
Most of the people that go on these dry lake beds or salt flats, they do it from rolling speed.
We have to do it from a dead standstill, which makes it extremely difficult, being in a front-wheel drive car as well.
How you doing? Good to see you, Tony.
- How's it going, man? - Good.
Are you ready for the dust this time? I see that little filter you've got in the front.
- Good to see you.
Thanks for coming out.
- Definitely.
Tony, this is everyone.
Everyone, this is Tony.
- I'm Ron.
Nice to meet you.
- Tony.
How's it going? So just one car left until I'm the only exotic.
If it's just me, the pressure's on.
I represent the supercar world.
I can't lose.
=Here comes the other car.
- Is that a girl? Get the fuck out of here.
- What? - I don't know, I see hair.
- Yeah, that's a girl.
To see a woman in a man's world, it's always interesting.
And you put the time in, and you're just as good as they are.
It's the car is the big equalizer.
- All righty then.
- Good to see you again.
Nice to see you guys, too.
Oh, my God, I love the socks.
- Those are great.
- Thanks for coming out.
Happy to be here.
- Good to see you again.
- Very cool.
I think it's cool.
There's a lot of females that can drive good, so I think it's cool.
My sister's a girl and she races.
So I mean, you know, she's a bad-ass, so I'm sure she is too.
We got all kinds of oddball stuff going on out here, so I figured there'd be at least one female driver.
As a young girl, I got inspired from a woman that was a drag racer, Shirley Muldowney.
When I saw people get around her, and her get her helmet on and her gloves, it was pretty cool.
If I can just make women feel like, "Hey, I'm a girl and I'm doing this, you can do the same.
" It's a great feeling.
- Lisa, this is everybody.
- Hello! - Hi, everybody.
- This is Lisa.
- Lisa.
- This is gonna be great.
- Welcome to the lake bed.
- Happy to be here.
- Drivers, who else? Drivers? - Here.
- I'm Corey.
- Corey.
- Hot rod down there that you'll see.
- Very cool, Corey.
Hi, Lisa.
- This is Rob, he's on our team.
- Rob, very cool.
Should've heard the guesses as you were way off in the distance.
They were like, is that an Aventador? No, a Huracán, no, an Enzo.
I see one over there somewhere in this midst.
Whose is that? - The Huracán's mine.
- Is that hi, I'm Lisa.
- Pepper.
- Pepper, nice to meet you.
- You too.
- Great car you have, wow.
You know what? I'm really happy that at least another supercar showed up.
- Yeah, was wondering if there were others.
- Thought I was gonna be the lone warrior.
Yeah.
Sleeper cars, I think, have a good chance off this start.
Where I think the supercars you've got that "see you later" moment.
So, first, before we get started, I want to say thank you for coming out.
And I want to congratulate you for making it to the finals, so.
Definitely some interesting vehicles.
Hearing some of the stories it'll be a good race.
It'll be a real good race.
I mean, there's There's definitely, definitely some talent here.
So, they're just, none of them are set up for dirt, you know? That's the biggest thing, is I'd be worried out on the pavement, I really would.
But I'm not too worried here.
People don't expect trucks to be fast.
They expect them to be utilitarian.
- Underestimated.
- Yeah.
- People that have trucks stick with them.
- Seems like the underdog.
But I'd rather have this truck than the damn Lamborghini or Ferrari.
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't want the cleaning bill on those cars.
Typically you race one car, so you think about that one car.
When you think about seven cars, you lose track of who you try to think about, - and then another one distracts you.
- Right.
The pluses and minuses of each.
Yeah, I'm just gonna run my own race, that's for sure.
Everyone stays in their lane, it's all good, right? She has more racing experience than I do, by far.
I have never been in Ferrari Challenge.
I think the Ferrari 488 has a good chance of taking it.
It makes more horsepower than the Lamborghini that's here, so.
We're gonna give you two test runs.
We'll bring in all of the competitors, line everybody up, and then one by one, you'll go out and do your two test runs.
Then we'll come back, and after that, we'll do the race.
Considering the amount of engineering that goes into the aerodynamics of this car Yes.
how unstable I feel down at the end of this track on this, I'm really worried.
It almost feels like - I'm about to come up off the ground.
- Okay.
Just 'cause I'm skating around on this thin layer of dust.
- Okay.
- So it might be a little dangerous.
After my test run, I'm gonna get a little bit more aggressive with it.
I could put a little bit more power to it.
My strategy for those test runs is basically one's gonna be with launch mode, and one's gonna be in race mode.
And I'm gonna do them both full throttle and see what the car gives me.
We kind of made our decision based on a couple things as far as throttle off the go, and it seems like for me, no launch control's gonna be the best for this surface.
- How you doing, mama? - Doing good, honey.
- You ready for this? - I'm ready.
I'll go out and make some test hits and just see how she feels.
And see what happens literally when the dust settles out here.
All righty.
There's quite a bit of dust being created off of one car.
Once we go seven-wide, it's gonna be a mammoth cloud.
That just burned him the fuck out.
But it's moving.
- Fuck.
- Something just let off.
What did Dad just do? Son of a bitch.
Hey, jump in that one.
I'm gone.
Fuck.
- What? - We blew a boot.
- What? - A boot.
- I can hear it.
- Come on guys.
- Watch yourself.
- Go.
With two turbos, I've created a lot of boost in there, and the boot that goes between the primary and secondary turbos looks like it split.
I was hoping it just popped off, but it looks like it split.
And then we're gonna pull it off and we're gonna see if it's salvageable.
- Yeah, you got the bottom one? - No, that's one we're working up to.
This is the first time I've ever had this pop.
So that's why I don't even have a spare, because I've never lost it.
Come on, sweetheart.
It is the most tricky environment I've ever tried to race a car in.
I'm ready to race.
I don't give a shit.
Go! I was more excited after I got to do the test run.
I want to show what I can do, and that I'm a good racer, and good driver, and pretty much, I'll do anything to race.
- There you go.
- I got it.
That's no bueno.
That ain't gonna work.
I know what it's like to be like that.
It ain't good.
We're gonna try and take an intercooler boot off of Jaime's truck and put it on to mine, to get us back up and rolling.
- It's gonna be tight.
- So all we can do is try.
That's all racing is, trying.
You do what you have to do to make it run.
If you break something on the Lamborghini or Ferrari it's done for the day.
Everybody else, duct tape and hopes and dreams.
If I felt that I was so much faster than them, it wouldn't feel as good.
So to win today, it would feel great.
I mean, there's some serious fast cars out here.
Sleeper cars, I think they have an edge, because we're all wanting to go faster and build something fast.
We're not just buying something that maybe has 600 horsepower and some advanced computer and cool steering wheel, you know? We're more performance.
We're ready to go.
It's all we got, so make it or break it.
This is the way she's going down the track.
All drivers over here, please.
We're about to do something that hasn't been done before, and you guys are the first to do it.
So give yourselves a round of applause, all right? So I'm about to go over the rules for the event this afternoon.
The race will start upon a signal visible to all vehicles.
And that'll be red to green, and you want to go on green.
What we're gonna do is have you guys go back to your cars, and we are gonna go out to the track area.
- We're gonna do it one by one.
- All right.
- Good luck to everybody.
- Good luck.
Good luck, guys.
Be safe, man.
Be safe.
- Have fun.
Good luck.
- Yes, you too.
- Good luck.
- Have fun, be safe.
- All right, brother.
- All right.
Strategy is still the same, what you call pedal the cars.
Come off of idle, and just slowly accelerate and feel the traction.
I want to show what I can do.
I'll do anything to race, you know? Nothing's gonna stop me.
Everybody's just gone over and above to get this truck to this point and this is what I said we'd do.
We had some failures today, and hopefully we've got them patched up enough to get us one hit.
We'll see what happens.
Being a role model for women, whether you win or lose, you're out there and you're with the guys.
That kind of just shows that you can put your mind to something, and you can compete against anybody.
I'm gonna win this race.
I have confidence in my car.
I think I've got these other guys.
It's a lot of unknowns out here, and I'm still feeling good.
It's up to me to be quick on the reaction, and up to the car to perform its best.
Blake would probably be saying, "You got it.
Don't worry about them.
Go fuck them up.
" Fuck! The Lamborghini has taken the first spot.
Second is a photo finish between the Ferrari and the Thunderbird.
Fuck! Well, that fucking sucked.
Hey, mom.
- How are you? - Guess what? What? Pretty sure I just won the race.
What do you mean you're pretty sure? I definitely won the race.
I looked out my left, didn't see a single car.
And I was just, this can't be real.
I was starting to feel pretty good.
You know, I was like, I have so much free time, I'm gonna look at my miles per hour.
And I hit 131 right before I crossed the finish line.
Amazing.
Man.
Steak dinner tonight.
I've been vegan for, like, three and a half weeks, but this deserves steak, perhaps even lobster, with a side of chicken wings.
That Huracán kicked my ass off the get-go.
I think ever me or the Ferrari came in second.
It was, like, really tight.
I think it's gonna be a photo finish.
It was hard to tell.
I don't know I bumped it into high gear, but somehow, I just, like, my glove, you know, obviously.
Just the tiniest little bit of pressure.
It was a stupid little error that just put us back right at the beginning.
- Nice job, nice job.
- Hey, you too.
I didn't get to see where you ended up.
It was like a cloud of dust.
Yeah.
I blew a boot, so I was coasting halfway.
Yeah, I think I leave before everyone, 'cause my tires turned, yeah.
But I sit still, spinning, and you're just - Yeah.
- It was like a slingshot, literally.
It's like somebody just pulled him back and let it go like the cars we used to play with, you know? I'm still at the start line, he's already four cones in front.
- Yeah, he was gone.
- He was gone.
So do you guys have any idea who was, like, second, third? - It's either me and her, - Do you know how they were? I was trying to look left, and I didn't see nothing left.
And then, you know, I looked right, and I seen you, and I seen you way on, I had to look through my front windshield to see you.
- Seriously, right? - Yeah.
He was already, you were you were gone.
- Yeah.
- But me and you were close, dude.
- Yeah.
- You had me.
You came up and started driving by me, and right as you were driving by me, my nitrous finally came on.
And I think I really think I nosed you.
- You might have.
- It's gonna be close.
Because I saw you right there, I'm like, shit.
See, that's the kind of finish I like to see.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- The black car could've beat me.
I mean, we were neck and neck there at the end.
I might have eked out second, but we'll see what the replay shows.
You guys put on a show.
You, each and every one of you, you guys should be really proud of what you did.
So thank you so much for that.
Now we have the results.
Starting in seventh place, we have Ron.
- Oh.
- Good run.
I wasn't I wasn't last! I wasn't last! Try to tell us a little bit about what happened.
Basically, just before half track, - I lost that boot again.
- Okay.
So I was on all motor the rest of the trip.
So, you know, there was no power there.
- It was coasting, unfortunately.
- Outstanding.
Okay.
And we have in sixth place, we have Tony.
- Wasn't last.
I wasn't last.
- Good job, buddy.
- Thank you for blowing that top, buddy.
- No problem.
Thank you.
And in fifth place we have Ryan in the S-10.
Good job, buddy.
Good stuff.
All right, and in fourth place, we have Corey.
And it was a solid run.
I mean, you looked good, start to finish.
- It was all right.
- Tell us a little bit about it.
It was human error.
I accidentally bumped it into high gear probably 60 feet out And yeah.
- I made up some, so not too bad.
- Okay, cool.
Cool.
All right.
And second and third place, it was a photo finish.
But after reviewing the footage, third place is Lisa.
Look who's got me.
All right.
And in second place, beating a Ferrari, we have Stefan.
It was, it was close.
It was really close.
I mean, we took off.
I spun.
I think all of us spun but him, you know? And she she you know, I ran out of motor to like half-track, and then she started to drive by me.
And then right as my nitrous came on, I was like, get over here.
And I had to just had to, I couldn't beat her by more than much.
- It was barely, but - It was a photo finish.
No, I knew it was close.
And you actually beat a Ferrari with a car that you built yourself.
It's an old small-block Ford, nothing fancy.
Hats off to both of you.
All right.
And our winner is Pepper.
- Congratulations.
Congratulations.
- Thank you so much.
Yeah.
- Thank you.
- There you go.
There you go.
Man.
It's a dream come true.
Kind of nervous when I saw that big truck pulling out ahead of me, but then I looked out my window and saw no one.
I realized the car was doing its thing.
I mean, it's, it's just a beast.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and, you know, the fact that the top two are from Texas, the second place, also built by himself, beat a Ferrari.
You know, built in a garage with passion, blood, sweat, tears, tons of effort.
The fact that you came out here and defeated a supercar, you know, photo finish, that's exciting.
You know, with that much passion, it doesn't matter.
There's a way to beat them, and it's the passion behind cars, for sure.
- Uh-oh.
- Here we go! There we go! We're all from different walks of life.
We've never met each other.
I think we've all really have an appreciation for whatever anyone drives or plays around with.
It's that respect.
Supercars are beautiful, you know? They're built for one purpose.
Look good and go fast.
I still stand behind my real race-cars are built, not bought.
It took a lot out of me.
I could've quit so many times.
I kept going.
Just got to fix what you can and keep running with it.
If my car was all-wheel drive, I would've won.
No doubt in my mind.
No doubt in my mind whatsoever.
I would've fucked that Lambo up.
But I brought a knife to a gunfight.
It is what it is.
I lost.
End of story.
I screwed it up from the get-go.
It was an error.
I just barely bumped it, and went into high gear.
- And after that, it was over.
- I didn't have a really good run.
The car just didn't give what I had it did in the test sessions for me.
I think I did okay.
I think I did okay for the sleeper cars, too.
I mean, I came in second.
Hey, that's respectable.
I mean, I'm the first loser, but hey, fuck a supercar up.
I think Blake would be happy.
Yeah.
I think he'd be happy.
It's been a long one.
This is something I've been working towards my whole life.
I started taking pictures of cars out of a pure hobby.
I had no idea it would lead me to different corners of the world.
And who would've thought that would've led to me racing a Lamborghini in the middle of the desert and winning?
You seven raced it out against some of the fastest cars in America and won.
Today, we have five sleeper cars racing against a Ferrari and a Lamborghini in a quarter-mile, seven-wide desert race like no other.
I want to congratulate you for making it to the finals.
So this is what you've worked for.
This is what you had all those sleepless nights for, the trials and tribulations to come out here and race.
The only thing I know about El Mirage is it looks like a Mad Max landscape.
It's not a raceway.
It's gonna be a pretty intense race.
It's gonna be awesome.
The biggest thing on my mind is obviously going seven-wide.
With the last event, you know, going four-wide, things can happen.
Oh, my God! It's unlike anything in racing, to have supercars and then sleeper cars on dirt.
I think a supercar is a car for someone who has more money than sense.
I'm not out here to play.
I'm out here to win this race, and whoop all their asses.
Being the underdog, I have nothing to lose.
I'm trying to be on top.
By winning this race, people will see that me being in a wheelchair doesn't really matter.
It's all the winners, everybody in the winner's circle.
So the last man standing will have the fastest car.
My name is Corey Caouette.
I'm from Huntington Beach, California.
I live for the competition.
I'm very competitive, so I felt great to win the first race.
Fuck yeah, Corey.
Get it.
That is sick.
I was proud to win, and proved that a garage-built hot rod could beat a supercar.
- Yeah.
Was it close? - Fuck, yeah.
I never broke a bone in my body until my accident.
Driving a car, I thought it was gonna be impossible, until I built Lunch Money.
Driving it for the first time, I was definitely proud.
The fact that I built it myself in my garage.
And as far as the throttle, it's just as simple as pulling a lever.
Corey definitely doesn't realize how much of an inspiration he is to people.
There are so many things that get in his way.
His disability, all these things, but it never stops him.
We're just excited to get out there and see what we're going up against.
At El Mirage, if I were to win, I'd just think, it's just perfect scenario for the guy with the hot rod to beat any supercar or other sleeper competitor.
My name is Lisa Clark and I live in Beverly Hills.
I'm driving the 488 Ferrari, twin turbo V8.
I think they did a really good job on creating a supercar that you can drive on the streets, and yet take it out on a track and get the full benefits of really what the car is meant to do.
Being a racer at this stage in life, and being a female, you really have to fight a lot harder to get up there and kind of prove yourself.
All I need now is a red Ferrari with a female driving it with big boobs.
- Okay, hi.
- Oh, my God.
To win the race at Barstow was definitely a fun, interesting experience.
I have to say I've never done anything like that.
But it's always fun to beat the boys.
Hate to say that, but it is.
Yay, I got first place.
The Ferrari, for sure, is one of the top cars ever made.
So it's gonna be interesting to see what my car can do on the dirt in El Mirage.
- What time did we leave? - I think we left, like, at 10.
- It was, it was like 11:00.
- No.
Yeah, it was like 'cause we had to stop Hold on.
I'll tell you right now.
No, I'll tell you all, 'cause my truck gots all this fancy shit on it.
- Mimo.
- We been on the road for 22 hours.
I'm Stefan Slisz from Fort Worth, Texas.
My team is my sister Sarah and my wife Eileen.
We're getting ready to whip some ass.
I beat a $200,000 car with a $25,000 car.
It's an ego booster.
- Good job.
- Thanks.
I would bet the supercar people would be arrogant, really think that they can buy their way into the world.
Probably most of them don't work on their own car, don't know to fix nothing.
Do you know to race on this type of Absolutely not.
The only thing I know about El Mirage is we better come up with a game plan when we get out there.
I didn't really do much research.
I just said I'm gonna come out here, see what it is and just go from there.
The car is my heart and soul.
Hopefully, we'll go out to El Mirage, go kick some ass and win it.
My name's Pepper Yandell from Texas.
I'm a car photographer.
My clients are the top ten richest people in the world.
They're princes, they're sheikhs.
I've driven close to 400 million dollars worth of cars.
It's nuts.
As I learned from my first race, a lot of the people present didn't expect me to win.
You learned how to drive it on YouTube? I've been practicing watching YouTube.
It's understandable.
I don't have any professional racing experience.
I come from a background of taking pictures of cars, not necessarily racing them.
I grew up in kind of a shell.
My parents are amazing.
They took really good care of me.
But unfortunately, I found myself in trouble with the law multiple times.
And when I started shooting cars, that allowed me to get out of that lifestyle, surround yourself with positive, hopeful people.
That's what keeps driving me, because my parents are now proud.
So I want to prove to them that I'm capable of winning this race.
I think my best advantage is gonna come from the finely-tuned Italian launch control on the Huracán and all-wheel drive.
Hopefully those two factors, you know, I can bring home a win.
My name's Ryan Vuich.
I'm from Jackson, Michigan, representing Detroit, Michigan.
I have a '94 GMC Sonoma.
I built it about 10 years ago and it has a 3.
8-liter Grand National motor in it, twin turbo.
The motor makes about 14,1500 horsepower, and it's all pretty much custom stuff, all done not something you can buy off the shelf.
The last race kind of got hot.
The rules were one fucking burnout! We all agreed to a set of rules, and them rules got broken.
So, Dave, unfortunately, you had two burnouts, so you're disqualified.
Nick, same thing.
What we think the fairest thing to do is have a runoff between Ryan and Cedric.
You know, I won.
I felt great.
All my friends were telling me, "We're supporting you.
" They thought my truck was pretty fast.
I'm glad I won.
Glad I'm representing Detroit.
Drag racing seven wide, I think, is gonna be a really cool experience.
But a lot of people, they doubt me, and don't want to see me succeed.
So I have everything to lose.
My name is Ron Schneider.
I live in Nuevo, California and my car is a 2005 Dodge Ram 3500 diesel.
Been racing in one form or another pretty much my whole life.
You know, from remote control cars, BMX racing, you know, buggies, high school drags.
It literally is like a drug.
It just hooks you and keeps you, and you just, you never stop.
The last race was an awesome event.
The light went green and we took off.
And when I came up on the stripe, couldn't believe that we took the win, especially against the supercar.
It was a big win.
It meant a lot to me and the rest of my crew.
Feeling like a million bucks.
Brought my life back around full circle through the struggles that I've had, divorce four or five years ago, back where I'm supposed to be, and that's racing.
You did good, bro.
You did good.
To have the support from everybody behind me it's awesome.
Love it! It was definitely an emotional day.
Biggest thing going through my mind heading out to the next event is just, you know, what are the conditions of the day? And see how the tires are gonna hook up, and I know she's going straight no matter what.
I couldn't have asked for a better support team than my family, and a better group of guys to help me out.
When push comes to shove, we'll wrench 'till, you know, we can't wrench anymore to make sure that that truck crosses the stripe in first place.
My car is a '92 Plymouth Colt, that I swapped with a 4G 6.
3 engine out of a '91 Mitsubishi Eclipse.
It's loud, obnoxious, kind of like me.
It is a bad-ass machine that I created from a pile of junk.
What makes it fast is that I built the car.
I'm Turbo Tony.
You got to remember that.
My whole life, I've been the underdog.
I think that's where the whole sleeper thing really attracts to me the most.
Growing up to be who I am today really didn't come from where I was.
I mean, I learned how I didn't want to be.
I didn't have any money.
My father, he was an alcoholic.
He likes to drink.
That's what he liked to do.
He just wasn't a father.
I didn't have that direction when I was growing up.
It made me not want to be like him.
So if you were to know me then versus knowing me now, you'd be like, you'd be like, "Wow, he actually made it, he did all right.
" I got here just from lots of hard work.
It felt really good to win the first race.
- You did it! - I know.
Especially with my '92 Plymouth Colt.
It blows my mind.
It was designed to get you from A to B, get you about 40 miles a gallon with its 1.
5-liter engine.
They're throwaway cars.
It's such a shitbox, but now, instead of three other guys, I've got to beat six other guys.
And they all want to win, too.
I'm not the only one out here that wants to win.
I love my Colt so much, 'cause it's like family to me at this point.
I've gone through some really bad times in my life with this car, and the car helped me get through that.
I'm confident saying my Colt, she'll do she'll do just fine, against even the most expensive car.
So I did a little research on the Internet and found this guy, David Gomer, who's a record holder, land speed racer, El Mirage.
And he's gonna give me some tips for the final race.
- How are you? - Good, nice to meet you.
- Yeah.
How are you, guys? - What's up, man? I'm Rob.
- Hey, Rob, nice to meet you.
- You too.
Dave Gomer.
We hold the land speed record out there for El Mirage, and that's at 201.
7.
We just set that last year in October.
What I know about the history of El Mirage is that our grandfathers pretty much started out there, and they were taking their Model As that they put a bigger engine in and souped up.
They basically just started hot rodding.
This is no smooth concrete strip he's traveling.
The dry lake bed is full of ruts and bumps.
When those guys go out there, they're going 200 miles an hour at El Mirage.
Different from what we are doing, but going out there definitely is some serious history, and I think it'd be awesome to bring my 1927 Dodge out there and clean up the competition, you know? It's just like throwing it back to when it originally started.
We have the nitrous on a progressor.
Do you? I mean, out there, I've seen guys hit that nitrous, and they've spun these things out.
They've ended up on their lids.
I would say don't even run the nitrous.
He thinks that I shouldn't use the nitrous, but I'm going to have to use the nitrous.
I don't make enough power on the motor to get it done.
What did you do now to get ready? We got the nitrous controller working great.
- Which is a progressive one.
- Yeah.
We want to progress it really easy.
Safety is not the first on his mind.
Safety is first on my mind, and we kind of butt heads when it comes to that.
I don't know what I would do if anything happened to him.
She hates when I add more nitrous to it, and safety's very important.
So I try to do safety, and then a little more speed.
And then safety and a little more speed to keep her happy.
She thinks I'm nuts and I'm gonna die.
Wow, look at this.
Dude, if this is what we're racing on, we're in trouble.
The desert's gonna be really tricky for everyone.
Do you know how to race on this type of Absolutely not.
I have no idea.
Sarah, did you research dirt racing? 'Cause you had one job.
No, I didn't.
We just need to find somewhere that's smooth, not a whole bunch of dirt, like not sandy.
Look.
Right here.
Rabbit Lake.
It's 25 minutes from here.
Sarah, if the car don't hook, we're gonna have to put you in the trunk, get a little extra weight back there for traction.
I hate you.
Look at all the dirt's that picking up I've never made any test passes on a dry lake bed, so hopefully it'll give us some good data, see what we need to do to prepare for El Mirage.
Here, we should probably put the air filter on now.
My Thunderbird is definitely a tribute car for my friend Blake, after he died.
We built it in remembrance of Blake, 'cause he had a Thunderbird.
It was good for my sister to get a guy that truly cared about her.
Blake was a genuine, good person.
So it made me happy that, you know, they got together.
After Blake died, Stefan watched over me.
It's helped me a lot.
Stefan's a great guy, and I'm very thankful that he's my brother.
- How was it? - It was slow.
Oh, boy.
I don't know.
It was it was spinning a little bit.
I mean, it's not that easy.
The sleeper cars and the supercars are gonna have a hard time.
The feeling of racing a Ferrari, the engineering of it when you press on the throttle, is an invigorating feeling.
Because you just feel completely surrounded by this amazing sound and thrill of power, is unlike any other.
Especially when you do full throttle on that car, it's a blast.
The last thing I thought I would ever be doing, a drag race in dirt, in El Mirage.
I mean, that's funny.
I've only ever tried that car on a track.
So what do you think, you excited? Yeah, I'm excited and a little nervous, just wondering how everyone's gonna handle the craziness of it all.
I don't know anything about El Mirage, so I'm trying to do some research with my coach.
Dry lakebed in northwestern Victor Valley of the central Mojave Desert.
On the surface, there's gonna be dust, real fine dust, and that's where the difficulty, I think, is gonna be, in the launch.
Yeah, because I feel like those other cars, like the sleepers, they're gonna really get a good start.
But I don't know about them furthering it down the road where I think I'm gonna have that advantage.
We won't know, you know, what it's like until we get there.
But the great part about that is, same thing with the six other people Yeah, that's what makes it fun.
So we've got to remember, like, as nervous as you get - Right.
- There's always somebody more nervous.
What did I get myself into here? - There she is.
- There she is.
The yellow beast.
You've got the Michelin Pilot Supersports.
I mean, sticky tires, you know.
So it's gonna get us ideal traction, and it still is a street-based tire, so it's meant to evacuate water and other debris.
- Right.
- And we've got 660 horsepower.
Once it gets moving, man, I mean, that's where reliability You know, the engineering built into the car is gonna be fantastic.
Yeah, it's pretty funny that Turbo Tony, the street racing legend from Connecticut is spreading out to the west coast now.
We did drive 3000 miles to fuck up everyone.
It is how it's gonna be.
We're gonna take out everyone.
That's it.
There's no other way to do it.
Never thought I'd be racing in a dry lakebed in California.
I found this place locally called Rabbit Lake.
It's another dry lakebed.
It's not the same as El Mirage, but it's similar.
So I'm gonna go over there and test it so I have some type of experience on it, so I know how much power to take in and out of the car.
What I'm doing in a front-wheel drive car, nobody has done in my car.
Nobody.
Like, the people that go fast in these cars make them all-wheel drive.
So you use a softer tire.
So I bought a different tire this time, and we're gonna try it out and give it absolutely the best I can possibly do with what I'm given.
- He didn't ev - Definitely babied it out of the hole too.
I mean, he's gone, but you didn't hear him get into it.
Still can't even see him.
With the dirt, like, if I'm behind everybody, which I notoriously am behind everybody, I have to drive through the dirt as well as no visibility to get around these people.
So I'm kind of hoping that I get out ahead so I can see.
I wanna be able to see what I'm doing.
That's it.
I've seen all I need to see.
Being the underdog, I have nothing to lose.
- Hello.
- Hi.
So, Mom, what do you think about the race? Of course, I'm always a little bit worried every time you do anything.
I hope I make you proud by winning this race.
Well, I hope you do too.
But I'm pretty sure you will.
You will let me know, won't you? - I'll call you right after the race.
- Oh, that'd be awesome.
All right.
Well, I love you.
Bye.
I just picked up the car this morning.
My experience is none driving on dirt.
There's a lot of unknown factors involved.
But, you know, I've been thinking about this race for a while.
And I'm trying to figure out what can I do to give me any sort of advantage? I'm going to pull out every little bit of weight that I can from the car.
Personally, I've been eating super healthy for the past month, to try to cut off a few pounds.
I'm doing everything I can to win this race.
I'm just gonna use all the wisdom and experience I've gained driving these cars in the past, and hopefully it can do me good out there.
I will say I'm surprised you're actually doing this after that.
Yeah, everybody told me I should just, probably just lay at home and rest my leg.
So I go to light a fire, I'm on the phone, I'm in the middle of doing 20 things.
And I'm like, hey, yeah, I'm gonna have to let you go.
Well, the gas can caught on fire.
So I walk over there and I kick the gas can into the fire pit, thinking, "Hey, let's get it out of the grass.
" Well, when I kicked it, it obviously squirted on my foot.
So I jumped in the pond.
My sock and my shoe was pretty much melted to my foot.
Ripped it off.
I'm looking at it.
I'm like, yeah, it don't look that bad, you know, running cold water on it.
But soon as I took the water off of it, man, it started to blister up and got pretty bad.
It was stupid, wasn't thinking.
But you would have to cut my foot off so I wouldn't be able to drive.
I've got a race tomorrow at El Mirage, and I got second and third degree burns on my leg.
It's my driving foot.
You're looking at three months' recovery on that.
Yeah.
I'm good.
I think it's all right.
I feel like most people would've quit at this point.
But Detroit doesn't quit.
We hustle harder.
All right, let's test-fit this thing and let's see if this will be our key to keeping everything clean going down the dirt.
Sure hope so.
I think the El Mirage is gonna be a lot of fun, especially for my situation and my truck.
I mean, what better vehicle to go to an event that's a drag race on dirt than a truck? I mean, cars don't belong on the dirt.
That's why cars are on the street.
All right.
There we go.
That's what I'm talking about.
Should keep everything clean.
That'll definitely keep the dust out of it.
Tire choice is always a huge deal.
So what we're gonna do, instead of running our slicks, we're gonna switch over to all-terrains on this particular one.
Obviously, out on the dirt, you need that traction.
I've ordered them.
They're not in yet.
They're supposed to be in right before we have to leave.
So I know we don't have the tires yet, but it's gonna be the same idea.
So let's launch out, and let's just kind of see what the all-terrains do in the dirt.
Yeah, there we go.
That's what I'm talking about.
The all-terrains are gonna be perfect for the dirt.
We're gonna take all of our tires with us just in case, conditions are different than what I'm expecting.
I'm thinking we leave on a little bit lower boost than normal, to make sure we don't spin too much and we can get out of the hole quick.
I think with the all-terrains, though, she may kick just a touch sideways, you know, at the beginning.
But I think after that, it's gonna start shooting straight just like she always does.
Being 18 foot long, it's a little hard to keep it sideways.
Exactly.
It's a lot of pressure on me to make sure that going into this next event, that I put that truck in the winner's circle.
So my plan is, is just to get off the line first, leave everybody behind me, and just make sure that I get to that stripe before anyone else.
I'm ready to race, but if something does show up that's lighter and has a little bit more horsepower, I'll be worried about them.
But as of right now, I'm pretty confident.
The last thing I thought, is I would ever be doing a seven-wide drag race with supercars and then sleeper cars in dirt, in El Mirage.
It's unlike anything in racing, so it's gonna be really pretty cool to watch.
I'm kind of worried about some inexperienced driver losing control on this surface.
But I'm probably the most experienced driver out of all of them.
I feel like I should be able to out-drive them.
There's rarely an occasion that you get to go 3000 miles away from home to race your car, to try to be the fastest car.
I hate losing.
Anybody that knows me, they will attest to it, that I'm a very competitive person in anything I do, so.
I feel like the pressure is extremely on me now to take home the victory.
I'm in a supercar, I can't let a sleeper car win.
So how many supercars you think there is? - I think it's all gonna be supercars.
- No.
I think there's at least three, four of them.
- No.
- I believe, I think so.
- I hope there's some sweet shit, though.
- I hope there's some fast shit.
- That's what I'm hoping.
- What? Whose side are you on here? - We're faster, so it don't matter! - You just said fast shit! In order to be nervous requires some bit of knowledge.
I have almost none when it comes to drag racing, and literally none when it comes to racing on dirt.
None of us really know what to expect, so I guess I'm the first to find out.
I'm definitely getting excited.
Excited to see what shows up, and figure out what it's gonna take to beat them.
- Hey, Corey.
How's it going? - How's it going? Good to see you again.
Pepper, this is Corey.
- Corey, Pepper.
- Nice to meet you.
- Good to meet you.
- Yeah.
Coming from the distance, it looks a lot like Mad Max.
Yeah, pretty much.
- That's awesome.
- I'm pretty sure it belongs out here, so.
- Oh, 100 percent.
- Yeah.
So I don't know a lot about these motors.
This is an LS-1 out of a, like, 2002 Corvette.
And it's a, like, sequential shifter? It's actually a two-speed transmission.
So basically one shift and - Okay.
- that's it.
That makes it easy.
Mind if I take a picture? Go for it.
So what do you got over here? Lamborghini Huracán? Yeah.
Just a Huracán.
It's bone stock, four-wheel drive on.
I'm interested to see how it does out here.
- Yeah, me too.
- What do you think? I'm curious how the electronics work on the dirt.
Well, when you do the launch mode, all the traction, - stability control's completely off.
- Oh, really? - Uh-huh.
- Ooh.
If I wind up facing the wrong way, then, you know, come up with plan B.
Don't look too close at the turbos.
How much does an oil change cost? Don't know.
So this actually isn't my car.
- Whose car is it? - My friend's.
I borrowed it.
- Yeah, that's a nice friend.
- Yeah.
So you haven't driven this car a whole lot? This next launch I'm gonna do on my test run will be - my fourth launch in it ever.
- Okay.
And to be honest, it's probably my fifth quarter-mile race ever.
So I'm extreme amateur.
I'm just curious to what your computer does - to what my hand does, you know? - Right.
- Man versus machine.
- It totally is.
If I win, can I have your emblem off the back? He's only raced it, I guess, four times, so the experience isn't really there.
But the car does have a computer, and literally, he said it's like playing a video game.
So we're pretty much man versus machine, you know? Lunch Money.
You know, he knows what he's doing.
He's got the setup.
He's definitely a serious contender out here.
- All right.
Bring it.
What's next? - I know.
Here it comes, I think.
On a trailer.
This ain't my type of racing, so I've never raced dirt before.
It's not my cup of tea.
It's gonna be interesting.
I'm actually excited.
- So good to see you again.
- Hey, buddy.
How y'all doing? - I'm Stefan.
- Stefan, Pepper.
- Which car you got? - The Lambo.
- The Lambo? Corey, how you doing? - Corey.
You want to give us some hints? What's going on here? It's just a small-block Ford with one stage of nitrous.
- How small-block? - 427.
- Oh, that's big, big small block.
- Yeah, big small.
- What about y'all? - 1927 Dodge, LS-1.
- Oh, God.
- Small shot.
How small of a shot? - Small.
- Cool.
- What you gonna try to do, hard launch? - I don't know.
- You gonna see how your test runs go? - Yeah.
We're just gonna play it by ear.
Come on, guys.
You got balls.
- Do you want to bet anything? - Yeah.
- How much? - Well, let's see what all shows up.
Well, come on, let's get them balls out.
I mean, you know, if we want to act arrogant.
- All right.
- Yeah, I don't like him.
He really rubbed me the wrong way.
I don't know.
There's a lot going on in my head, and I'm really just trying to, like, stay calm and just race my own race.
We'll see.
We'll see.
This is like my fifth time drag racing, anyways.
- So it's pretty much all new to me.
- Yeah.
I think the El Mirage is gonna be a lot of fun, especially for my situation and my truck.
I mean, what better vehicle to go to an event that's a drag race on dirt than a truck.
I mean, you know, cars don't belong on the dirt.
That's why cars are on the street.
- Yeah, good morning.
- I'm good.
That Dodge truck's tires, you know? He's got four massive off-road tires.
It was made for this.
I love that it's a Dodge, you know? And it's good that we can put the Dodges in first and second.
Can't guarantee which position you'll be in, but we'll be in first and second.
I think the diesel's going to do very well.
I think so too.
I think we're gonna be surprised by it.
I don't think any of these cars here can beat me, but we'll see what happens.
It's gonna be a learning experience.
How many more supercars are gonna show up or is it all sleeper cars? I don't know.
I think it's gonna be a good mix.
Ron, he's a nice guy, really nice guy.
Seems pretty cool.
Got a really cool truck.
I think he probably has an advantage on leaving on the line, but I think I'm gonna do a high gear drive-by, so.
Since the last race, I had motor problems, and I was very upset with it.
I did the opposite of what everybody else told me to do, and it actually worked.
But I got it running better enough for this race.
Uh-oh.
Fuck it! Sick of fucking starting this thing.
I knew nothing about El Mirage dry lake bed until a couple weeks ago, kind of researched it, and I looked it up.
And I was like, holy shit.
Of course I've got to take a piss.
Introduce yourself.
Everyone, this is Ryan.
- Ryan, this is everyone.
- Ryan, welcome to the lake bed.
- Nice to meet you.
Ryan.
- I'm Ron.
- So you haven't raced here.
- What's up? I'm Pepper.
- Ryan.
- Ryan, good to meet you.
- What you driving? - The Lamborghini way down there.
- Have you raced out here? No? - No.
No.
- They got lots of in Texas.
- Have you raced out here? Fuck, no! I'm all the way from Michigan.
I'd have came with tires like that if I'd have known.
You've got to put on the right dancing shoes for the area you're going.
- I'm just winging it.
- What happened to your foot? - Fucking burned my leg.
- Oh, boy.
- How? - Kicked the fire like a dumbass.
- Where are you from, again? - Fort Worth, Texas.
- Texas? - Yeah.
- Blake Williams.
- My best friend.
He had an identical car to this.
We built this as a duplicate.
Guy lost control at one of our tracks and hit him and killed him.
Sorry to hear about that.
So we built this car as a tribute car, if you will.
Yeah, my truck's kind of in memory of my buddy Brandon Newman.
He passed away, so we're in the same thing.
- Yeah.
So - Bad-ass.
My buddy Brandon Newman, he was a good friend to everybody.
If you needed anything, he would be there.
Basically, I made my truck fast in memory of him.
He got mixed up in a wrong crowd.
I believe someone dared him to do some drugs, and, you know, they thought it was funny or something.
He actually did it, and they were like, "Oh, fuck.
" And then, he didn't wake up.
If I win, he's gonna love it.
When I see a car in memory of somebody, I want to hear the story and see what happened.
But you don't want to keep bringing it up, if it's a touchy story.
When someone asks me what happened to my buddy, or asks us why it says that, I get goosebumps.
I get chills.
It really gets to me.
I'm feeling kind of lonely out here.
I was expecting at least maybe, you know, a healthy mix, but so far, I'm the only guy in a car that hasn't been built by their bare hands.
Got two more cars coming.
There has to be one, at least, one exotic coming.
I can't be the only one.
El Mirage is extremely dangerous.
It's just dirt.
Most of the people that go on these dry lake beds or salt flats, they do it from rolling speed.
We have to do it from a dead standstill, which makes it extremely difficult, being in a front-wheel drive car as well.
How you doing? Good to see you, Tony.
- How's it going, man? - Good.
Are you ready for the dust this time? I see that little filter you've got in the front.
- Good to see you.
Thanks for coming out.
- Definitely.
Tony, this is everyone.
Everyone, this is Tony.
- I'm Ron.
Nice to meet you.
- Tony.
How's it going? So just one car left until I'm the only exotic.
If it's just me, the pressure's on.
I represent the supercar world.
I can't lose.
=Here comes the other car.
- Is that a girl? Get the fuck out of here.
- What? - I don't know, I see hair.
- Yeah, that's a girl.
To see a woman in a man's world, it's always interesting.
And you put the time in, and you're just as good as they are.
It's the car is the big equalizer.
- All righty then.
- Good to see you again.
Nice to see you guys, too.
Oh, my God, I love the socks.
- Those are great.
- Thanks for coming out.
Happy to be here.
- Good to see you again.
- Very cool.
I think it's cool.
There's a lot of females that can drive good, so I think it's cool.
My sister's a girl and she races.
So I mean, you know, she's a bad-ass, so I'm sure she is too.
We got all kinds of oddball stuff going on out here, so I figured there'd be at least one female driver.
As a young girl, I got inspired from a woman that was a drag racer, Shirley Muldowney.
When I saw people get around her, and her get her helmet on and her gloves, it was pretty cool.
If I can just make women feel like, "Hey, I'm a girl and I'm doing this, you can do the same.
" It's a great feeling.
- Lisa, this is everybody.
- Hello! - Hi, everybody.
- This is Lisa.
- Lisa.
- This is gonna be great.
- Welcome to the lake bed.
- Happy to be here.
- Drivers, who else? Drivers? - Here.
- I'm Corey.
- Corey.
- Hot rod down there that you'll see.
- Very cool, Corey.
Hi, Lisa.
- This is Rob, he's on our team.
- Rob, very cool.
Should've heard the guesses as you were way off in the distance.
They were like, is that an Aventador? No, a Huracán, no, an Enzo.
I see one over there somewhere in this midst.
Whose is that? - The Huracán's mine.
- Is that hi, I'm Lisa.
- Pepper.
- Pepper, nice to meet you.
- You too.
- Great car you have, wow.
You know what? I'm really happy that at least another supercar showed up.
- Yeah, was wondering if there were others.
- Thought I was gonna be the lone warrior.
Yeah.
Sleeper cars, I think, have a good chance off this start.
Where I think the supercars you've got that "see you later" moment.
So, first, before we get started, I want to say thank you for coming out.
And I want to congratulate you for making it to the finals, so.
Definitely some interesting vehicles.
Hearing some of the stories it'll be a good race.
It'll be a real good race.
I mean, there's There's definitely, definitely some talent here.
So, they're just, none of them are set up for dirt, you know? That's the biggest thing, is I'd be worried out on the pavement, I really would.
But I'm not too worried here.
People don't expect trucks to be fast.
They expect them to be utilitarian.
- Underestimated.
- Yeah.
- People that have trucks stick with them.
- Seems like the underdog.
But I'd rather have this truck than the damn Lamborghini or Ferrari.
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't want the cleaning bill on those cars.
Typically you race one car, so you think about that one car.
When you think about seven cars, you lose track of who you try to think about, - and then another one distracts you.
- Right.
The pluses and minuses of each.
Yeah, I'm just gonna run my own race, that's for sure.
Everyone stays in their lane, it's all good, right? She has more racing experience than I do, by far.
I have never been in Ferrari Challenge.
I think the Ferrari 488 has a good chance of taking it.
It makes more horsepower than the Lamborghini that's here, so.
We're gonna give you two test runs.
We'll bring in all of the competitors, line everybody up, and then one by one, you'll go out and do your two test runs.
Then we'll come back, and after that, we'll do the race.
Considering the amount of engineering that goes into the aerodynamics of this car Yes.
how unstable I feel down at the end of this track on this, I'm really worried.
It almost feels like - I'm about to come up off the ground.
- Okay.
Just 'cause I'm skating around on this thin layer of dust.
- Okay.
- So it might be a little dangerous.
After my test run, I'm gonna get a little bit more aggressive with it.
I could put a little bit more power to it.
My strategy for those test runs is basically one's gonna be with launch mode, and one's gonna be in race mode.
And I'm gonna do them both full throttle and see what the car gives me.
We kind of made our decision based on a couple things as far as throttle off the go, and it seems like for me, no launch control's gonna be the best for this surface.
- How you doing, mama? - Doing good, honey.
- You ready for this? - I'm ready.
I'll go out and make some test hits and just see how she feels.
And see what happens literally when the dust settles out here.
All righty.
There's quite a bit of dust being created off of one car.
Once we go seven-wide, it's gonna be a mammoth cloud.
That just burned him the fuck out.
But it's moving.
- Fuck.
- Something just let off.
What did Dad just do? Son of a bitch.
Hey, jump in that one.
I'm gone.
Fuck.
- What? - We blew a boot.
- What? - A boot.
- I can hear it.
- Come on guys.
- Watch yourself.
- Go.
With two turbos, I've created a lot of boost in there, and the boot that goes between the primary and secondary turbos looks like it split.
I was hoping it just popped off, but it looks like it split.
And then we're gonna pull it off and we're gonna see if it's salvageable.
- Yeah, you got the bottom one? - No, that's one we're working up to.
This is the first time I've ever had this pop.
So that's why I don't even have a spare, because I've never lost it.
Come on, sweetheart.
It is the most tricky environment I've ever tried to race a car in.
I'm ready to race.
I don't give a shit.
Go! I was more excited after I got to do the test run.
I want to show what I can do, and that I'm a good racer, and good driver, and pretty much, I'll do anything to race.
- There you go.
- I got it.
That's no bueno.
That ain't gonna work.
I know what it's like to be like that.
It ain't good.
We're gonna try and take an intercooler boot off of Jaime's truck and put it on to mine, to get us back up and rolling.
- It's gonna be tight.
- So all we can do is try.
That's all racing is, trying.
You do what you have to do to make it run.
If you break something on the Lamborghini or Ferrari it's done for the day.
Everybody else, duct tape and hopes and dreams.
If I felt that I was so much faster than them, it wouldn't feel as good.
So to win today, it would feel great.
I mean, there's some serious fast cars out here.
Sleeper cars, I think they have an edge, because we're all wanting to go faster and build something fast.
We're not just buying something that maybe has 600 horsepower and some advanced computer and cool steering wheel, you know? We're more performance.
We're ready to go.
It's all we got, so make it or break it.
This is the way she's going down the track.
All drivers over here, please.
We're about to do something that hasn't been done before, and you guys are the first to do it.
So give yourselves a round of applause, all right? So I'm about to go over the rules for the event this afternoon.
The race will start upon a signal visible to all vehicles.
And that'll be red to green, and you want to go on green.
What we're gonna do is have you guys go back to your cars, and we are gonna go out to the track area.
- We're gonna do it one by one.
- All right.
- Good luck to everybody.
- Good luck.
Good luck, guys.
Be safe, man.
Be safe.
- Have fun.
Good luck.
- Yes, you too.
- Good luck.
- Have fun, be safe.
- All right, brother.
- All right.
Strategy is still the same, what you call pedal the cars.
Come off of idle, and just slowly accelerate and feel the traction.
I want to show what I can do.
I'll do anything to race, you know? Nothing's gonna stop me.
Everybody's just gone over and above to get this truck to this point and this is what I said we'd do.
We had some failures today, and hopefully we've got them patched up enough to get us one hit.
We'll see what happens.
Being a role model for women, whether you win or lose, you're out there and you're with the guys.
That kind of just shows that you can put your mind to something, and you can compete against anybody.
I'm gonna win this race.
I have confidence in my car.
I think I've got these other guys.
It's a lot of unknowns out here, and I'm still feeling good.
It's up to me to be quick on the reaction, and up to the car to perform its best.
Blake would probably be saying, "You got it.
Don't worry about them.
Go fuck them up.
" Fuck! The Lamborghini has taken the first spot.
Second is a photo finish between the Ferrari and the Thunderbird.
Fuck! Well, that fucking sucked.
Hey, mom.
- How are you? - Guess what? What? Pretty sure I just won the race.
What do you mean you're pretty sure? I definitely won the race.
I looked out my left, didn't see a single car.
And I was just, this can't be real.
I was starting to feel pretty good.
You know, I was like, I have so much free time, I'm gonna look at my miles per hour.
And I hit 131 right before I crossed the finish line.
Amazing.
Man.
Steak dinner tonight.
I've been vegan for, like, three and a half weeks, but this deserves steak, perhaps even lobster, with a side of chicken wings.
That Huracán kicked my ass off the get-go.
I think ever me or the Ferrari came in second.
It was, like, really tight.
I think it's gonna be a photo finish.
It was hard to tell.
I don't know I bumped it into high gear, but somehow, I just, like, my glove, you know, obviously.
Just the tiniest little bit of pressure.
It was a stupid little error that just put us back right at the beginning.
- Nice job, nice job.
- Hey, you too.
I didn't get to see where you ended up.
It was like a cloud of dust.
Yeah.
I blew a boot, so I was coasting halfway.
Yeah, I think I leave before everyone, 'cause my tires turned, yeah.
But I sit still, spinning, and you're just - Yeah.
- It was like a slingshot, literally.
It's like somebody just pulled him back and let it go like the cars we used to play with, you know? I'm still at the start line, he's already four cones in front.
- Yeah, he was gone.
- He was gone.
So do you guys have any idea who was, like, second, third? - It's either me and her, - Do you know how they were? I was trying to look left, and I didn't see nothing left.
And then, you know, I looked right, and I seen you, and I seen you way on, I had to look through my front windshield to see you.
- Seriously, right? - Yeah.
He was already, you were you were gone.
- Yeah.
- But me and you were close, dude.
- Yeah.
- You had me.
You came up and started driving by me, and right as you were driving by me, my nitrous finally came on.
And I think I really think I nosed you.
- You might have.
- It's gonna be close.
Because I saw you right there, I'm like, shit.
See, that's the kind of finish I like to see.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- The black car could've beat me.
I mean, we were neck and neck there at the end.
I might have eked out second, but we'll see what the replay shows.
You guys put on a show.
You, each and every one of you, you guys should be really proud of what you did.
So thank you so much for that.
Now we have the results.
Starting in seventh place, we have Ron.
- Oh.
- Good run.
I wasn't I wasn't last! I wasn't last! Try to tell us a little bit about what happened.
Basically, just before half track, - I lost that boot again.
- Okay.
So I was on all motor the rest of the trip.
So, you know, there was no power there.
- It was coasting, unfortunately.
- Outstanding.
Okay.
And we have in sixth place, we have Tony.
- Wasn't last.
I wasn't last.
- Good job, buddy.
- Thank you for blowing that top, buddy.
- No problem.
Thank you.
And in fifth place we have Ryan in the S-10.
Good job, buddy.
Good stuff.
All right, and in fourth place, we have Corey.
And it was a solid run.
I mean, you looked good, start to finish.
- It was all right.
- Tell us a little bit about it.
It was human error.
I accidentally bumped it into high gear probably 60 feet out And yeah.
- I made up some, so not too bad.
- Okay, cool.
Cool.
All right.
And second and third place, it was a photo finish.
But after reviewing the footage, third place is Lisa.
Look who's got me.
All right.
And in second place, beating a Ferrari, we have Stefan.
It was, it was close.
It was really close.
I mean, we took off.
I spun.
I think all of us spun but him, you know? And she she you know, I ran out of motor to like half-track, and then she started to drive by me.
And then right as my nitrous came on, I was like, get over here.
And I had to just had to, I couldn't beat her by more than much.
- It was barely, but - It was a photo finish.
No, I knew it was close.
And you actually beat a Ferrari with a car that you built yourself.
It's an old small-block Ford, nothing fancy.
Hats off to both of you.
All right.
And our winner is Pepper.
- Congratulations.
Congratulations.
- Thank you so much.
Yeah.
- Thank you.
- There you go.
There you go.
Man.
It's a dream come true.
Kind of nervous when I saw that big truck pulling out ahead of me, but then I looked out my window and saw no one.
I realized the car was doing its thing.
I mean, it's, it's just a beast.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and, you know, the fact that the top two are from Texas, the second place, also built by himself, beat a Ferrari.
You know, built in a garage with passion, blood, sweat, tears, tons of effort.
The fact that you came out here and defeated a supercar, you know, photo finish, that's exciting.
You know, with that much passion, it doesn't matter.
There's a way to beat them, and it's the passion behind cars, for sure.
- Uh-oh.
- Here we go! There we go! We're all from different walks of life.
We've never met each other.
I think we've all really have an appreciation for whatever anyone drives or plays around with.
It's that respect.
Supercars are beautiful, you know? They're built for one purpose.
Look good and go fast.
I still stand behind my real race-cars are built, not bought.
It took a lot out of me.
I could've quit so many times.
I kept going.
Just got to fix what you can and keep running with it.
If my car was all-wheel drive, I would've won.
No doubt in my mind.
No doubt in my mind whatsoever.
I would've fucked that Lambo up.
But I brought a knife to a gunfight.
It is what it is.
I lost.
End of story.
I screwed it up from the get-go.
It was an error.
I just barely bumped it, and went into high gear.
- And after that, it was over.
- I didn't have a really good run.
The car just didn't give what I had it did in the test sessions for me.
I think I did okay.
I think I did okay for the sleeper cars, too.
I mean, I came in second.
Hey, that's respectable.
I mean, I'm the first loser, but hey, fuck a supercar up.
I think Blake would be happy.
Yeah.
I think he'd be happy.
It's been a long one.
This is something I've been working towards my whole life.
I started taking pictures of cars out of a pure hobby.
I had no idea it would lead me to different corners of the world.
And who would've thought that would've led to me racing a Lamborghini in the middle of the desert and winning?