A busy week with awesome cars
Atty. Jerome G. Neri
The Scrutineer
THE past weeks have been very busy for me. It all started with the opening leg Bacolod Motorsport’s autocross and drag race held from Feb. 4 to 6. Immediately thereafter, I flew to Davao to join Davao Sports Car Club in a fun drive from Davao City to the Municipality of Governor Generoso. This was a 360 km drive total. After Davao, I left for Manila to go to Car Porn Racing to assist them in tuning a Toyota 86 for karting champion Gabe Tayao Cabrerra. In a few days I’ll be off to Cagayan de Oro to tune a couple of Evos and an STI.
Bacolod was a huge success. It Began with Paolo Rojas winning the best time of the day and overall champion in the autocross with Oscar Suarez as the runner up and Ian Tan as class B champion. In the drag race, it was Paolo Rojas again who was Overall Champion with Vergel Vicencio as runner up. I also won in class D driving a Nissan Navarra Pickup. All the cars they used were built and tuned in my shop, Group B Automotive.
Davao was an adventure. It was one of the best drives that I have been to and everyone in the Davao Sports Car Club brought proper cars for the drive. There were STIs, EVOs, GTRs and Mustangs. The further away we were from the City the better the roads were. The roads were so good that there were times when I thought we were just doing about 120 kmh then when I looked at the speedo, we were actually running at 200kmh. How I wish we could have roads like that in Cebu.
The best part of February was my visit to Car Porn Racing. Ian King, the owner, has been a social media friend for some time, but I never met him in person. I’ve seen his builds on social media and they are very radical bordering on insane. The pictures we see of his builds on social media do not do justice to them, while they look good in pictures, when you see them up close and personal, it is even a lot better. I’d say Ian is a V8 addict. His Porsche 911 has an LS3 V8 engine, so does his BMW M5. He also has a Nissan Cefiro, which he converted into an ute that looks like an R34 Skyline, which he calls the skyfiro and, yes, it is has a V8 motor. He also built a radical AE86 for his friend, which they named V86 as it too has a V8.
Victoria is what Ian calls his 911. A lot of purists cringe at what he has done to it. The original body was cut up to make way for a Rauh Welt Begriff (RWB) wide body kit and the flat six air-cooled engine discarded for an American LS3 V8 engine. Contrary to the usual perception that a V8 would destroy the balance and handling of the 911, it actually would not as the LS3 is an all aluminum V8, which makes it no heavier that the original flat six engine. The Porsche also has Car Porns Accuair air suspension system. Air suspension is the only way to proprely stance a car without ruining it. The end result is a 911 that performs better and looks better than it was in original form. How can that be bad?
My other favorite car of Car Porn is their V86. It is just crazy. The body is that of a 1986 Toyota Corolla Levin, otherwise known as the AE86. This is a legendary Toyota car that served as the inspiration of the FT86. The underneath of the car is all Nissan, from suspension, transmission to drive-train. This means that the rear suspension is now fully independent.
The engine is a Toyota V8 from a Lexus SC400. Car Porn also made their own custom wide body kit for this car and of course installed an air suspension system (It would not be a Car Porn car without one). The end result is a one off custom car that looks, sounds and performs great.
I never thought anyone could pull off these kinds of projects and do it right until I saw the finished projects of Car Porn Racing.
