Moroso nationals

TOYO TIRES NIRA IMPORT NATIONALS
Moroso Motorsports Park. By G^Sport.
For Performance Car Mag.

The 11th of April saw the beginning of the 1999, Toyo Tires NIRA National Drag racing
Season.
The Event was held at Moroso Motorsports Park, NW Palm Beach County, Florida.
The Venue is a sight in its self.
They have a 2.25 mile ten turn road course and a state-of-the-art NHRA sanctioned quarter mile drag strip. There are permanent rest-rooms, concession stands and a skid pad.
They have their own gas pumps stocked with 92 Octane Premium Unleaded, GT 100, CAM II 110, 112, and 118.
Moroso Park hosts more than 500 events each season. It attracts 500,000 people a year!

All that aside, I was there to see some “IMPORT” cars! New Technology, go hard rice burners!
I had heard that the Yanks had some Fast "Imports" and I wanted to see them "in the flesh". There were NO Uncle Sam big block cast iron sea anchors here, just 2’s, 4’s and 6’s. They did have some help though, Turbos, NOS and MORE NOS.
They put NOS on anything over there, even go-peds!

They don’t allow any “Mussel “cars in the event, so it was very similar to our own annual Rotary and 4’s (6’s this year fellas?) Nationals.
There was one major difference; they have a very limited variety of Jappers compared to New Zealand, even less than Australia! I guess this is due to their import laws, dealer or Manufacturer choices and no less the fact that they drive on the "wrong" side of the road. No Tokyo auction leftovers here!
There were no Skylines, GTR’s or otherwise, no Evo’s, no WRX’s, not even a Nissan Cedric or an old beat up Cosmo. There is, however, a rumour that Nissan North America will be introducing the R34 coupe in the U.S. in the year 2000.

The 4WD cars they have (MitsuBEEshes) are slow compared to the rear wheel drive cars and even some of the front wheel cars. The fastest time I saw was a 12.6 most of them were in the 13’ and even 14’s. YUCK. I guess this is because they don’t sell any decent 4wd cars over there.
The few front and rear wheels drive models they do have were there in abundance and as fast as they looked!
There was a stock looking red 94 civic that ran a 13.8 and a couple of VTECs in the 11’s and one in the 10’s. A red Mitsubishi something did 10.6 @ 129 MPH.

The drag track has a 310 foot launching pad, and when they say "Launch" you'd better believe it. These guys launch hard. I guess it's a combination of earning US dollars and having a track that’s magnetised for rubber. They sprayed some sticky stuff on the track every chance the got. They can RUN PROPPER TYRES too, with out needing a cage (or a mortgage) and, Shit, for some of the classes they don't even need a helmet!

The main event was power 6. The main contenders were 6 FD RX7s, and 5 Supras. Some of these guys were running in the tens.
Apparently, according to spectator Tom, the power 6 class leader alternates between the FD’s and the Supras. The Supras are pretty impressive, especially the Black ”Dynamic Turbo” Supra from Miami with a tricked out auto trans.
He didn’t lift the wheels of the ground like the RED FD but he ran consistent low 10’s and a best of 10.06 @ 139 MPH for the day.
I couldn’t get any commitments on the true power output but I would guess it would have to be in the 800’s and then there’s the NOS as well so…hell I dunno…a lot!
In the semi finals, the Black ”Dynamic Turbo” Supra beat the red FD with a 10.39 vrs 10.94.
It was all up to Pettit racing’s Black X-1R FD RX7 in the final. Pettit had been running low 11’s all day and even with NOS the race looked like a dun deal. The ”Dynamic Turbo” Supra redlighted giving the win to Pettit with an 11.24.
Pettit had Tent set up which acted as the FD focal point. There were 11 FDs hanging around. His showcase 20B REW BANZAI FD was there. They must have spent countless hours working on the conversion. It really looked like a factory install.
Judging by the price on the only 20b I saw for sale, (US$5200), the conversion must have cost a fortune as well. There was no computer with it, but I guess you could use the auto as a giant paper weight.

There was a massive field of “Classic” entrants. I counted at least 18. These cars are LOUD. Most of them were 1970’s 4’s, RX’ s and 4’s with Rotarys in them. They had PPs, Turbos and more NOS, of course.
I think there’s nothing better than a pair of 13b’s bouncing off the rev limiters in the tyre trough.
The “Classic” cars were doing some great times that made the only NSX’s 14’s look pretty sad.
A little Blue Starlet, with what sounded like a 13B PP, did mid 12’s with a 12.44 best. A Suzuki Samurai jeep (yeah you read right, a jeep) with a 13B did 12.90 and the best wheelies! A DATsun 1200 did 13.50.
The White Toyota starlet “LA VIRA” did an 11.10.
No one could miss the beautifully prepared stock silver RX2 coupe (14.07).
Unfortunately I missed the times of some of the other cars.
There was a tubbed DATsun 1200 and a tubbed Datsun 1600 called “El BESTO”.
All the cars I saw at the event were incredibly well built and presented.

The final event was the Burn out Comp.
Unfortunately the cars had to remain static, which made it bloody boring compared to the “Down under way” with full on, barely controlled, cheezy fish tailing and donuts. They run two cars side by side, but you couldn’t see either of them for the smoke. A Ute won the burn out comp. He went hard, made a hell of a lot of smoke, blew a tyre and destroyed a wheel.

I hope there are a lot of project cars under way here for the October Nationals. We have some pretty tough times to shoot for.
I’m sure the new track surface at Meremere will allow us to see some N.Z records broken!