The Pioneers and Cars

The Pioneers and Cars

With the popularity of movies like The Fast and the Furious and its sequel Too Fast Too Furious, import car culture has now become mainstream. What had started out as a small subset of Southern California car culture has quickly become part of American culture. In the same way hot rodding of the 50s and muscle cars of the 60s was a cultural lifestyle of the youths of that era, the import scene is now the new car culture of our generation. Car culture runs deeply in California. Hot rodders and street racers daily cruise the streets, all started from Asian Americans' love of import cars and racing.

Since most Asian Americans in the late 70s and 80s drove Japanese imports, they could not compete with the much more powerful Detroit muscle cars. This resulted in a street-racing scene consisting solely of modified imports. But a lack of aftermarket parts to make the various Toyotas Hondas and Nissans go faster meant that drivers often used nitrous oxide as the best way to compete. As the competition increased, so did the speed and danger. One Asian American who had a vision to race safely also wanted to race at the local drag strip. Unfortunately the track was only reserved for V8's, Mustangs, or Cameros.

Frank Choi set out to form an imports only drag race where the track turned away all the muscle cars. His vision became what is now called the Battle of the Imports, one of the most popular drag series and the first of which was started in 1990. Today there is a professional drag racing series by the National Hot Rod Association as well as the Nopi Drag Racing Association run by an aftermarket company out of Atlanta called Nopi.

Some of the best and most popular import ...

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...t is known today as the import culture or import scene. It is a set of people who challenged the norms and did what couldn't be done. Nobody thought a front wheel drive car could do the quarter mile in 11 seconds, 10 seconds, 9 seconds and then, 8 seconds. Today front wheel drive drag cars can do 8 second passes. I look to them for inspiration for what I would like my car to be in the future. I hope that I can achieve as much as they have done as the underdog, as an entrepreneur, and doing what they most loved.

In an import world dominated by Asian Americans, the scene today has no color lines. It began from Asian American culture's love for cars and wanting to race to proving you don't need a V8 to be fast. As time goes by, the industry will grow and cars will get even faster. Props to the pioneers that wouldn't be denied the chance to do what they love.