“ IT SAID‘ FASTER THAN CORVETTE ZR-1, OUT HANDLES ACURA’ S NSX.’ WHEN I SAW THAT, I STOPPED DEAD IN MY TRACKS.”
THE KING SPEAKS
standing there watching. We finished up number four even with the wreck. The following year-’ 84- we took off. We set a record and we were doing great, and had a horrible wreck- had a shock mount break, car went end over end. We decided it was time to step away.
SRM: During that break, you made a pretty significant transition, moving into high performance street cars. What prompted that transition? It’ s definitely a challenge for a lot of racers to do that- something that could be seen as taking a step down, or moving backwards.
BH: Well, what happened was I had a brand-new Corvette, had a brandnew 1984‘ Vette, and I’ d done an even swap. I had a fully customized‘ 70 that had a blower on it and all this stuff, and I did an even swap at a dealership, that car for a brandnew‘ 84 Corvette. I only had that‘ 84 Vette for a short while and a buddy of mine, a doctor walked into my office and he said,‘ Come go ride in my new car.’ It was a Porsche 911 Turbo. I knew nothing about turbochargers and this was around‘ 85 or so. I went out and went for a ride and I was amazed when I felt the turbo come in. He kicked it a number of times to let me feel this unique form of power that I’ d never felt before. So within about a week and a half, I had gotten rid of the‘ Vette and I had one. It was just that quick, because I was bitten by it that quickly. I played with two different 911 Turbos and had a really good time playing with them. But one day I was walking by a newsstand, around‘ 93, and as I was walking by I glanced and there was a red Toyota Supra on the cover and I stopped. I thought it was a sharp looking car and on the top right hand corner of the cover,
“ IT SAID‘ FASTER THAN CORVETTE ZR-1, OUT HANDLES ACURA’ S NSX.’ WHEN I SAW THAT, I STOPPED DEAD IN MY TRACKS.”
it said‘ Faster than Corvette ZR-1, out handles Acura’ s NSX.’ When I saw that, I stopped dead in my tracks. I mean, this thing is faster than a ZR-1? So again, very, very shortly after, I had one, and so I started playing with them. My first one I totaled. I was rearended in a multiple car accident, but that didn’ t stop me. I just went right on into my next one, next one and next one. I did a total of seven. I learned a lot about turbocharging and exactly how it works. Several of them, I was in deals with Peter Blach where he would have it, for example, halfway built. I would take it and finish it off and then he would buy it back. I mean, we went back and forth on two different black Supras. So I had a good time building my Supras, and then in the end I sold him the wrong one. I sold him my favorite street car ever. It was a‘ 98 black on black and I kept my‘ 97 black on black. It was a lot more powerful and it made about 1200 to the tire back in the day. It was just a lot more powerful car. So this car was super quick. It was an upper eight second car. It was really, back in the day, a very quick car. But the mistake I made is I kept it.
SRM: The mistake was keeping it? Can you elaborate on that?
BH: Just on a given July the 4th, I went for a ride to get my wife a birthday card and I took the Supra out because it hadn’ t been out in a while. I turned on the gas to make sure everything was working properly and, like an idiot, I allowed myself to be aggravated by another car. The car was a Cadillac CTS-V, incredibly loud, running drag radials and all this stuff, and I just allowed my button to be pushed. We went off of I-45 onto a road called 2920
54 STREETRACE