- Phantom
Opala! Opala! Opala!
As much fun as we had in Brazil thanks to our friends at Fueltech, no doubt that the highlight of the trip was the following experience.
For those of you that have never been to Brazil, they have these little cars called the Chevy Opala, not to be confused with an Opel. These cars feature a 250ci inline 6 cylinder engine and manual transmissions. I witnessed these machines running anywhere from 13 second 1/4 miles all the way down to the 7 second range. These methanol drinking, fire-breathing, manually shifted, small tire monsters were a site to see for sure!
Shawn and Dave's excitement over the Opala was quickly noticed and the guys from Fueltech immediately went to work without them knowing and secured a couple of rides for them to pilot down the Velopark track. But they didn't just find them any regular Opala's to drive. No no no...they came up with two of the quickest and fastest cars on the property! Shawn (Murder Nova) would be piloting the yellow Liberty shifted, 10.5" slick tire with wheelie bars Opala while Dave would be rowing gears in his H-pattern shifted, drag radial Opala. For the first time ever sitting in either of their respective cars being as they suited up to roll into the burnout box, they both made a helluva pass while dumping the clutch and rowing gears! Unfortunately, as soon as Shawn pulled his into fourth gear, he hit an overboost protection which shut the car off just before the 1/8th mile. Dave, however, shoved his into high gear and made it all the way to 1/4 mile stripe! Check it out in the video below!

