JUSTIN KEITH
So, you wanted a purpose-built drag car?
No, not at all. I built the car exclusively for street
racing, mainly to go to TX2K and roll-race on the
highway. I only took it to a drag strip once and it
went 10.0 at 154 miles per hour on a low boost
setting. It didn’t have a cage in it or anything like
that. It was built specifically to roll-race down in
Houston at TX2K. The car made around 1,200
horsepower at the rear wheels. It could have easily
been turned into a drag car, but that wasn’t what
I wanted. I wanted to go down there with a 2010
Camaro that everyone thinks is just heavy and
slow and drag some ass. I mean, that’s what I did.
I raced some of the fastest cars down there and
won. And that got a lot of people’s attention.
TX2K down in Houston, at least up until the
incredible number of videos on the Internet
kind of let the cat out of the bag, was like the
Super Bowl of illegal street racing, wasn’t it?
Yeah, it was crazy fun. It’s really not been the
same since. Between the cops and the hotels
tightening up the security in their parking lots,
not letting you in without a room key and things
like that, I guess the city just finally caught on to
what was going on. It’s a bit of a buzz kill.
From what I understand, those big meets like
TX2K were some of the inspiration for what has
become your and Chase Lautenbach’s Street
Car Takeover, correct?
Yeah, that’s right. I actually had done some car
events in and around Kansas City and in 2013 we
did this event called KC2K13 and we had a ton of
people show up. It was a whole parking lot packed
full of a thousand cars and everyone loved it. It
was awesome. So, one day I get this call from
Chase and Kyle [Loftis] from 1320Video.com and
they asked if I’d be interested in trying to do events
like that one and traveling with it, like go to different cities across the country and put on events
like that. I loved the idea, but I had a full-time job
and c ouldn’t just up and quit. I told them I could
help with it on the weekends, but they encouraged me and said that we’d just do them on weekends that I could get off from work. Kyle didn’t
have time to run an event because he was busy
with 1320Video, so he thought Chase and I could
put the events on together and he’d just film it
and help promote it. That’s basically how the
whole Street Car Takeover deal started.
Now, though, you’ve quit your job and do
Street Car Takeover full-time, right?
Yeah, it’s crazy. That first year we did four events,
and then in 2015 we did 12. This year we’ll end
up doing 15 or 16.
Did you sell the 2010 Camaro to get started
with the race series?
Yeah. The motivation behind selling the car was
just that we’d started doing these events and I
wanted a car that was representative of what we
were doing—getting huge groups of street car
enthusiasts together, but was manageable. I was
spending basically all my time working on the
2010 Camaro, always breaking stuff, always
pouring every dime I had into it, so my thought
process was to get rid of it and get a brand-new
C7 Corvette so I could spend more time on Street
Car Takeover, but still have a cool car that I could
go out and enjoy—maybe not as fast as cars I’d
had previously, but still fast and fun.
That didn’t last long.
No, it didn’t last long (laughs). The Corvette
started off as a car that I wanted to just leave
stock and enjoy, just drive it and have fun. I figured
BRING IT BACK
Keith had parted company with his
beloved silver 2002 Chevy Camaro a
few years back while getting Street Car
Takeover off the ground, but jumped at
the opportunity to buy the car back
midway through 2016. “I literally love
this car,” says Keith. “When I got the
chance to buy the car back, honestly, I
had to do it. I don’t know that I’d have
ever really gotten into cars the way
that I have, nor had the business in
racing that I do, if it wasn’t for this
car.” The sleek fourth-generation
F-Body will see duty as Keith’s
dedicated drag racing ride, particularly
in the Street Car Takeover’s Street Race
category, which requires cars to make
a 30-mile drive before elimination
rounds. “The car has a LSX 376ci
six-bolt motor in it with a Bullseye
Power 88mm billet turbo, Holley
Hi-Ram intake, FuelTech ECU, PTC
converter and TH400 and a Midwest
Chassis 9-inch rear,” says Keith. “I’m
tuning the car myself currently, using
this unbelievable FuelTech software,
and I’m confident that the car will
make between 1,400- and
1,500-horsepower to the tire.”
68
STREETRACE