“ 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