Honda Preludes and former Honda Prelude owners from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York all converged on Tulsa to run the gauntlet in three days: dyno, show, drag racing, and road course racing.

Day One: The Dyno

Unfortunately, we did not have much time available at the dyno to get all of the cars tuned. We arrived at approximately 6 PM and could only do dyno pulls until 9pm due to local noise ordinances. Chris Wolf’s 2001 Prelude SH put down 170 WHP with simple boltons such as intake, header and exhaust.

Day Two: The Show

It’s obvious by looking at the cars, that the drivers are more focused on driving their car rather than showing their car. With quality modifications, it was apparent that these cars meant business on the road and not in the parking lot!

Overall Show winner and first place fifth Generation: Kurt Gasper

First Place Fourth Generation: Paul Farmer

First Place Third Generation: Kristen Young

Since there were no third generation preludes actually at the event, Kristen Young won this award for events earlier in the week. Her B20A powered Prelude SI coupled with a Garrett T3 turbo, suffered a disappointing death after shooting a rod through the block and radiator. Ironically, this was the car I was supposed to travel in to the show.

First Place Other: Randy King, 2004 Neon SRT-4

Day Two: Drag Racing at Tulsa International Raceway

Temperatures hovered around 84 degrees thanks to the incredibly high level of humidity after the sun fell behind the horizon. The cars were running approximately one half second to one second off of their normal fast times. Perhaps it’s my inner racer speaking out, but I think the weather was just an excuse for other drivers. I seemed to be a hot commodity for driving other’s cars that night. I managed to drive “The Family Car,”a 2004 Honda Accord EX with a lot of cargo in the trunk, to a whopping finishing time in the quarter mile of 16.4 seconds.

Day Three: The Road Course – Hallett Motor Racing Circuit

An early morning rise greeted us at Hallett Motor Racing Circuit. This was the event that everyone had waited for, the rest was just a tease. Cars lined up in the paddock, drivers ferociously stripping anything and everything from the interior of their cars. They taped their headlights and added numbers to their doors. They were now ready to drive their cars like they stole them off the dealer’s lot.

We did have two catastrophes on the road course. A fifth generation Prelude managed to slam into the tire wall during the afternoon session. Shortly thereafter, an Acura RSX slammed into the same tire wall. As one can imagine, this was definitely a damper on the mood at the track.