In 1994 Jojo Callos purchased his very first new car-a Honda Civic Hatchback. Like so many who have put themselves at the very top of this game, Jojo's introduction to import racing came as a spectator amid So Cal's infamous street racing scene of the early '90s. His intense curiosity of the working ways of his Honda and a new-found passion set him out on an unimaginable journey that has turned him into a full-time professional race car driver and the first ever NHRA Hotrod Champion.
IT: So Jo, just how did all this madness begin?JC: Let me see. Back in '94 I was going to college and working part-time in a grocery store. I'd been gong out to the street races with some friends and watching all these crazy fixed up cars going at it. When I brought my Civic I already had the bug and I started tearing away at it at home trying to figure out how things worked.
IT: So your wrenching career began?JC: Well sort of. Actually, the grocery store relocated and I was stuck without a job. That's when I met Kurt at KG. I was anxious to learn more about Hondas and he'd just opened his shop, so I started going there and helping out and eventually took on a full time job.
IT: So you were already modifying your Civic?JC: Yeah! Back then I was going to Terminal Island (a small but legal dragstrip) on weekends and racing people such as Viet Lam. If you remember, back then Viet's Civic was just like mine, same color, everything. Except every time we ran he'd always get me by like a bumper. Well I found out he'd swapped out the motor for a GS-R and you know me... it's on!
IT: Yeah!JC: I had no idea what was involved, but went out and purchased a GS-R transplant anyway. People were saying "you've got to modify this" or "it doesn't just bolt right in." But before you knew it I'd yanked out my motor and within no time at all I had the GS-R all bolted up and, even more amazingly, it fired up first try.
IT: That was the when the snowball first started rolling?JC: I put a direct-port NOS system on there first and took it out to Palmdale. It ran like mid-12s consistently and was a lot of fun. But then turbo Hondas were starting to click off better numbers, especially trap speeds, so I started thinking that maybe that was the way to go. With the help of Tom Jung I got together a turbo kit and put it in. The car ran low 12s and picked up some mph. I still had the nitrous system, so we strengthened up the bottom end and decided to run it on the bottle. That was when I first ran in the 11s. It still ran off the factory ECU and I was driving it to events, competing in the Quick Class and driving it home again, sometimes as far as Sacramento. When I finally changed over to a stand-alone computer we got the car to run 11.40s.
IT: That was quick back then.JC: It was getting there. Then Jason (Dienhardt, former crew chief) and I left KG and were on our own for a few months. We managed to get the car to go 10.90s up at Sac, then took it straight to Bakersfield and ran 10.70s. We freshened it up and ran at Palmdale two weeks later, where we busted out a 10.46. That one caused some shit talking.