2NR: Both of you guys talk a lot about street racing. Any crazy stories?
Frank: Two come to mind. We were at a spot in Walnut one night, picking on this nerdy White cat to race us. I was in my RX-3, and he had this beautiful blue Nova - and I'm not big on domestics, but this thing was beautiful - and they were kinda' chillin' at the spot we were at. I asked him to race, and he didn't want to -- said he was just in town for some restoration show, or whatever. My crew and I kept haggling him to race, and eventually he agreed, but didn't want to race for money. I was all, "Just in case something breaks, we get our cars impounded, or whatever... there needs to be some money to make it worth our while." He offered $50. So I said, "Alright, it's getting late, let's make it an even hundred and the winner gets to go to Denny's." He agrees, and we all loaded up our cars on the trailers and took off to the racing spot. I actually convinced him to give me five or six cars and the move, because he didn't know what the hell these cars could do. I had the bottle turned on, we staged, and I was thinking 'this is going to be a quick race'. But then he fired up his car. Oh... my... God! I couldn't even hear my rotary! [laughs] But I've heard plenty of uncorked V8s in my time, so I wasn't worried just yet. But by the time he passed me... I swear his wheels were in the air! I cruised down the rest of the track, ashamed. I got conned! It was a very humbling experience. He let me keep my money, and we all had a good time.
2NR: Lesson learned...?
Frank: That no matter how much game you think you got, there's always someone out there with more. Don't get too cocky.
2NR: The second story?
Frank: When I first raced Scott Kanemura, back in the day. And don't even laugh, because I know you guys are pals, and that Scottie told you his side of the story--that it didn't happen or whatever--but it's B.S. [laughs]. He had his RX-7; I had my RX-3. I raced him; I smoked him. He didn't lose very often back then, so he doesn't like to admit when he did, but I beat him. And then, to make it even better, I raced him again about five years later, in Gardena. He was in his Integra, and I had my friend's GTi, and we smoked him again.
2NR: So you beat him twice?
Frank: Oh yeah, and it was great [laughs]. And Scott: I know you're going to read this and deny everything, but now that it's being immortalized in print... I'll be looking forward to sharing it with my kids [laughs]!
2NR: [laughs] Your turn, Ken.
Ken: It was the time I raced this 323 GTX. I drove out to Ontario, looking for this crew called Demonic Speed, because I knew they were pretty fast, and I was from a crew called Pacific Power. So we all went up there, found the guys, and my whole crew pitched in about $500 for me to race one of their guys. I didn't even know who or what I was racing, but when they rolled out this 323, I remember asking the guy, "Do you feel lucky, tonight? Because I'm gonna take this." [laughs] And I don't know why I was feeling so cocky, but it worked out and I got him.
2NR: You won?
Ken: Yeah, but it was pretty close. The other one was in Sacramento, right after I finished the CRX. I really only knew about Toyotas and rotaries, not Hondas, so it was my first race with the car. Anyway, we got there and two Wicked guys, Charles Madrid and Viet Lam, were trying to race me. I knew we were all running about the same times-mid 11s-so I was down. Then, right before we went to race, Viet asks me, "Do you feel confident?" And we had just finished the car-I hadn't slept for three days prior, because we were finishing it; I remember thinking, "I never said I was confident!" Then to make matters worse, when we were staging, Charles says, "I can't believe I'm going to race a car show guy." But I ended up running an 11.01 to his 11.18, so we collected the $500 and went to Denny's.