Larry Larson has nothing to prove when it comes to building race cars. He’s renowned for the job he has been doing since 1992.
Ever since 1996, when he established Larson Race Cars, his business in Oak Grove, Mo., has flourished.
Larry Larson has nothing to prove when it comes to building race cars. He’s renowned for the job he has been doing since 1992.
Ever since 1996, when he established Larson Race Cars, his business in Oak Grove, Mo., has flourished.
Larson also has made a name for himself competing in Drag Week, an event he has won five times.
During the Sept. 7-13 Drag Week, Larson flexed his muscles again, clocking a 6.16-second time at 219 mph at Tulsa (Okla.) Raceway Park. Larson’s time down the quarter-mile made him the owner of the fastest street-legal car in the world.
“This is a totally different package than what I’ve built before as far as Drag Week stuff,” said Larson, who was competing in the Unlimited Class in his Chevy S-10. “We’ve built some class running cars for some other guys, but this is the first one I’ve built specifically for me to go out and try and win a class.
Not only does Larson have the world record, he embraces the challenge of making a street-legal car go that fast.
“My Chevy II that I’ve had for years and years and years developed into that (the fastest street-legal car),” Larson said. “It was the first car at Drag Week to run in the 6s five years ago. As time has evolved and technology has gotten better I built another car this year. I had plans on making that thing run in the 5s at 250 mph. It went 6.16 on the last day and hopefully before the year is over it will go in the 5s.”
Larson’s most recent Drag Week also had some frustration as he had to take a 20-second pass at Thunder Valley in Noble, Okla., on Sept. 10.
“It was a little disappointing because we had that hiccup (on Sept. 10), and that basically cost us winning the event as far as I’m concerned,” Larson said. “We still got the event completed and we ran real fast the last day (Sept. 13) which to me was as important as anything.”
And, Larson has no plans of stopping from pushing the envelope to go even faster at Drag Week.
“We build cars here (at Larson Race Cars) that are anything from Pro Stock, Pro Mod to Pro Street stuff. We build a little bit of everything,” Larson said. “I’ve had a street car for 25-plus years that has run really well. Then, when Drag Week popped up here about 10 years ago it fell kind of right into what I was doing. It is a whole other area of expertise and a challenge to take something that will go as fast as a Pro Mod car and yet you’re capable of driving it 1,200 miles in a week.”
Larson said he would like to run his Chevy S-10 a couple of more times this season, and one of the stops will probably be at the Street Car Super Nationals Nov. 20-23 at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“My goal is to get it to run 5.90s at 250 mph and drive it downtown, so we will see how that works out,” Larson said.
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