(drum roll)
(heavy-metal music)
(motors roar)
- Here we are with our two drivers,
Tony Big-Worm Smith and Artis Houston,
and before we get into the cars and everything,
first, we all need to know where "Big-Worm" came from.
- Actually it came from a dumb movie, called The Stoned Age.
- Okay. - It was about a bunch of guys
that partied down in the South Bay where I'm from,
and one of my buddies,
actually his dad builds my race-motors,
so they needed a name for me: that's where it came from.
- Big-Worm.
So Artis, you have known this guy forever,
and you have a lot of connection coming back and forth,
so tell me how long you've known him
and how'd you first meet him?
Me and Worm, Tony, Anthony,
whichever name you want to call him,
we go back a good 15 years.
Kind of like one of the days where you're always
at the street-races hanging out,
people just gravitate to each other
just based on personality.
You know, Worm has a Ford; I drive a Chevy.
He's a night-dealer; I'm a Snap-On dealer,
and it's funny because he's the one
that actually introduced me to the business.
That was seven or eight years ago.
- So one of the things we got to talk about too
is how the many, gazillion levels
of connections you guys have.
You can start this story because
you have the connection of both cars.
- Well, Artis's Nova started out as my Nova way back yonder.
Just a beater I drove around after high school,
I mean, I thrashed that car,
and then the man made it a legend, so it's great.
- Both you guys, look,
you've been hanging out at the street-races,
and you do race cars that in many ways
kind of evolve off the streets.
Like X275 and this type of stuff
really is an evolution of the street-racing culture.
Talk about that in your own deal
like coming off the street over the course of time.
- Man that's funny,
when I first started Heads-Up Racing,
it was actually in this car,
and I can drive it anywhere;
it was a nine-second car back then.
The first Heads-Up race I did, it was a regular radial tire.
I was street-racing the night before,
we finished about three in the morning,
we drove to the track, slept at the gate,
went in, and I won my first race.
So I'm like, "Hey, this Heads-Up stuff is pretty--
- Easy.
- "Pretty cool; it's easy.
- "And I just won money and the cops didn't chase me?
"Dude what's up?
" I don't have to wait all night to get one race off?"
I'm like, "Oh yeah, this is where I need to be,"
and kind of turning you into an adult
and trying to be responsible.
- Yeah, you're failing at it mostly,
but this is one part you're getting right.
- Oh, there's no doubt about failing, my friend.
- Where were you, Artis?
- I had this dream to go nine seconds,
and I built this car thinking I would go nine seconds,
and it wound up coming out running
like 870s the first time I took it out,
so I kind of was behind where I planned on being.
- But you can always plant it in your arm--
- Yeah man, you don't see it hanging out?
It still stung.
- Now let's talk about what's going to happen today,
little side-by-side racing.
You guys obviously got good personalities
and there's egos involved,
man, you've known each other forever
but you don't want to give the guy an inch,
so your car is going to be a little bit different
than you're used to.
You pulled a bunch of weight out
and changed the tire, right?
- Yeah, I normally run on a 26, eight and half inch tire
which is just, it's smaller than the front tire,
so I'm like the idiot; I'm the rodeo-clown of drag-racing.
I actually took three or 400 pounds out of the car,
and put on this big, giant 28 tire--
- [Interviewer] Oh yeah, that huge 28 tire.
- I swear it's like a pro-mod now,
so I don't what it's going to do.
I'm just going to get up, stick it in the beams,
and let her rip.
- What about you, Artis?
- I love Worm but, he's going to have to understand
when I run about his life,
some things are just supposed to happen that way,
you know what I mean?
- Is that what nitrous cars do,
do they run-away from turbo cars?
(Artis stutters)
I don't know, I'm just asking.
- It's a lot of misperceptions out there,
everybody say, "Oh you're so stupid; go turbo, go nitro."
Why do I want to do it the easy way?
I got leaf springs on my car,
I got old-school let's-do-this-the-hard-way.
I grew up in Compton.
Let's figure out how we're going to make this work
and make the--
- Hey wait a second, I grew up in Compton.
- What did you do?
You're in Compton but your motor toys, baby.
- Hey, hey, hey, don't hate the player, hate the game.
- I mean, maybe someday I'll be like you,
but right now, I'm at the house, baby.
I'm still ramping the CPT.
- Well, you know what--
- This could literally go on all day.
We need to get the cars fired up and on the race-track,
and if you think this is entertaining,
wait till you see these guys leave the starting line.
(groove music)
(motors revving up)
- [Interviewer] Alright, so here's the setup for round one.
You'll notice that the sun has changed positions.
That's because it's been a couple hours
since we talked to the guys.
Believe it or not, when Worm went back
to get the car ready for this first round,
they had an electrical problem
with the boost-controller in the car.
They went back and figured out how to get that fixed,
they made the right changes in their Racepak perimeters.
Now they're ready to go.
Artis had no problems at all.
They went back, just did their normal service,
got ready to go for round one.
(engines revving)
- You're going to hear that booming exhaust note
out of the nitrous big-block, its open headers,
it's that big high-compression engine
with all that nitrous heading through it,
and a much more muffled noise coming out of the small-block
with a single turbo on it for Worm.
Eighth mile finish-line, so we're going to go 660 feet here.
The race-track is incredibly good.
These guys went up here taking stalk of things,
and they claim it's the best race-track
either of them have seen on the west-coast
for this style of racing in a least two years.
So they should be able to really hit it hard.
Let's see if we get some wheel-stand action going.
(motors roar)