1,300-HP Drag Race: It's Camaro vs Camaro Down the 1/4-Mile

These days you'll hear the actors invoking "family" on multiple occasions throughout the movies. And if you've ever attended a professional motorsports event, you'll know that teams are often built like or are actual families in themselves. Drivers are just one cog in complex machinery composed of several up to hundreds of people working towards the same goal: victory!

And I've often seen drivers bringing in their father, mother, uncle, brothers, or distant relatives to support their racing effort. And that happens for several reasons. First, most of your budget could go towards building and racing the car, so you may need help paying multiple people to assist you. Second, you must trust your team with your life, especially in motorsports.

Racing will often involve cross-country or international travel, so you must be comfortable around the people you spend most of the year with. In our recent story, we showed you the world's fastest AWD Volkswagen, a joint effort by two brothers: Markus and Stefan Welte. Talking to people in the paddock, I noticed more and more similar stories.

After all, if your dad or mom was passionate about racing, wouldn't it have caught on to you as well? Today's report highlights a head-to-head battle between two similar vehicles. Both of them started as second-generation Chevrolet Camaros back in the '70s. But they're considerably faster these days than they were back then.

The red Camaro belongs to the Ekerst family and gets shared between two drivers. Holger is 62, while his daughter, Sally, is 25. For the event in Kiskunlachaza, Holger was driving, and Sally was kind enough to tell us more about their team and family. In this drag racing video, you'll notice Gabriel of the Widmann family on the right lane.

His father, Alfred, built the car. And his brother Armin also used to drive it for the past few years. For Gabriel, this was his first official event in the Camaro and his first time back on the track since his 2016 Junior Dragster experience. Talking about her father, Sally pointed out that: "My grandfather served in the army and fought in Korea. Dad lived in Colorado for a few years while Grandpa was on the battlefield."

"So he grew up with the American way of life and, subsequently speaking, muscle cars. Holger was always into cars, bikes, and racing. Even though his first car was a Volkswagen 1600 TL, in the '80s, he bought a 1978 Chevrolet Camaro. It took him 20 years to restore it, and he still has it today. In 1986, when the first Nitrolympx event took place at Hockenheimring in Germany, my dad and mom were there as spectators."

"They went to the event every year until the mid-'90s. He didn't want to be a simple spectator anymore, so he decided to find a way to start competing. Towards the end of the decade, he returned as a mechanic for a friend with an old Camaro, so they started racing together. Back then, their ET was around 14 seconds for the 1/4-mile. It's no wonder I fell in love with cars and racing from a young age."

Fast forward to 2012, Sally was already 16 years old and looking forward to upgrading to a higher class from the Junior Dragster category. It was circa 2012 that her father found the red Camaro you see here, and he built the whole thing himself to make sure his daughter would be completely safe. Still, he had a big crash at Hockenheimring soon after and needed to rebuild the car again for its 2015 comeback.

"Since then, we've been sharing the car. I've driven it more times than he has, but that's unimportant to us. He usually tests it when he needs to make some adjustments and wants to make sure it's safe for me to have a go. Sometimes we play this game where we drive for the chance to compete in the big Nitrolympx race in August."

I asked Sally about the car's setup, and she walked me through its recent history: "At first, it had a simple 383 ci (6.2-liters) Chevy Small Block V8, which led to a best ET of around 11 seconds. By 2019 we had improved up to 10.52 seconds. During the pandemic, we achieved our dream of having a blown engine. The current 6.7-liter Motown V8 uses a 6-71 BDS blower, Dart heads, and two Demon carburetors."

"We still use the old Ford 9" rear axle and the TH400 3-speed gearbox. Our target ET is 9, xx seconds, which we almost reached in Kiskunlachaza with a new personal best of 10,127 seconds. But I must mention that Dad needed to get off the gas in all his runs there, as the car started shaking before reaching the 1/4-mile finish line."

Even with 700 horsepower on tap, the car's maneuverability issues made even the odds for young Gabriel Widmann. His 8.2-liter V8 engine is good for about 600 horsepower, and this Camaro's best ET sits at 10.21 seconds. We have yet to learn more about the complete setup of Gabriel's race car of choice, but we know it's running a Powerglide transmission inside!

Seeing these two cars lining up for their battle was quite impressive. I stood inches from the burnout box, and my eardrums could vouch for how spectacular they sounded while warming up the rear tires. The run we've showcased here is the third of five match-ups they have had all weekend. Holger's reaction time was slightly better (0.548 vs. 0.576) and stayed ahead until the 660 feet (201 meters) mark.

The two drivers were neck and neck, but the white Camaro was already going about ten kph faster than its opponent. By the end, it was a photo finish between the two: 10.763 vs. 10.729. Their trap speeds were naturally similar, over 124.27 mph (200 kph). If that doesn't prove the complexities of this sport, I don't know what does. Gabriel's first weekend at the job proved fruitful by Sunday when he won top honors in his class after defeating Janine Petzold in her ultra-fast Mercedes.

We should probably travel to the Nitrolympx event in August to learn more about Europe's top-ranking drag racers and their respective vehicles. We've got several other videos and stories to share with you from our drag racing experience in Kiskunlachaza, and you can look forward to seeing these quite soon.