They're still 'takin' it to the streets' at 0rlando

By Jeff Burk
Photos by Ron Lewis, Steve Gruenwald and Adam Cranmer

(Ron Lewis photo)

There are a lot of pretenders to the throne when it comes to what is the biggest and best streetcar race. But ask any street legal racer that question and the answer almost always are, "The StreetNationals down in Orlando!"

The formal name for the race that Orlando promoter Carl Weisinger puts on annually is "The Real World StreetNationals" and this year marked the tenth anniversary of this mother of all street-legal racing events.

The program starts with a car show at the local Race Rock Cafe on Thursday night, but like the race itself this is not your ordinary car show. Between fifty and 100 of the competitors bring their cars to the parking lot of the cafe and park them. Then for a couple of hours everybody eats, drinks and ogles everyone else's cars and girlfriends. At about 6:00 PM the locals start to line up on the curbs on both sides of International Drive that runs in front of the Race Rock. By the time they give the signal to fire the cars and start driving them off the parking lot, the crowds are primed, ready and standing ten deep to see the "street cars" pull out.

(Ron Lewis photo)

The local police control the crowd with style, patience and grace not often seen at this kind of scene. The cars idle off the lot and many of the hitters are among them. They purge the nitrous, or whack the throttle on the blower cars and do a chirp in front of the crowds. The crowd goes up for grabs each time a car does a chirp or a burnout and this goes on for about and hour. When this scene is ended the teams either stow the cars in the trailers and haul them to the track or just drive the cars to the track. The Thursday night scene before the real racing begins on Friday is worth the trip to Orlando just by itself.

The real racing action started on Friday. This year, despite rain and overcast skies, more than 280 cars pulled through the gates at Orlando SpeedWorld Dragway to compete in the four unique street legal classes devised by track operator, race organizer and the man with the final say, Carl Weisinger.

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