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Bobby Parks & The Black Nasty

At GTM we pride ourselves on being ambassadors for all types of Motorsports, but we haven’t really talked about drag racing much on Break/Fix, until now! Our guest has been a staple in the DMV drag racing scene for the better part of two decades. Some of you in the area may remember an all-black 4th Gen Camaro roaming around Upper Montgomery County MD on huge slicks and skinnies. That car was the Genesis for what is now widely known as, the Black Nasty 

Some of you might also know him from Street Outlaws and Pinks, welcome Robert (Bobby) Parks, the man behind the Black Nasty persona to the show. 

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Spotlight

Bobby Parks - Drag Racer for The Black Nasty

A staple in the DMV drag racing scene for the better part of two decades. Some of you in the area may remember an all-black 4th Gen Camaro roaming around Upper Montgomery County MD on huge slicks and skinnies. That car was the Genesis for what is now widely known as, the Black Nasty. 


Contact: Bobby Parks at N/A

       Pit Stop Minisode Available  

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Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] We always have a blast chatting with our guests about all sorts of different topics, but sometimes we go off the rails and dig deeper into their automotive and motorsports pasts. As a bonus, let’s go behind the scenes with this pit stop mini sode for some extra content that didn’t quite fit in the main episode.

Sit back and enjoy. Enjoy and remember to like subscribe and support break fix on Patreon. Well, you already answered some of them. Uh, the, like the, if you could buy any car on the market today to drag race and stock trim, what would it be? Tesla Roadster. Yeah, sure. We, we hit that. We,

Bobby Parks: we nailed that one. I just want the fastest production vehicle ever made that would have to be in my garage if I had an unlimited budget.

And then I got probably 50 other cars that if I had more garage space, I would want to have,

Crew Chief Eric: but we’ve all had the privilege of enjoying and watching the fast and the furious. So my big question is how many times do you actually shift gears in a quarter mile?[00:01:00]

Bobby Parks: 13 over a period of 29 seconds or so. Yeah, right.

Crew Chief Eric: Is there danger to your manifold, right?

So what was on your wall as a kid then, other than a poster of a large chested woman in front of a Fiero? I had the Lamborghini

Bobby Parks: Countach.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m just going to put a picture of a Countach up on Instagram with the hashtag that says men of a certain age. And then that’s it. You just

Bobby Parks: get it. If you didn’t have that poster, you weren’t into cars.

If you didn’t have that poster. Matchbox car, then I don’t know what you’re doing. What else was there? And I can’t remember if it was the Ferrari F one 50 is that was the other one that that was super popular. It might not have even been the F40. So yes, yes, that’s what it was. And then it was funny because when I was in my early twenties, I saw a guy in our area, driving one around fully restored, like brand new.

And I [00:02:00] remember thinking, man, that’s like the matchbox car I used to have. And that’s the poster I had on my wall. 70 year old man driving it around. It was badass.

Crew Chief Eric: It was really a Fiero with a body kit, but we’ll go on from that. So it’s okay. That’s my Ferrari. That’s what I have. Since you’re an LS guy, we bring this up a lot and I don’t know why we’re so fixated on it.

Maybe because it just doesn’t make sense. I’m going to pose the question like this. It’s very simple. C8 Corvette. What do you think?

Bobby Parks: I like it. The aftermarket following hasn’t caught up much harder, much more expensive to make the same amount of power right now. There’s pretty much nothing that beats. The LS base motor in terms of dollar per horsepower, up to about 1, 500 wheel horsepower, once you get above 1, 500 wheel horsepower, then it’s just a money game.

You’re going to spend money no matter what you have, but up to that point, and especially up to about a thousand wheels. There is just nothing [00:03:00] that touches that platform for the money. We are taking these things literally out of the junkyard, out of cars, putting junk turbo kits together on our own and going out and making a thousand horsepower all day long.

I mean, it’s just that simple. And that’s why the drag racing world, especially the no prep drag racing world has become so popular. Just 20 years ago, when that motor first came out and nobody knew anything about it, everybody at the drag strip was going so much slower. Tens was incredible. I remember that was my goal.

Like I could just break the tens. I would be cool. For example, we talked about Fast and the Furious earlier. Dom was talking about that car running 10s. You owe me a 10 second car and 16 gears and all this shit.

Trailer. Yeah. It’s like 10 second car to everybody back then was like, that was fast. Now [00:04:00] you can literally take a shit bucket, put it together for like 15, 000 and you can run eights with it. It is a legit thing. And it happens all the time. There’s never been a time in all of hot rotting where your average Joe was.

able to build something that was even close to what the big dogs are capable of, which I don’t know if you consider eights nowadays, big dog, but a thousand horsepower, it is just way above and beyond what your average commuter car or even your average sports car is capable of. There’s no comparison yet.

There are a couple of motors that are close. Coyotes are pretty good for the money. And honestly, if you were to slap certain four cylinders into a Fox body chassis, you’d probably give a couple of these VA to run for their money. There’s other stuff out there. So everybody doesn’t have to have an LS to go fast.

It’s just nothing beats it. Dollar per horsepower. That’s it. And if you want to win, you do. [00:05:00] Yeah. I

Crew Chief Brad: mean, for you,

Bobby Parks: the

Crew Chief Brad: car is a tool. You want to go fast. You want to win. It doesn’t matter. Could be doing it in a Pinto. Who the hell cares? Ricky

Crew Chief Eric: Bobby. He’s Ricky Bates. I wanna

Crew Chief Brad: go fast! I

Bobby Parks: wanna go fast! Yeah.

First to last, buddy. That’s all that matters. I don’t care if you do it on a scooter or if you do it in a freaking hot rod, it doesn’t matter as long as you get across that finish line first.

Crew Chief Brad: So then you’ve already answered the question then the best motor that’s not an LS based motor. Would that be the Coyote?

I would say Coyote would

Bobby Parks: probably rank up there. There’s a couple other motors to Jay Z, the super motors, they do pretty well in stock form, but because a lot of the parts have to be outsourced and I’m sure there’s a lot more companies in the U S now compared to 10 or 15 years ago, like when I used to work at altered atmosphere, we were building those things and we had to get camshafts imported from Japan or China or wherever that stuff got expensive fast.

And then the top [00:06:00] dogs, they’re all using billet blocks and billet heads now, which. Again, crazy expensive stuff. So like when you see these supers running six seconds in the quarter, some of them are even running high five seconds in the quarter, which is just crazy out of a six cylinder, but you know, they’re not doing it with some junk ass super motor that they got out of a junkyard.

That’s a fully built high dollar deal, even in the LS world to go that fast, it’s going to be an all billet deal. And that stuff is way out of my price range. That’s why again, no prep stuff is so popular. It appeals to the masses. Whereas this track racing stuff gets so expensive, so fast, if you’re not rich, you can’t do it.

You know, they say about racing is it can make you a millionaire, but only if you started off as a billionaire.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, and to your point about motors, I mean, in German world, you don’t see too many Porsches, drag racing and stuff, but the VR sixes are super popular for drag racing. For whatever reason, those motors are overbuilt [00:07:00] from the word go and guys love boosting the hell out of them and building drag cars with those things.

And even the early motors, which don’t flow that well, they’ll take a 12 out and make a thousand horsepower. And it’s like, yeah, whatever, who cares, you know, for a little VW motor, right. There was supposed to be in an econo box.

Bobby Parks: Yeah, we built a couple of those when we were at Altered Atmosphere. They were pretty popular back then, too.

They still are.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I’m seeing stuff on Instagram and whatever where they’re putting VR6s in anything. If it’s got ignition, it’s got a VR6 attached to

Bobby Parks: it, you know? Yeah, yeah. There’s more than one way to skin a cat for sure. And I just can’t even imagine myself personally ever being brand loyal because there’s just so much cool stuff out there.

Even like what I was talking about between the gas and electric stuff. I hated electric stuff, but only because I thought they were just slow turds. And it was like, you know, you think of electric, you think of like a Prius or something,

Crew Chief Brad: or a Volt.

Bobby Parks: You don’t think of a hot rod when you think of electric cars, but if you get in a Tesla that has ludicrous mode and you [00:08:00] mash that pedal to the ground on a regular street.

It’ll change your mind. They’re impressive cars, especially for drag racing. I don’t know if they’re real popular in the road race world I’d imagine probably not for drag racing. I definitely see the potential in them It’s just nobody’s really making the type of car yet That would do well in the drag racing world, that’s electric at least.

It’s gonna happen. It’s coming.

Crew Chief Brad: So let me ask you as a, as a legit drag racer, what’s your opinion of fun wheel drive, what we like to call it around here, front wheel drive, what are your thoughts?

Bobby Parks: Front wheel drive? Ugh.

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, can it be competitive drag racing?

Bobby Parks: Yeah, like world cup finals is definitely a good showcase for front wheel drive stuff, but at the end of the day, the front wheel drive is always going to be a disadvantage, which is why now the civic guys, a buddy of mine.

He owns a shop called hub city performance, and he’s developed an all wheel drive unit for [00:09:00] civics that he sells. Now that he’s using like parts of a CRV, I believe is what he’s using. And he’s creating these all wheel drive kits that are just selling like hotcakes. He used to race at world cup. Front wheel drive and he did very well, you know, he had a mid eight second car and those things they back half like crazy.

There’s no other car on the planet that back halves like those things. Yeah, they run mid eights, which might not be considered, you know, the fastest thing out there at the track, but they’re doing it at almost 200 miles an hour. Some of those cars are going over 200 miles an hour in the quarter with front wheel drive.

You know, we all know they don’t leave the line that hard. So they’re playing catch up and it’s cool to watch them. Cause I used to race with them. Like when I won my class at a world cup in 2012, my car, if I remember correctly, I was only trapping in like the one fifties. I might’ve went like a low one 60 at some point.

I don’t really remember. But the guys that I was [00:10:00] racing that were front wheel drive, he trapped 194 in that same class to run the same time. So it’s just different. And I’d imagine if there was even another 200 feet onto the back of the track, those things would be damn near unstoppable. I mean, they’re just crazy fast up top in terms of drag racing applications, simply because the longest drag race that you’ll ever hear of typically is quarter mile.

So they’re not going to do real well there. You know, my buddy that made this all wheel drive kit made those civics awesome. And he’s been racing in the no prep world also doing very well. His car is awesome, man. You should see that thing.

Crew Chief Brad: You could probably get Daniel interested in coming out and coming with us to go out to that if we wanted to.

Crew Chief Eric: He’ll bring a square body and a banjo. That’s what’s going to happen there.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, what if it’s fleet?

Crew Chief Eric: And the best part is. He’s a bowtie man through and through and you’ll never convince him to LS swap a [00:11:00] square body. I don’t understand it. I just don’t get it. Yeah, that doesn’t make sense to

Bobby Parks: me at all.

Some guys just literally refuse to LS swap something because it’s been overdone.

Crew Chief Eric: And I get it. Well, here, here’s the best part as just a side note, just because we got an extra minute. He hates BMWs flat out. Nuff said there, he has a three 25 is that he bought a 95. I think it is. And I was like, Oh yeah, LS swap.

Just do it. He’s like, no, I’m putting in a four, three. I’m like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, that’s based

Crew Chief Eric: on what was based for three. I’m like, really?

Crew Chief Brad: You know, the problem, he had it lying around. That’s yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: At a four, three line around.

Bobby Parks: That’s where a lot of terrible swaps come from. Well, I had it.

Well, you know, I had a lot of things that, uh, you know, sucked and I didn’t use them.

Crew Chief Eric: The way he’s looking at it is, and this is the justification, because I, I get on his ass about it all the time. He’s like, well, it’ll make more power than the stock BMW motor. Yeah, but you’re [00:12:00] spending 10

Bobby Parks: grand to do, I mean, 50 more horsepower.

I shake my head. A lot of these cars, I don’t understand. And especially the brand loyal guys, the Ford guys are the worst, even in the no preps, they’re like, Oh, I bleed blue, blue oval till I die. And I look inside their car and I’m like, is that a two speed shifter? And they’re like, yeah, do you happen to have a power glide transmission in this car?

And they’re like, yeah, why? Uh, Ford guy, you just said you bleed blue, blue oval till you die, but you’re running a GM transmission. Oh, that doesn’t count. It’s like, yeah, that definitely counts. Yeah. You’re using what works. Just admit it. You know, you’re an LS hater. You probably got beat by one, which, you know, now you just absolutely refuse to use one.

And you’re going to die wanting to beat them with any other platform. Good luck.[00:13:00]

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Instagram at GrandTouringMotorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of BreakFix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.

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Brad N
Brad N
Brad spends his time reporting on GTM events and also taking us down the more emotional side of Motorsports with many of his pieces

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