A few weeks back, we shared some crazy, customized, 150cc drag bikes in Thailand, being raced in the most dangerous of fashion as riders switch to a “superman” position mid-run to improve aerodynamics. Well, those bikes aren’t the only wild and undue concoctions that the Thai gearheads have come up with.
American Chad Burdette, who has set up camp in Thailand in recent months to show the rest of the world the rabid automotive and racing culture of the country, has captured a multitude of different disciplines of competition for our viewing pleasure. Take, for example, transport van drag racing.
As we learned only from listening to Burdette’s explanation of how this call came about, Thailand has less of a national or local government-backed medical transport system, nor fewer corporate ambulance conglomerates as we are accustomed to here in the United States. Instead, individual contractors own and operate many of the ambulances in use in the country with vans they own privately, and a number of them moonlight as drag racers with the same vehicle. The same goes for school transport vans, utilized privately to take kids to and from school in the country. The owners are hot-rodding their vans with turbochargers, lowering suspension and brake kits, and aftermarket wheels and drag radials, giving them a huge boost (no pun intended) in performance on the dragstrip, to the tune of 15-second 1/4-mile elapsed times.
They also race delivery trucks, which for the most part, are small to midsize pickup trucks outfitted with boxes, that have been turbocharged, and likewise set up with wheels, tires, brakes, and more (some even have carbon-fiber doors), to knock out runs as quick as the mid-12’s at over 100 mph.
Even wilder yet, a rather large group of Bangkok locals have assembled highly modified rice tractors, based on the more primitive design of tillers used in the rice fields in the country, to hold acceleration contests. Traditionally sporting large mud paddles, many of them have also been converted to wheels and tires, while the engines have been, poked up, if you will. As any gearhead would, they then line them side by side and go at it down strips of dirt or literal standing mud and water, just like a rice field would be.
Going a step further on water, the Thai people also race what are known as longtail boats, or specially crafted wooden hulls with no seat or steering wheel. These hearty souls build up some very nice, modified Toyota 5K, Honda K-Series four-cylinder gas, and Isuzu J-Series turbo-diesel engines, attached to manually operated shafts leading out to a propeller that both powers and steers the boat. The boats are raced on a dig side-by-side over set distances in front of sizable crowds, and you’ll also find these guys ripping up and down the lake doing long-distance, high-speed runs just for giggles. Because with that kind power on the water, who wouldn’t?
