The scent of burning rubber fills the air.  Smoke surrounds the scene. The hum of high-power motors can be heard for miles.  Import Face Off in St. Louis has begun at Gateway Motorsports Park.  With the St Louis Arch peeking between the sponsor billboards above the stands, it’s a typical day at the track.  Spectators mill around the car show and concessions behind the grandstand, some stopping to take a gaze at the drift cars and their squealing tires.  The hot September sun beams down on freshly washed show cars. Their high-gloss paint gleams in the light.  A haze hangs over the crowd, a mixture of tire smoke, engine fumes, and e-cigarette vapor.  Yet the air retains only the smell of hot pavement, greasy food, and burnt rubber.

​

            The powerful beat from a full-base show car’s music can be heard from the top row of the grandstand.  From this favorite spot, track regular Charlie Timmermann watches two drag cars pull out of the staging lanes.

            “You can watch both the drag races and the drifting from here,” Charlie points out.  But his attention is focused on the drag strip.  He is here today for this exactly.  Not only is he here because he loves racing, but also to scout out the competition, who he will be running up against when he enters his car next year.  At the young age of 22, Charlie has been building his own car from the ground up.  One he hopes will become an NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) champion within the next few years.

​

             He watches eagerly as the Acura RX2 and Integra each do a burnout, leaving a cloud of fumes and tire smoke behind them.  Their small, 4-cylinder engines roar with enormous power.  The announcer comes over the intercom informing everyone that this is the last race for this class, the All-Motor Sport final. The two crawl towards the light, known as the Christmas tree.  The cars each bump themselves up into place until the two top yellow lights of the tree are lit, indicating the cars are staged and ready. Within seconds the engines are screaming, bouncing rev limiter, and shooting fireballs out the side exhaust pipes.  Finally the light flicks green, and both cars tear off the line and down the track, deafening spectators.  The cars fly by at unnatural speeds.  The only thing to be heard is the rumble of motors and the split second gear changes.  The sound slowly fades as the cars near the end of the quarter mile. All eyes turn to the time boards.  The right lane board flashes six pink lights at the top, indicating a win.  With a time of 7.82 seconds, the RX2 has become this year’s IFO Champion.

​

              While the crowd’s attention is focused at the end of the drag strip, waiting to see the winning car, Charlie Timmermann’s eyes are elsewhere.  He is looking back at the staging area, watching the wife and team of the winning driver celebrate.  He knows this feeling all too well.  He’s been around it his whole life.  “All my childhood memories are at the racetrack,” he says, now 22, “I learned to ride a bike at Gateway.” His father, Jerry Timmermann was also very involved in racing.  During his early years, Charlie and his older brother Paul, helped their father with his carbureted V8 dragster.  They raced this car all while Charlie was growing up, and he even competed in a junior dragster when he was eight.   Both brothers were well known at the track, along with their father.  They befriended several drag racers famous in their world, such as Darrell Alderman and Ron Douglas.  Douglas is still the crew chief on a world famous drag racing team under John Force.

​

              Today, Charlie has gone in a new direction, away from big block carburetors and into the world of import tuner cars.  The term “import tuner” is most commonly tied with Japanese cars, modified for shows or racing.  Charlie is currently in the process of building his own 1991 Honda CRX into a full drag car.  “It’s kind of a special thing for me,” he says “my dad and I have done this for years.  It’s nice because my dad and I can build this car together.”  Except now, the student has become the teacher.  Charlie now teaches his father about the car rather than the opposite like when he was young.  Charlie teaches his father about tuning and electronic fuel injection, and together they can figure out the car’s setup with their combined knowledge.  With the many NHRA restrictions and rules on weight, power, safety, and set-up that they must follow, it is no simple task, and there is no room for error, which would end in disqualification.

​

               Charlie’s build is from a stock 1991 CRX, but not much of the car is still stock.  He has built the car from the scratch, gutting the interior, adding a 10 point roll cage, Jaz racing seats, and an aluminum dashboard with custom gauges.  The engine is a factory-made F20B Honda motor with V-TEC technology, out of a 1995 Accord.  This means the engine is an F-series Honda motor, with a 2.0L displacement.  It is a four cylinder engine, with dual overhead camshafts (DOHC) and 16 valve V-TEC capability that makes about 200 horsepower from the factory.  V-TEC stands for Variable Valve Timing and Lift Electronic Control.  It uses two overhead camshafts (DOHC) to provide optimal valve timing for both high and low rpm levels, either for efficiency in the lower rpm range, or to maximize output in the higher rpm range.  

​

               While Charlie’s motor is still a stock, from-the-factory, motor, he has plans for major upgrades in the future, including a complete rebuild with larger cylinders and greater displacement.  The rest of the car has been stripped down to the bare bones, allowing for as much weight reduction as possible to lighten the load the engine must move for a faster time.

​

                Charlie’s greatest challenge as of now is the expense of new performance parts and strategically budgeting his available funds.  “You can spend a million dollars on a motor, but if your chasse is not built right, it’s not going to perform well.”  With a limited amount of money he can spend, while still maintaining his other life expenses, Charlie must make smart decisions about which parts he buys and when, in order to maximize his car’s potential on a tight budget.

​

                Charlie’s plans for now are to finish enough of the build to compete in the spring St Louis Import Face Off of the upcoming year.  He is hoping the car will run in the range of 11-12 second quarter mile passes.  The CRX will be in the All-Motor Pro bracket, since All-Motor Sport has been discontinued as of this year.  But this is not near the end of Charlie’s goals for the car.  “It will be getting a stroker motor after the car is running down the track and consistent first.”  With the new stroker motor and a turbocharger, he hopes to put himself in the SFWD (Special Front Wheel Drive) bracket, aiming to run 9 second or less quarter miles.

​

                 If you asked Charlie why he was attending this IFO event, he would tell you he’s there to scout out the competition, meet the racers, and get a peek of their cars’ setup.  But there is an underlying theme at every racing event.  Passion.  The people who come to these races share the same passion for cars. Whether they are there for the show cars, or the racecars, they all have it.  “You get a sense of satisfaction,” Charlie says, “you built something like nobody else has built. Yours is just a little bit different. That’s why you spend the time on all those little details.”  In the future, Charlie’s greatest goal is to run a racing team that branches out into many types of racing including dirt track racing, autocross, drifting, and more.  But for now, he works a steady job as an appliance repair technician, letting his love for cars come out after the work shift with his group of car-loving friends and other St Louis enthusiasts.  He squeezes in time to work on the racecar nights and weekends. He picked up the racing bug young, and it doesn’t seem to be wavering.  “I’ve been around it my whole life, and once you start, you can’t just stop.”