Hackensack, NJ - The feature you are about to read about Ara Arslanian and Bullish Racing has been brought about by the combination of three important developments that all took place during the last five years of the nineties. First, the spread of Internet access to the mass population, second and coincidental to the first development - one of the greatest Bull Runs of the stock market ever, and last but most importantly (because it ties all of this together) - the explosive growth of the import drag racing across the country. Confused? Probably. We spent a few hours in the impressive and new Bullish Motor Racing 40' Freightliner Conv./Trailer with Owner/Driver Ara Arslanian to figure it all out.

Starting in the early to mid-nineties, Internet access became affordable and available. This allowed people like you to reach sites like us - just as you are doing now. At the same time, the possibilities and subsequent demand for Internet services led to the overnight creation of thousands of dot com companies. The stock market fell in love with these companies and billions were invested. In the process, many people benefited financially from the trading of stock from such companies. Ara Arslanian is one of them. His success has allowed him to concentrate on more important things in life - like racing his 93' Toyota Supra, thus the name of his racing team - Bullish Racing. This brings us to the third ingredient for this article. Since Ara's first car, a '82 Pontiac Trans Am, he had been smitten by the racing bug and fell for the power of the 2JZ-GTE engine and the twin turbo setup right away. For the first couple of years, Ara and the Anthracite colored bullet successfully raced club events at tracks like Lime Rock Park and Pocono Raceway.

Meanwhile, import drag races gained popularity and headed out east. In 1997, Ara found himself at Englishtown with the Supra for the first time. Partly curious and partly to prove drag racing was simple, Ara rolled the Supra to the starting line. Now boosted to 500+ HP by a Greddy T78 single turbo transformation (one of the first single turbo Supra conversions at the time - 1996), Ara's hard launch spun the Supra to face the left guardrail and then the right as Ara fought for control. His racing instincts eventually pulled him to the end of the track with a white-knuckle 15.9-second run. Although he swore he would never do it again, the experience challenged him as a driver and made him respect the power of the Supra. Before long the Supra was outfitted for more serious ¼ mi. duties.

As Ara became more serious, he turned as he always had, to Bert Gaertner of The Pro Store. George Ioannou brought his talents to the mix when his shop, Rally Motorsport, merged with the Pro Store to create Pro-Rally Motorsports. The collective talent and experience from the duo spans two decades and several racing formats, including top level GT2 racing. In 1999, Ara, Bert, and George decided to combine their talents on a professional level by forming a professional race team. By the year 2000, the Bullish Motor Racing Supra was making 700HP to the wheels, without NOS assist, on its original stock motor. But with over 20,000 street miles and 250 hours of combined road and drag racing hours on the motor, the decision was made to prep the block to race specs.

Among the typical race prepping work, Bullish took the extra step of cryogenically tempering many of the engine parts, which increases performance and durability of metal parts through a stress relief process at -240 degrees Fahrenheit. The resulting race motor, a culmination of six years of careful research and development backed by countless hours of Dynojet testing, generates over 1,000 HP (!). The level of detail to perfection and precision continues throughout the car. Much of the equipment borders on the exotic - a Motec M48 Pro, Motec ADL Dash/Logger, Motec telemetry, an ACPT carbon fiber driveshaft, a triple plate carbon/carbon Tilton clutch, an ATL fuel cell, a Safety Devices Carbon extinguishing system, and a Truechoice Motorsports custom developed suspension setup. Cosworth pistons and Greddy rods now swing the lightened and knife edged crank. HKS cams rotate through the lightweight valvetrain and in turn, receive its instructions from the Motec M48 engine management system. Air flow is improved through a mildly ported cylinder head and a custom Pro-Store built intake manifold that could be a piece of art in itself.

Ara credits the Motec system and the Tilton clutch for being responsible for the majority of the Supras recent advancements. Through out the 2000 season, the Supra had trouble with finding a reliable clutch to transfer the enormous torque being generated. The Tilton clutch is basically the same clutch found in American Le Mans GT and Sports Prototype racers and has help up well to the task. The Motec system replaced a Haltech system and paid off in big dividends. That's because besides infinite programming, the dash logger/ telemetry combination allows the team to view engine, chassis, and driver behavior real time via a remote link to the trailer. This is the same system used on Formula One racecars for data gathering/ analysis. The resulting information is recorded and can be played back for analysis.

Ara showed us some of his most memorable runs, all captured by telemetry on his laptop. The amount of information available for analysis is incredible - lateral g's, wheels speed, throttle position, suspension travel and behavior are just some of this information. The data allows for quick, on location adjustments for race conditions. One noticeable item that is kept pedestrian is the factory six-speed transmission. Although many of the nations fastest Supras rely on automatic transmissions, Ara insists on keeping the manual stick because of the driver interface it represents and because of his road racing background. His current fastest time, a 9.97@145 (NIRA LACR 04/2001) backed up by a 9.98@ 142 (NIRA Las Vegas 11/2000) is a World Record for a factory six speed Supra would improve approximately .3 sec. for each manual shift if the car was equipped with an automatic tranny.

For this year, Ara plans to continue to compete in NIRA's ultimate street class, the Power 6, as well as NHRA Import and IDRC events throughout the country. At the time of this writing, Ara had just captured the Power 6 trophy, the NIRA/ Super Street Racer of the Week award, and backed up his 9.97 run with a 9.98 sec. run at the first NIRA event of the year in Palmdale. Although the season has seen a great start for Bullish, the other goal for this year is equally exciting - a Solara Pro Race Car, a fully NHRA 25.1C certified tube framed, Pro Mod style, racer that will feature a twin turbo Toyota V8 powerplant. With limited assistance from TRD, Bullish has already taken put the plans into motion - chassis and bodywork is well underway and testing is beginning on the engine. Without giving away too many of the secrets, Ara enthusiastically told us to expect it to be incredibly quick. We'll be watching closely to see what develops. From what Bullish has accomplished with its Supra, we would expect nothing less. The catalyst for success from the combination of Bert and George's tuning talents with Ara's driving skills has been teamwork and an intense work ethic. Look for the Bullish Racing Team to be successful in whatever they campaign.