Since Larry Larson and his Chevy S-10 took the title of the World’s Fastest Street Car off Andy Frost in 2014, things have been pretty quiet from his side of the pond. Many on the internet following proceedings wondered if Andy would be up to the challenge of chasing Larry down to reclaim the title. Well he is, but things are not always as simple as they seem, if you can call running five-second passes in a street-legal car simple!
World’s Fastest Street Car racing is a complex game, with the quickest in the business being little more than scratch-built race cars with enough equipment on them to pass as being street cars. America seems to be the most liberal with their laws and enforcement on the matter, with racers and builders in other countries such as New Zealand, Australia, and the UK all having to comply with some form of certification process before scratch-built vehicles can be registered. There have always been certain cars that have evolved over the years to the point where the car has become a scratch build — but being a known vehicle, which is regularly checked and tech inspected, they sometimes fall through the legality cracks until someone raises the matter with the authorities. And unfortunately for Andy and his car, Red Victor 3 (RV3), someone did.
While Andy didn’t quite have a SWAT team kicking in his front door at 3am demanding his logbook or raiding his workplace, he did receive a letter from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) stating that he had to go through an Individual Vehicle Approval (IVA) test, which is more stringent than our certification process in New Zealand. All Andy could do was work seven days and seven nights a week to get his car through the test, so that nobody could question the legality of the car.
The rework on RV3 took over a year to ensure that it would comply with the 300-page manual for scratch-built cars and on August 17 it passed. RV3 is now legally registered as a tube-framed, twin-turbo, alloy big block, fibreglass, scratch-built vehicle, having passed the IVA’s tests on visibility, noise, emissions, and everything else required for the car to be operated legally in the UK. The team’s focus is now on running their first five-second pass!
Leading image: Matt Woods
