Asian Car Club Races Into the New Year

In January, we told you about the flourishing Asian car club scene--a modern version of Southern California’s age-old hot rod culture in which the participants are largely young Asian Americans and the cars are custom, compact imports. We focused on West L.A.’s Kosoku (Japanese for “speed”) club, a wholesome group based around the De Vera family (even “Moms” has a custom car).

These days, crew leader R.J. De Vera, 20, is in his junior year at UCLA, studying mass media communications--and living it. He recently landed a part-time job as editor at large of Super Street magazine, a year-old publication aimed at the burgeoning import custom car phenomenon. R.J. is the magazine’s eyes and ears to the scene, locating unique cars for photo shoots and writing feature articles.

He recently replaced his aging Acura Integra with a 1991 Acura NSX--a supercar that he plans to soup up. Last fall, Moms, a.k.a. Charlotte De Vera, 50, took first place at the Import Show Off in Del Mar with her custom Honda minivan. But a month later, she blew the engine drag racing at the Battle of the Imports. She’s rebuilding it.

Meanwhile, Petersen Companies Inc., publisher of dozens of magazines including Hot Rod and Super Street, recently purchased the National Import Racing Assn.--one of the organizations that runs legal drag races for custom imports--and plans to transform it into an official, sanctioning body with a year-round schedule.