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K&N's Craig Anderson Grateful For Opportunities in 2011 and Optimistic for Exciting 2012

24.01.2012

Waxahachie, Texas resident, Craig Anderson spent the 2011 season again chasing points in two, of what many consider, NHRA's toughest sportsman classes, Super Gas and Super Comp. While Anderson continued to drive the 1963 Corvette Roadster that he won the Super Gas Division 4 championship in the season before, the car he wheeled in Super Comp throughout the year, including a final round appearance at the World Finals in Pomona, was thanks to some good friends with some outstanding equipment.

Craig Anderson's New 2012 Chevy Cobalt Ready to Turn Heads on and off the Track!

"I had sold my Super Comp dragster and I ran the Hughes Motorsports dragster all year long," he explained. "They knew I had sold my car and was waiting on a new Top Sportsman car that I had ordered and I was very flattered that they offered for me to drive one of theirs. He said look, we have this car sitting here, so come get it. So, I started out the year with it at the first Pomona national and then brought it home with me. They told me to just treat it like it was my own and if I blew a motor, they would build another and so on."

"That was just a great opportunity and meant a lot to me for someone to do something that that for me," he continued of racing the Hughes dragster.

Surprisingly, one of the biggest highlights for Anderson during the 2011 season came as a car owner and not a driver. "After finishing first in the division the year before in my Gas car, I started to think maybe I was really turning the corner of having an outstanding season," he said. "I was having it all happen this year and just couldn't get anything together. I would be dead-on the dial and have a bad reaction [time] or I'd be good on reaction and the car wouldn't run the number. So come time for Indy [US Nationals], so I put a kid in my car , Ryan Herem for Indy, just on a whim and he went on to win Super Gas. He mowed through a field of tough customers to make that happen, including the sponsor of the car I was driving in Super Comp. That was the big highlight of the year for me, my car winning Indy."

Anderson did have a fairly strong year in the Super Comp car he was driving finishing tenth in the NHRA Div 4 standings after some good turnouts in Arizona and Louisiana. "I didn't get to compete in my last division claim of the year or it's very possible that I could have finished higher," he said of his 2011 Super Comp Finish. "For the final points race, which was Vegas, we decided to get Jim's son, Joey Hughes in the car. He needed to get some experience and it was his last chance to get a grade point to be ready for next season."

Before he completely relinquished the driving duties of the Hughes Super Comp dragster for the season, he was able to compete with it one final time and did so during the NHRA World Finals at Pomona, where he took it all the way to the final before bowing out to Val Torres in a tough round.

"I've always been able to go rounds at Pomona," he said. "A few years back I was able to runner-up in Super Gas and now I finished last year with a runner-up in Super Comp. One of these days I'll get that win."

As much as Anderson was excited about his last race of the season in Super Comp, he was even more so for finally being able to pick up his new Top Sportsman in December. "I've got it in the shop and it turned out really-really nice," he admitted. "I'm not for sure as to when I'm going to debut it, but I'm also going to run it in Super Comp. It's a 2012 Jerry Bickel Cobalt and it has a 706ci Sunset Racecraft motor from Tracy Dennis which makes over 1400 HP without nitrous. I'm going to have a single stage of nitrous on it, just for grins. So if I can't make it in somewhere [in Top Sportsman], maybe I can push it a little bit."

"I plan on running the new car at every event I go to, whether it's in Super Comp or Top Sportsman," he continued. "We are kind of leaning to start with it at Pomona [February national event], but we are still not for sure about that. I'm trying to find a place to test with decent weather that doesn't take two days to get there."

Like every ride Anderson competes in, each are loaded with nothing but the best available parts and many of those coming from K&N Engineering. "This new car is really super nice and not only does the new K&N scoop look great on it, but the engine has all the protection it needs with K&N air and oil filters," he noted.

"K&N is always working hard in all of the development of new products and even tweaking others," Anderson said. "I have worked with Steve Williams [K&N VP Vice President of Research and Development] a lot and he not only is a very smart racer, but he has also shared a lot of tips and what-not to me to help make my cars a lot more consistent. I just cannot say enough about Steve or K&N."

During Anderson's last trip to the southern California area, he had a chance to visit K&N's headquarters in person. "All I can say is wow," he exclaimed. "It is a sight to see all that they do there and how they do it. They just don't throw things together. They design it and they even have the machines that build the other machines that manufacturer the K&N products. Talk about quality control, it was absolutely amazing to see it all."

When Anderson is not racing or working, he is hard at it behind the scenes of the very successful annual Circus Motorsports Greg Morris Memorial Golf Tournament, just last year raising almost $80,000. "All of that money goes to NHRA drag racers that may become sick or injured and K&N is a big part of what we have been able to accomplish with our event over the years," he said. "Steve Williams and K&N have been extremely helpful for anything we needed to make this event a success."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Custom 2010 Ford F-150 Raptor Built By John Williams Was Featured at the 2011 SEMA Show

20.01.2012

John Williams' 2010 Ford F-150 Raptor at SEMA

While SEMA may be the center for all things aftermarket, it is still amazing to see the variety of causes that theses aftermarket parts can represent. Sometimes people will choose a cause to support or sometimes they will choose a specific purpose to build the vehicle and sometimes they just build a car because they like building cars. In this case, the Ford F-150 built by John Williams was a blitz project that was begun 2 weeks before SEMA began and was finished 2 days before the show was to open. Let me repeat that 12 days of work to build this from the impressive, but stock, Raptor.

2011 SEMA Show featured this highly custom Ford F-150 Raptor

The F-150 in question began life as a 2010 F-150 Raptor with a 6.2 engine, which will be growling at the world through the K&N 77-2579KTK Performance intake system and will see an estimated 20Hp increase from this mod alone. John has done some previous work on SEMA vehicles as well, even earning some awards for his efforts. No wonder this particular build was no slouch on the suspension mod list:

ICON Upper control arms
Sway Away 2.5" shocks
Deaver Leaf Springs
Poly performance rear shackles

12000VR winch on this Ford F-150 Raptor stood out at the SEMA Show

4.56 ring and pinion from West Coast Differentials
Front Auburn Ected locking Differential
Warn 12000VR Winch
Custom pre runner bumpers
Superchips Cortex Programmer
Baja Designs Lights
Black Rock Wheels
BFGoodrich Mud Terrain TA KM2 Tires
K&N Performance Intake.

When asked what this vehicle does outside of SEMA John replied, "Drives me to and from work and pre running on the weekend." It certainly ought to do that well. John has had some previous experience in building cars. In the past he has built cars for BRGoodrich, Bully Dog Technologies and Black Rock Wheel just to name a few.

The SEMA featured 2010 Ford F-150 Raptor was equipped with Black Rock Wheels

When asked why he uses K&N specifically John replied "It's the best product out there with years of testing and a long history of being the best air filter." And when asked what experiences he's had with K&N he said, "I have been using them on all of my vehicles since 1998!"

Now that SEMA is over John says that he is going to try to get back into rock crawling events and dirt racing. John also has a goal for his custom raptor; in short, 38x14 BFGoodrich Mud Terrain tires. As John puts it, "No other Raptor will be on tires this big!" And that's a pretty impressive statement. That's not to say that the entire project was bolt on or easy. That front bumper was an entirely different matter, it was custom built by John and in his words "They were the first tube products that I actually built." With all of these custom parts and Fords recent foray into rock crawling at Moab it looks like this raptor is a dinosaur not to be taken lightly.

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Team Quad75Dezert Clinches Class 24 and Overall ATV Title at 2011Baja 1000

20.01.2012

Brown points to longtime friend and mechanic, Kenny Sanford, along with his entire crew for the success they've had over the past years.

As we've reported before, the 44th SCORE Baja 1000 was one of the gnarliest, human and machinery devouring races ever. Survival became its own reward. The 2011 course combined the San Felipe 250 and Baja 500 courses which amounted to roughly 692 miles of bone rattling adventure. 278 entries from 16 countries, including entries from 34 states started the race, 155 finished to brag about it. K&N sponsored team Quad75Dezert conquered small and large adversities throughout the race to win their class and finish second overall for ATVs, which was plenty enough to secure their Class 24 championship as well as the ATV Overall championship.

Brandon Brown and his Quad75Dezert team won the Class 24 and 2011 Overall ATV Title.

Heading into the granddaddy of all desert races Quad75Dezert had already amassed four overall ATV wins, five Class 24 wins and one win in Class 25. "We had three overalls in a row going into the 1000 this year," said team owner Brandon Brown, "And we were hoping for four straight but it didn't work out. Regardless, we were stoked on the season and the getting the season ATV Overall Championship. Everyone involved put in a tremendous amount of work and it felt great to have it all pay off."

Brown's first Baja 1000 experience came in 2006, when good friend and fellow WORCS Racer, Josh Fredrick got him on the team with the factory Can-Am effort. They ended up third overall that year. "It was a great experience and something that I had always dreamt about doing since I was a kid," said Brown. "After that I was hooked and fortunately was asked back the next year to ride with the team again for the season."

For the 2008 Baja 1000 Brown and fellow Polaris teammate, Nick Nelson teamed up, once again finishing third overall for ATV's. After that they put together a program for the entire 2009 season, where they won the Overall and Class 25 in the Baja 500. The following year Brown decided to put together his own program, involving longtime friend and mechanic, Kenny Sanford and racer Jorie Williams.

Rider changes were uneventful and went smoothly all race long for the team.

"Nick (Nelson) ended up racing with us too, as his program fell through at the last minute and we gladly welcomed him back for the season," explains Brown. "We had a good year and ended up with the overall for the point-to-point Baja 1000 from Ensenada to La Paz. Then we managed to follow that victory with Overall and class victories at the San Felipe 250 and Baja 500 and another Class victory at the 2011 Baja 1000."

Team Quad75Dezert drew the first quad off the line for Class 24 and Jorie Williams took off on a tear. "This kid is an animal, but he knows when to ride within his means, and he has plenty of experience down there. We trust his judgment," remarked Brown.

Next up was Kenny Sanford, Sanford wasted no time reclaiming the positions lost during the first pit, coming into the race mile 95 pit second overall. Williams once again took over the ATV, and he battled back-and forth for the lead the entire time until passing off the quad to Brown at the Borrego Road crossing. Brown then passed it back to Sanford, and then Jamie Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick was once again battling for the lead until he crashed on the infamous Old Puertecitas Road. According to Brown, Kirkpatrick rode his heart out trying not to lose too much time before handling over the controls to Williams again. The mishap took its toll on Kirkpatrick and he had to pass his next ride over to Brown, a section Brown had not pre-run before the race.

The team makes one final inspection before Brown brings it home for the Class 24 win and the overall 2011 ATV Championship.

"I rode hard to race mile 424 where we had a scheduled four tire change pit stop and full bike check," said Brown. "The pit went well and I was on my way. I made my way back through the whoops of San Felipe and Borrego, up to Mike's Sky Ranch, then down to the Valley De Trinidad. I handed the bike off to Jorie (Williams) one last time for his short section over to the coast. At this point we had a good lead on second in our class and the rest of the field but the Honda team had 34 minutes on us and we still were gunning for the overall. The fog was horrible coming in, and Jorie dealt with it safely and swiftly before handing over the bike to, Richie Brown at San Vicente near the Pacific Coast."

"Richie had a great ride on the coast and chipped away at our deficit his entire time on the bike. As he was coming into the field at Ojos, where he would hand the bike of to me for the finish, I heard him on the radio letting saying that we had no rear brakes. We had a quick pit to check and then I got back on for the final stretch into Ensenada. I was able to chip a couple more minutes off of the gap but simply ran out of miles. We had a great race and a crew that made great decisions under adversity. Fortunately Jamie was fine after a day or so and we had a Class win and Overall Championship to celebrate!"

Brown say that the team attends WORCS races when they can, but mostly just local races up around the Northwest. "There is some really good desert terrain on the east side of both Oregon and Washington that we like to train in as well," continues Brown. "And yes, we'll be back in Baja for 2012. We would like to thank K&N as well as the rest of our sponsors and support crew that helped make it all happen."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Brian Deegan Makes 2011 LOORRS History Winning both Pro Lite and Pro 2 Championships

20.01.2012

For the Pro 2 Unlimited Championship, Deegan drove his K&N supported Ford F-150 SVT Raptor.

"It was cool to be the first person to win Pro Lite and Pro 2 in the same season!" Brian Deegan told K&N, "I'm glad to accomplish my goal of being the first rookie to win the Pro 2 class and setting a record that will be hard to be beat, winning by almost 50 points."

Deegan won his second Pro Lite title in 2011, the first coming in 2009.

Throughout his career, be it motocross, freestyle, or driving his 900hp Metal Mulisha Pro 2 truck, Deegan has made sport of winning championships, and often he's amended record books in the process. Racing fans came in droves to witness the high-octane action of the final round of the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing series (LOORRS) held at Firebird Raceway in Chandler, Arizona, and watched as Deegan once again ventured where no other driver has been.

Deegan's win and third-place finish was more than enough for the K&N sponsored driver to clinch championships in two classes of the 2011 LOORRS season. Deegan locked down his first ever Pro 2 title, and the Pro Lite championship for the second time in his career at Round 15 of the series, held on Saturday December 10. No racer has ever won the LOORRS Pro 2 class as a rookie. In addition, no racer has ever won two separate classes in the same season.

Deegan and his crew celebrate 2011 Metal Mulisha domination.

For the Pro 2 Unlimited Championship, Deegan competed in his K&N supported Ford F-150 SVT Raptor, and he drove his Ford Ranger to claim the Pro Lite Unlimited title. The two championships added even more accolades to the stellar season "The General" had on four wheels, including his 2011 X Games 17 RallyCross Gold, and representing the USA in Germany at the Race of Champions. Overall, Deegan tallied a total of 21 podiums with 12 first-place wins throughout the LOORRS 2011 season.

It will be tough to top his last season performance in 2012, says Deegan, but make no mistake about, he's looking to win each time he lines up this season.

"2011 was the best season yet," said Deegan, "Winning X Games, two LOORRS championships, and back at Crandon winning. It will be hard to top that in 2012, but I look forward to having fun racing and building Deegan Motorsports. We have the most dominant team and put out the best products."

"I plan on winning every time I line up in 2012," adds Deegan, "So if that brings me to be champion again, then that's what it will be - Metal Mulisha domination!"

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.

Christian Van Lewen's Custom Camaro SS at 2011 SEMA Show

19.01.2012

Camaro SS with K&N intake at SEMA

Often times we, as human beings, complete certain tasks to remember the loved ones we have lost. Whether it be frequent visits to the last place you saw them or getting a tattoo that reminds you of them; we each have our own way to remember these special people that we hold so dear. Christian Van Lewen has created a vehicle to do just that and has built a one of a kind Camaro SS.

Christian Van Lewen's one of a kind Camaro SS at the 2011 SEMA Show

Van Lewen's custom show car happened to be displayed during SEMA 2011. The most impressive modification has to be the extremely intricate paint job. It combines tribal designs with ghost like images on a bright blue background. Van Lewen described it as a "Fallen Angels" theme. The paint scheme continues throughout the car even onto the lip of each 22" wheel. Van Lewen still drives the car frequently and mentioned he, "Wanted to do something different and wild and that has never been done before." Let's just say it is a pretty wild paint scheme and the one responsible for laying down is Charles Armstrong, from Auto Art Studio.

Other modifications include:

This Camaro SS combines tribal designs with ghost like images on a bright blue background at SEMA

- K&N Typhoon air intake (part number 69-4519TP)
- Kinetik Batteries
- Savini 22" SV29's
- Toyo Tires
- Lexani Black Mesh Grille
- Stillen "J-Hook" Rotars
- Reverse Hood Hinge Kit by Revolution
- Granatelli Motorsports (Rear Lower Control Arms & Coil Plug Wires)
- AAC Styling (Lighting)
- Katzkin Interior done by the Todd Jubert
- Chrome Dressing for Under the Hood

SEMA featured Camaro SS with Savini 22" SV29's

Van Lewen has been modifying cars since he was 17 years old working on his 1996 Silverado. One modification that comes standard on his vehicles is a high flow air filter produced by K&N Engineering. He said, "I have always used K&N filters on all of my vehicles starting with my first vehicle (a 96 Silverado) to my Cadillac to the Camaro, I wouldn't want to use any other product." This is probably because K&N produces quality products backed by a Million Mile Limited Warranty. Or it might be the fact that Van Lewen thinks, "K&N has always provided an amazing product and have recommended them to all of my friends and family. They have great customer service when there is a problem or a concern; an amazing company with a great past and an even better future."

With the help of many friends, Van Lewen was able to get the Camaro SS ready for the SEMA show

With the help of many friends, Van Lewen was able to get the Camaro ready for the SEMA show. It took about 8 hours to detail the car alone. The car had to be washed, waxed, vacuumed, and wiped down really give it that show car appeal.

The "Fallen Angel" Camaro has hopes of getting an upgraded stereo system and forced induction further down the road. Van Lewen wanted to give a special thanks his, "friends and family, Josh Jennings and John Trevino for pushing me to get the car done, Jeremy Rice for my suspension install, Todd Jubert for the amazing interior, and Charles Armstrong for the amazing paint and artwork, and all of my sponsors that helped bring my Camaro to what it is today."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.