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The Flying Fortress dragster can go from zero to 100 in 0.9 seconds, slamming the driver’s body with about 3.5 g-forces.
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| Proud owners show up in cars that come in all shapes, colors and sizes. Spectators will get a rare up-close look at antique horseless carriages and Ford Model T’s, fanciful touring and luxury cars, powerful sports cars, custom cars and street rods, muscle cars, vintage and modern era high-performance race cars, quirky art and pedal cars, modified street machines with cutting edge styles, exotic high-performance cars, stylish European cars, ultra cool low-riders, sporty compacts, modified imports with flashy graphics, fashionable hip-hop urban show cars, homebuilt kit cars, super-charged turbo cars and trucks, “green” technology/alternative fuel vehicles, streamliners, dragsters, funny cars, gassers, and jet cars. |
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For most women, the roar of engines, squeal of tires, and smell of burning rubber are not exactly ingredients in a recipe for love. But for Dawn Bates, wife of drag racer Kin Bates, the race track might just be the secret of the successful 29-year marriage she has with her high school sweetheart, who currently holds two world speed records.
“From the beginning, I knew Kin had the proverbial need for speed,” she laughs from the Redding, CA, doctor’s office she manages for her husband, who practices medicine when not chasing speed records. “We grew up in Southern California, where most kids agreed that a great date involved cruising Van Nuys Boulevard in a hot car, heading to Bob’s Big Boy, and then cruising in that hot car some more. Kin had the hot car.”
Kin still has the hot car. Known as The Flying Fortress, the car’s moniker probably stems less from its B-17 bomber theme than from its prowess on the track — it’s just flat-out fast.
“In layman’s terms, my car is currently the world’s quickest, fastest, non-supercharged, front engine slingshot dragster,” explains Bates. “In other words, it’s quickest off the starting line, and covers the 1320 feet of track (about a quarter of a mile) faster than any other car in its class — in the world.”
And when he says “fast,” he means it. Bates’ dragster can go from zero to 100 in 0.9 seconds, slamming the driver’s body with about 3.5 g-forces.
Kin Bates came to his passion for engine parts and race tracks the old fashioned way. “My father, Buddy Bates, was a well-known, record setting drag racer,” he explains. “He passed the love of racing on to me and it must be something in the blood, because both my sons are into it, too. Bates Racing is definitely involves everyone in the family.”
28-year-old Kin Bates, Jr. and younger brother, Christopher, each competes in his own nostalgia dragster in the amateur levels. Kin Jr. says, “There’s that old saying about a person being born with a silver spoon in his mouth. My brother and I were basically born with motor parts in our mouths.”
The concept of family extends beyond the “Bates” in Bates Racing; the engine for The Flying Fortress was built by the legendary Gene Adams and is tuned by his son, Dean.
“Gene Adams was the first to push a car to go over 200 miles per hour on a drag strip,” says Bates. Adams was also featured in a documentary, “7-Second Love Affair,” which tracked him during a racing season as he pursued what was once known as “the elusive 7-second barrier.” Gene broke the barrier — and opened the door for a slew of record breaking race car drivers to follow.
Adams’ son, Dean, is responsible for keeping The Flying Fortress tuned to perfection, no easy task when you consider it runs on nitro-methane, “the most volatile liquid you can put into an internal combustion motor,” according to Ken Bates, Jr.
A “rocket scientist” by day for Boeing, Dean revels in his off-hours in keeping the Bates dragster in top form. The two generations of Adamses are is the key, insists, Kin Bates, Sr., to the success of Bates Racing.
“In my opinion, the driver is not the biggest factor as far as having a win. It’s having a great engine builder and a great tuner. And I have the best in the business.”
Catch the world record holding Bates Racing dragster, The Flying Fortress, at Pacific Coast Dream Machines Show on Sunday, April 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Half Moon Bay Airport.
