Our friends down south at DragsterBrasil.com have given us the inside scoop on an American built Pro Mod Camaro doing battle in Brazil.

Brazilian drag racer Hiroshi Abe of Illicit Customs is well known in his country for his twin-turbo Pro-Mod Malibu that won him several championships over the years. Unfortunately, the car was involved in a serious crash in August of 2011 where the vehicle was totaled. Not wasting any time, Hiroshi decided to contact Rick Jones Race Cars in the United States about getting a 1970.5 Pro-Mod Camaro built to replace the wrecked Malibu.

RJ Race Cars specializes in Pro-Stock, Pro Mod and Top Sportsman drag race cars fabricated in-house from tubular chromoly, carbon fiber and titanium. RJ Race Cars is also home to the popular aftermarket parts brand Quartermax. When dealing with the power levels of a Pro Mod engine, experience, materials and fabrication methods are of the utmost importance. This is why we often see American-built race cars battling it out in other countries.

A chassis was built by the team at RJ Race Cars using chromoly tubing and fitting with the shops in-house chassis components. Strange Engineering was chosen to provide front and rear brakes for the Camaro, in addition to the Strange rear differential that is housed in the back. Ultimately, Hiroshi decided to go with a 1970.5 Camaro body for his new mount. This new body was built out of light-weight carbon fiber for the utmost weight savings and even quicker elapsed times.

The team at Illicit Customs was under a tight deadline to make the 20th Festival of Freedom Force Arrancada drag race in mid-December, so the decision was made to use the 400ci twin-turbo SBC engine instead of the 500ci supercharged powerplant that will eventually take its place. This is the same engine that was used in the Pro Mod Malibu that Hiroshi piloted back in 2011.

The team made it to Freedom Force race with the new RJ Race Cars Pro-Mod Camaro. While they made several runs over the weekend, the team experienced an issue during a run on the final day of competition that resulted in the Camaro hitting the wall just off the starting line. While we haven’t been given word on the cause of the issue, we’re sure the team at Illicit Customs will have this car up and running again in no time with the help of the team at RJ Race Cars.