Ripping gears in a stick-shift car is truly an art form and Joel Grannas is the Pablo Picasso of H-Pattern racers. For nearly a year Grannas has been setting and resetting the H-Pattern record behind the wheel of his “Orange Man Bad” Supra. During The Reunion event at Bradenton Motorsports Park last weekend, Grannas painted his H-Pattern masterpiece in 6.90-seconds, becoming the first person ever to light the boards with a 6-second elapsed time with such a combination.

Last year at the Sport Compact Finals, Grannas kicked his quest for the 6-second zone into high gear after running a blistering 7.178-second pass at Orlando Speed World Dragway. Grannas then brought his Supra out at TX2K20 and set the overall H-Pattern record with a 7.005-second blast. What makes that pass even more impressive is that Grannas’ Supra had and still has an IRS in the rear.

Coming into The Reunion, Grannas didn’t make any huge changes to Orange Man Is Bad, he just made some small tweaks to help the car get down the track.

“Honestly, we haven’t changed much of anything since Texas. The only thing we did was add a weight bar to the front of the car to keep it from hiking the wheels so much. If you watch my video of the 7.00 pass you can see it wheelie in second gear and push me towards the center. The car would probably have gone sixes at TX2K if that wheelie would have been straight,” Grannas says.

The weight placement paid off for Grannas and that allowed him to make history. During a solo run, Grannas put together the run he needed to break into the 6-second zone. The car laid down an impressive 1.170 short time on its way to a 4.520 1/8-mile number and then finished the run out with a 6.900-second e.t. at over 194 mph.

Now, what’s scary is, according to Grannas, there’s even more left in his record-setting Supra.

“On the 6.90 pass the car shut off at around the 1,000-1,100 foot mark due to an electrical issue — that’s why the record pass was down about 12 mph from where it usually traps. I think that pass could have been in the 6.70s, but that’s pretty much all-in. There’s a little more room in the first part of the track — on the 6.90 pass we had a 1.17 60-foot, and earlier in the weekend I had a personal best 1.12 60-foot time. I’d love to try and get the overall IRS record, but that is a pretty large feat considering Carlyle has it with a 6.58. I will say, to get the rear-wheel-drive IRS record from Carlyle’s auto Corvette with a six-cylinder stick car would be epic,” Grannas explains.

Chasing a goal in drag racing can be very taxing on a racer’s wallet and ego. Being able to reset his own record and become the baddest man on Earth banging gears with an H-Pattern transmission gives Grannas a real sense of accomplishment.

“It’s honestly surreal…I still can’t believe it. I really never thought it was possible until we started going faster and faster over the past eight months of racing. I have been racing stick-shift cars for about 11 years now, and my goal was always to run in the sevens…it never entered my mind sixes could be possible. We made a ton of fast progress with this car since running that first 7.68 pass only a little over a year ago,” Grannas says.

Joel Grannas owns the H-Pattern record and the Orange Man Bad Supra has truly lived up to its name.  By staying dedicated to the craft of banging gears Grannas has shown the world that the clutch is far from dead.