It’s astonishing how much attention is being paid to grassroots racing these days. Of course, that has much to do with the explosion of racing programming on television. With the success of Discovery’s popular show “Street Outlaws,” which drops us into the high stakes world of hardcore street racing, once little-known racers like “Big Chief” and “FarmTruck” have become household names.
Street car enthusiasts, however, have felt alienated from the high-dollar nature of Street Outlaws, and with this in mind, a new Discovery venture arose to deliver a contrast to Street Outlaws by focusing on more road-going vehicles in line with what the viewers might have in their garages at home.
From the foothills of Tennessee come the “Red Devil Racers,” a group of gearhead friends who claim to be true street racers. This rough but good-hearted crew sets out to show that the cars they race with are every day, legitimate street cars, driving them throughout the show to prove this statement. They also take the budget-minded approach to racing, pooling usable performance parts off their four LS-powered street cars to make one viable street-race ready car in one episode. Some changes they implemented are common knowledge in the drag racing world, including swapping out a used set of radials for bias-ply drag slicks to improve street traction.
Facebook was abuzz after the airing of this pilot show, which received mixed reviews — some showing admiration of the fact that the show is a complete 180 degrees from other shows similar in nature. Others stated the show falls extremely short in comparison to what real racing culture is like. Something can be said about the lack of proper safety equipment for the 1/8-mile times that we saw Rusty, the leader of the Red Devils, running in his Buick Grand National.
The show does seem to have a good base idea with something to be desired in the improvement of the editing and the overall direction of the show. We’ll have to see if the interest is great enough to move this show past the pilot stage of development, and whether or not it will be worth adding to the growing line-up of car-based program at the Discovery Channel.
Do you feel the “Red Devil Racers” stacks up against “Street Outlaws?” Let us know in the comments below.
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