DRAG racing is a pastime not for the faint of heart. Most people who are drawn into the drags see it as a hobby; but an infinitesimally small amount of hard-core floggers of the 1320 actually make money from it. Even fewer have achieved the notoriety needed to gain cult status.

Speed is a necessity in the sport, yes. But the need for speed is almost secondary to the need for spectacle. Very few people possess the quick reaction times needed for success, the skills to put on a good show and wherewithal to actually have a spectacular car.

Keroy Scott is the quintessential underdog. A sleeper if you will. The drags run in his blood. Quiet, unassuming, a nephew of the notorious Hartnell “Lookup” Campbell, he has gained from his uncle’s erstwhile experience.

Scott believes in building his own cars. His bench racing sessions have crossed over to reality countless times. Scott has built many cars. Toyota Starlets, Levins, Corollas, Mark IIs, Cressidas — even a Mercedes with 4E-FTE, 4AGE, 4AGZ, and JZ power.

Scott’s last project to run did so in Antigua and JAMWEST in ‘2008 – 2009: a weird one-eyed wagon in which the only thing that remained as Toyota designed it was the Toyota Corolla DX badge’.

That little white cornucopia of parts had a Ford 8-inch rear, stock 1JZ transmission, stock 1JZ engine with a T4 ball-bearing turbo with a 63 back housing built “by a guy a foreign”– and Scott built ladder bars.

At 28lbs boost ‘Franken’rolla’ ran a documented 10.2 seconds at 129 miles an hour.

To put that run in perspective, he ran against a ’73 Camaro with twice the displacement that was gassed to the gills. And won.

Each car he raced has been a progression up the elapsed time ladder.

Always Toyota, always boosted, always a class winner. And always driven and built with knowledge gleaned from the car before.

An array of spectacular names is carved into the handle of his racing gun — Sidney Knott, Craig Lue, Seymour Allen and many more. They all challenged — and lost.

At the end of that season, Scott retired Franken’Rolla.

Why? “That car was just a hurry-come-up t’ing,” Scott reflects. “I was told that a 1JZ motor could neva mek 550 hp. I was told that a stock 1JZ tranny would neva hol’ dat amount a power and run ten seconds. So that car came about,” he said.

‘They’ also told him that a full-bodied, tube-framed, 1JZ engined, 83 EP body Starlet with a torqflite ‘tranny’, Ford eight-inch rear and stock EP wheelbase could not be built in Jamaica — much less motor down the quarter.

What can we say? ‘Can’t’ is just not in this fellow’s lexicon.

‘Cause it’s here — Scott’s “new”, potentially eight-second car.

No, it hasn’t been fired up yet. But all the elements necessary for competition are there. Full tube chassis, bent and built by his co-car designer and partner in crime, Rae Parchment, on this little rock with not so much as a mandrel bender. The Ford eight-inch rear… narrowed by the man himself.

A three-link rear locator system was made with the help of adjustable radius arms from Quarter Max. Everything else including the blood, sweat and tears driving this project was manufactured under a blue tarp at 26 Camp Road.

The naysayers have come out against the car, claiming that it is too short to handle the ‘guesstimated’ 600 horse.

Countering, Scott says: “I have good front-end geometry. I have moved the engine so far back in the car that I have to reach backward to shift. The drive shaft is twenty-four inches long. What I want is a hard 60-foot time, like a 1.1 or a 1.2 60-foot.

“After that it’s just stab and steer to the finish line. I invite anyone who knows about rear-wheel-drive cars to come here and show me why my car won’t run.”

Scott is nothing if not the king of the 1JZ, so the venerable straight six has been, shall we say, breathed on?

Firstly he says the head is from a 1JZ — but the bottom half is all 2JZ. So engine displacement is three litres (the original engine was a 1300cc 4k motor).

He stresses also that all internals are stock. We asked him the turbo size, to which he curtly responded: “That (the public) will never know. All you need to know is that to make power out of a JZ, you need to put on a bigger turbo and larger injectors, use the stock timing, and don’t go wild on the tuning,” he adds.

So what is holding up the release of this new Dragon Slayer? “

“All I’ve done so far has been financed by yours truly,” he says.

“I need a stand alone engine-management system to complete the project. There are no sponsors on-board as yet. That particular challenge is proving hard to overcome,” he says laughing.

Scott is a drifting ace. He does this, not with limited slip differential, but with a fully locked one. If he has mastered that monster, then sponsors? Really?