By Andrew Wolf August 17, 2018Once again, Bahrain’s loss is American’s gain.Ebrahim Kanoo, the proprietor of Bahrain’s most successful drag racing operation, EKanoo Racing, retired earlier this season a pair of his world record-holding racing machines; one, the team’s Super Street V8 Lexus RC-F, was purchased in April by Missouri’s Daniel Pharris for Limited Drag Radial competition. The second, a Toyota GT86 that reset on multiple occasions the outright world record for import-powered racecars, was parked after clocking what was then an international standard of 5.73-seconds. Since that time, the future of the Toyota 2JZ-powered GT86 remained in question, but Florida’s Titan Motorsports, a powerhouse in the import drag racing arena, put those questions to rest this week. Titan, with a host of records and first’s to its credit, including the first import doorslammer into the three-second zone, revealed this week it has struck a deal with EKanoo Racing to acquire the GT86. Wasting little time, the car has already arrived stateside at its Orlando, Florida headquarters.For Titan, the arrangement was a perfect fit; the engine wizards at Titan have provided the horsepower for EKanoo’s GT86 endeavor since the beginning, and so the staff is intimately aware of the car and its capabilities. Gary White, who drove Titan’s Extreme 10.5 Scion in the ADRL before becoming one of EKanoo’s primary pilots, will return to the cockpit here in the states. Titan’s Race Director Eric Luzinski, who played an integral part in EKanoo’s import efforts will manage the engine and chassis tuning. The car, currently operating on a MoTec system, will be converted over to a FuelTech ECU and will be powered by a Titan/Expert Racing billet inline six-cylinder 2JZ. Titan will campaign the car exclusively at nearby Orlando Speed World Dragway for the remainder of the season, where it will go head-to-head with its archrival — Team Zoain and its record-holding Toyota Camry. White hinted at a potential foray into the PDRA in the future — a venue for which it has already competed once before when EKanoo shipped the car stateside in the summer of 2016 and contested it in Pro Boost at Martin, Michigan.
“We look forward to the World Sport Compact Challenge where the GT86 will race against the world’s best and battle it out for their $20,000 purse. The Titan Motorsports team had the pleasure of building the first five-second Import Supra, to now taking over ownership of this historic Pro Import. We wish Ebrahim Kanoo and the EKanoo Racing team success going forward in their future endeavors,” noted the Titan Motorsports staff.