What stands out about "Kamikaze" Chris Day is not that he fits the profile of a frontrunner. It is that he wins despite being the opposite - the underrated, the overlooked, the improbable story. The owner and driver of the flat-black El Camino made famous on Discovery Channel's Street Outlaws has built his reputation not on resources, but on sheer refusal to quit.

Built From Nothing

Raised in a blue-collar household in Oklahoma City, Chris recalls simply, "we were broke." Anything beyond the basics was his responsibility. Between mowing lawns, chopping trees, pumping gas, and helping with his father's heating and air business, he saved enough to buy his first dirt bike - and went racing.

"I've always been an extremely competitive person," he explains. "Being frankly honest, I wouldn't even say I'm necessarily a 'car guy'. I'm just a 'racing guy'. I'll race a damn shopping cart. I don't care what it is."

Around that time, he began helping friends with their cars. Viewers of Street Outlaws will recognise his long-standing friendship with Justin "Big Chief" Shearer. Chris recalls their bond forged over the original Crow - Justin's Pontiac Le Mans. "Me and Chief - we went to school, we went to work, and we'd be in the driveway until three or four in the morning, every single day, every single weekend, working on the Crow. That was the car me and him grew up working together on."

The Cars Before the El Camino

With experience came his own builds - a Chevy LUV with a small-block, a Blazer with a small-block, and an A-body Chevelle. That last one stayed with him. "God I miss it, so bad," Chris says. "It was a '71, it was ugly, it was emerald green. Like a bass boat. But it just sat badass. It ran nines, I drove it around - it was just a badass, rowdy-ass car."

Each car came and went as fortune allowed. But Chris was part of a group of OKC racers who took things more seriously than most. "Most people go out there, and they hang out and drive around in their cars, and it's just something to do. With me and Chief, and Dave Comstock and the other guys, for some reason this stuff was serious."

Earning the Name

The nickname "Kamikaze" was earned, not chosen. Chris describes his driving philosophy with characteristic bluntness.

"There's probably a threshold, of where you're like a complete jackass, and then where the area of 'safe' would kinda' be, and I'm usually OK with running out there in the 'jackass' range."

"Some people do drugs, some people drink, some people do whatever the hell it is they do to relax - I'm the calmest and happiest when I'm this close to putting myself in the ground somewhere. So I'll push it - that's the part I like. That's living, to me."

That mentality made him exactly the right driver for a race car as unpredictable as an El Camino.

The El Camino: Engineering Against the Odds

The car's factory geometry works against everything a drag racer needs. While it retains the relatively long stock wheelbase of 117 inches, the driveshaft alone is 62.5 inches. "Nothing about that's good for a racecar. Nothing. Literally nothing about the geometry of that entire car," Chris explains. "Because with the way the cab is set so far forward, you can't get everything back far enough to leverage the damn car correctly."

The car was previously owned by Justin and driven by Tyler "Flip" Priddy in the first season of Street Outlaws. When Chris received it, it had a 498-inch motor with a stock GM block, Eagle crank, ancient Brodix heads, and a single Nitrous Express fogger. "That thing was a trooper," he recalls.

After eventually hurting it badly enough to require several rebuilds, he installed a friend's already-built 582 - reluctantly. "I'm way too prideful, I won't take a handout from anybody alive." That 582 turned out to be a "punk motor." Thirteen rebuilds in a single season. "Like I had a damn Funny Car program - I would race it, then rebuild it, blow it up, rebuild it. Just nuts."

The Turbo Transition

Chris used his savings to work with Graham Jones at FastTimes Motorworks on an all-aluminium 632 with four stages of nitrous. Paired with a garage-built back-half chassis conversion to run big tyres, by summer 2017 he was back on OKC's Top 10 list and winning races. But it was not enough. "I never got that car to run the way I wanted it to."

That drove the biggest change of his racing career - the switch from nitrous to turbos. Debuted at PRI in December 2017, the new powerplant uses the same block and heads, but with an all-new Lunati crankshaft, Bill Miller rotating assembly, and Comp Cams billet cam. Built again by Graham Jones at FastTimes, the engine is fed by twin Precision Turbo 94mm Gen2 Pro Mod units via a modular Plazmaman intake. Power transfers rearward through a ProTorque EV1 bolt-together converter and Rossler Turbo 400 3-speed.

3,500 Horsepower and a Rebuilt Back Half

With the car now producing 3,500 horsepower, the rear end needed further work. After fine-tuning turbo placement and piping at HPP Racing in Houston - "That's the first time that car's ever been in a shop, ever," Chris notes - the El Camino went to Cody Barklage at Starting Line Motorsports in Missouri for a rework of the back-half. Power reaches the ground through a new Moser 9-inch with 40-spline axles and Weld Delta wheels inside 34x17.0 tyres. New 4-link brackets, beefier bars, a Chris Bell anti-roll bar, and Chris Bell Kinetic Energy shocks hold it all in place.

Despite the upgrades, Chris is clear about what the car is - and is not.

"It's got a bunch of work done to it and stuff like that, but it's not anywhere near a chassis car. It's a modified El Camino with a big, dumbass motor in it. It's got stock front suspension - 100-percent stock front mounting locations. It's not a strut car. Legit stock firewall and stock transmission tunnel."

The Point of It All

That is deliberate. The El Camino represents something to Chris and the group of friends he grew up with. "The reason it's still the way it is, and the reason it still gets built and raced the way it does, is because it's just a 'Piss Off!' to all the nice cars. That car is my way - and Tyler, Justin, Shawn, all of us - that's the 'You can have what you want and we're still gonna beat you' car."

Along with the individuals behind him, Chris receives support from companies including Haltech, Speedmaster, and Woolf Aircraft Products.

The car is a manifestation - proof in steel - that passion, pride, and work can overcome what is lacking in resources. As Chris puts it, "Anyone could have my car. Anybody that wants to race and is serious about it, and is dumb enough to spend all their money and time working on one, can have a car like I have."

"I'm an all-or-nothing guy. I'm either gonna really make it in my life, or I'm gonna be nothing. There's no 'middle' for me. It's something I tried to fight for a long time, but I've accepted that's how I am. And I can't fake that."

Street Outlaws airs Mondays at 9pm on Discovery.

Original article: www.dragzine.com/features/unheralded-hero-kamikaze-chris-day-strikes-without-warning/