My name is John Kolivas and I am the 2006 & 2007 NMRA BF Goodrich Tires Drag Radial World Champion.
I live in a small town in Mississippi called Ashland where I own and manage a family business, Iron Crafters Security Products. My beautiful wife Sandra and I have a wonderful daughter named Kayla. I feel like one of the luckiest people on Earth.
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I bought my 1995 mustang cobra in 2003 with only 23,000 miles. It was nearly bone stock and in like-new condition, but that didn't last long. Over the next year or so I went through every bolt on imaginable. After several blower/turbo configurations I ended up with a pretty strong turbo setup. I then started competing in several local drag radial classes with very good results. At that time the top drag radial class out there was NMRA BF Goodrich Drag Radial. I knew that was where I wanted to be at some point.
I decided 2005 was the time to get started. Our first year we had decent success making 2 finals appearances and getting our first win. We ended up finishing 5th in points. Unfortunately there were more lows than highs and I vowed that the 2006 season would be different. We came out in 2006 with one purpose and that was to win the championship, I was not going to settle for anything less. After the dust cleared we had 4 wins with two runner ups out of 8 events. We won the super bowl shootout and claimed our first Drag Radial Championship.
In the off season, the car went through a complete rebuild. It was sent to Wade Hopkins at Southern Speed for a complete 25.2 upgrade. Everything was stripped off including the roof. We started with a clean sheet of paper approach with the intentions of ending up with a purpose built 25.2 stock suspension radial terror. It paid off big time. When the 2007 season rolled around we were as ready as you can get. We rolled off the trailer at the season opener and immediately laid down numbers that were previously unheard of. We won the event with an 8.02 and never let up the rest of the year. We ended up with a total of 4 wins with 2 runner ups out of a total of 7 races. We also won the Superbowl Shootout for the 2nd time in a row and the inaugural TCI shootout. We are the only NMRA team with 4 rings in the last 2 seasons. This success could not be possible without help from great friends, family, and of course, great sponsors.
Our goal for 2008 is to capture our 3rd straight NMRA Drag Radial championship.....
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