Team RPM is pleased to highlight Michael Blackwell Jr., the first and youngest teenager to compete in the NOPI NDRA Pro 4 series class. He made history in sport compact drag racing on July 8-9 at Gateway International Raceway in St. Louis where his first appearance was made and managed to take home his first third place trophy. He is currently NOPI's youngest pro driver at the age of 18. This year, Michael has attend 3 races “St. Louis Minn, Rockingham NC, Leicester NY” and managed to placed in all three. He is currently second in the point standing.

Home: Concord, North Carolina.
Date of Birth: August 12, 1987.
Education: Graduated from J.M. Robinson High School on May 27, 2005. Currently enrolled at Mitchell College in Statesville, NC majoring in Mechanical Engineering.

Occupation: Manager of BRE Motorsports and Blackwell Race Engines.
Career Goals: Professional Drag Racer and Stock Car Driver.
Biography: Being born and raised in racing, Michael has always had the dream and passion to pursue a driving career. He has always been around the race car shops and race tracks throughout West Texas, with his father, Mike G. Blackwell (Engine Dept. @ Roush/Yates Racing Engines). Michael's passion for racing began when he received his first go-kart at the age of four.
This marked the beginning of his love for competition.
He has been involved in the stock car scene his entire life; Traveling to numerous tracks throughout the entire state of Texas to New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Since then, he is now building high performance engines in a variety of applications and pilots his Honda Civic Pro 4 Cylinder race car in the NOPI NDRA and NHRA Sport Compact series drag racing classes. Tex became the first teenager to make this accomplishment when he took home a third place trophy his first time out at Gateway International Raceway in St. Louis.
Michael’s determination in racing increases each time he turns a wrench on a late model stock car or builds a turbocharged one-thousand horsepower engine.

In 2005,he and his crew assisted Joe Demaree, owner and driver of Team SSC, Pro 4 Cylinder drag car in NOPI. Tex, expecting to merely do cleanup work and sweeping, ended up performing important maintenance such as transmission swaps, installation of wheelie bars, to lining up the car in the staging lanes. He has traveled thousands of miles to different drag strips across the states including Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Ohio, and the closest to Michael, Rockingham, North Carolina. Combined with their team effort, Team SSC finished off the season runner up in the championship points.
Michael devotes his entire life to racing, the sacrifices made to take advantage of one-time opportunities in order to gain maximum experience and knowledge to gain the ability to be more than just a driver. Known in high school as a "Non complainer", he has been raised to work with what he has, and makes the best of it. His ability to never quit and push himself to reach his goals is how he has made it to where he stands today. Every moment of his time and effort outside of school is put forward to create an iron platform to construct a professional racing career upon.

Putting Racing Aside: Outside of the racing world, Michael is a volunteer tutor at the Hispanic Learning Center located in Concord, North Carolina. There he helps Hispanic students in all grades with their homework and studies. He has the advantage of being 100% bilingual with Spanish giving him the ability to help his students with both languages. In 2005 he put in over one hundred and twenty hours of volunteer work. http://www.TheHLC.org

1998 Civic Drag w/B18C1

EXTERIOR
[] Carbon fiber 1-pc front end
[] Lexan windows aerodynamic
[] Weigh under 2100 lbs w/driver
[] Aerodynamic designed spoiler
[] Wheelie bars
INTERIOR
[] 12-pt cage
[] Custom fabricated seat
[] Solid custom steel mounts rotating engine forward 30degrees [] Shift linkage goes through the firewall [] Nitrous carbon fiber bottle PERFORMANCE [] B series transmission [] 74mm turbo T4 [] up to 50lbs of boost [] 11,000rpm [] Water/air intercooler [] 4inch side exhaust [] 3inch intercooler piping [] CP pistons [] Bill Miller rods [] Quartermaster twin disk carbon clutch [] Precision intercooler [] Edelbrock intake manifold [] Edeldbrock fuel rails [] Eldelbrock camgears [] Eldelbrock throttle body [] Direct port 250shot nitrous [] AEM EMS stand alone engine management [] Dual 1600cc injectors [] Dual fuel rails [] ERL Performance sleeving [] Cometic head gaskets [] ARP fasteners [] Calico coatings for all engine parts [] Sunoco 118 octane race fuel [] Estimate 1000hp plus [] Ultilize 3 gallons of fuel in one pass WHEELS/SUSPENSION [] Mickey Thompsons slicks [] 26inch by 10wide slick on 15inch wheel [] Rear spindle mount wheels [] Moroso axles [] Staging brake SPONSORS [] CP Piston [] Quarter Master [] Ferrea Racing Component [] Calico Coating [] Edelbrock [] Turbo Tune [] ImportsNC

Contact link: BRE Motorsports www.bremotorsports.com
Team RPM www.teamrpm.20m.com
ImportsNC www.importsnc.com

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