Brent Sinclair’s fourth-gen, 1999 Camaro has become a regular sight at some of the nation’s biggest drag-and-drive events, including Drag Week, Sick Week, and the Midwest Drags, where the Evansville, Indiana native and his machine have collected hardware along the many miles of pavement they’ve covered over four years.
Like many, Sinclair jumped into the car hobby as soon as he could legally drive, sharing that he “always had a passion for cars and all forms of motorsports,” but says that no one in particular really set the hook.
“At 16 my daily driver was an ’87 V8 S-10 that I raced at our local track in Chandler, Indiana. At 18 I had a ’91 Camaro Z28, and then a ’95 Pontiac Trans Am that I raced. In ’99 I turned my attention to racing motorcycles, but continued to do a little drag racing and road racing. In 2015 I bought an ’87 Grand National that re-lit the drag racing bug, but the car was way too nice to cut up to make safe to do what I wanted to do with it, so a year later I went out and found this ’99 Camaro SS roller. It had a very nice 25.3-certified chrome-moly cage in it, built by NRC Motorsports. The rest of the car was completely gutted and we changed everything.”
During that period, Sinclair befriended another Evansville native and drag racer turned street-car enthusiast, Ryan Hargett, of Hargett Automotive & Performance. The two, who today are so close that their homes actually back up to one another, worked together to build their respective drag-and-drive cars that they now travel the country racing in tandem. Generally anywhere you find Sinclair’s bright red Chevy you’ll find Hargett’s blue Mustang, and vice versa.
“Ryan’s become my best friend, and we did all of the work on this car ourselves. I learned so much having such a good mentor.”
Sinclair spent two and half years reconstructing the Camaro part-time while also helping finish Hargett’s Mustang (which you’ll also see here in an upcoming feature). Sinclair says he “found working on the car was very therapeutic. At the time I was my sick mother’s caregiver, and working on the car helped me clear my head.”
Sinclair debuted the car at Drag Week in 2019 and successfully completed the week — a win in the eyes of most for the debut of any new car at such a grueling event. But just a week after earning his license, he also earned a second-place finish at that edition of Drag Week in the Modified Power Adder class.
In 2022…
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