Latest News

The Coffman Racing S13 240SX at March Air Reserve Base Museum for the K&N calendar shoot

If you want to make power, not only do you need a race proven K&N filter, you also need an engine that can punch it out. You certainly can’t beat pure cubic inches, which is why Coffman Racing relies on the Rodgers Racing Engines built four-hundred-ten cubic inch V8 that’s based on the Roush-Yates RY410. It started off life as a NASCAR-based FR9 until Rodgers Racing Engines got ahold of it. From its base, it was built up into the 988 horsepower monster you now see before you. It also means that no ordinary transmission could be used as the torque coming off the crankshaft from the Quarter Master NASCAR Cup clutch. An Andrews A431 four-speed transmission with CNC cut gears means Matt will probably never have to worry about broken transmissions again.

Formula Drift driver and K&N-sponsored Matt Coffman's S13 240SX is built for war

This car is a team effort, though, as the guys behind Matt keep the car running and going through each of the eight rounds in the Formula Drift season. It’s guys like Bill Conway, George Kiriakopolis, Blaine Cory, and Jantzen Knips that help him pull off the amazing rounds and runs. Matt's car is also featured in this year's K&N calendar. So be sure to grab a copy so you don't miss this or any of the other insanely cool rides packed inside.

With a Roush-Yates FR9 derived V8, Rodgers Racing Engines massaged 988-hp out of it

If you're seeing this, you're in Coffman's Falken Tire smoke

Greg Ventura won the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Super Street championship.

Ventura beat John Bycroft in the final round at Las Vegas. He did the math and added up the points himself. He calculated that he had enough points to win the championship. But he had to wait a day to hear the official results from the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series.

“It probably took me a day for it to sink in,” said Ventura, a Maintenance Analyst with K&N Engineering. “It took about a day and a half, but after that it was official. That was a Sunday night that I won the race. On Monday afternoon, I got the call saying I was the champion. That was, it was relief, it was kind of an emotional thing.”

The season finale in Las Vegas became a two-event race. The spring races in Las Vegas were rained out. As a result, the spring race was made up during the weekend in addition to the scheduled fall races.

Ventura entered the races in Las Vegas in second place in the Super Street standings. He fell to third place after the spring make-up event. He had to pass two drivers instead of one to win the championship.

“That’s exactly what happened,” Ventura said. “After the first round, I really didn’t think to myself I am going to win this championship. I’m just going to keep going until that little win light doesn’t show up on the guard rail past the finish line. I just kept knocking the rounds down. When I got to the semis, even the final round, here’s my chance. Here’s your chance to put this whole season away.”

It was his first NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Super Street championship. He brought two cars to the season finale in Las Vegas. It turned out to be a perfect combination. His Super Gas entry provided a distraction from the Super Street championship, just enough to let him relax when he raced the Super Street car.

“The car was impeccable. It was awesome,” Ventura said. “To take my focus off, I had my other car I was running at that same event. I have two Novas that I race. I had them both there to kind of distract me. If you’re hyper-focused on the points and what everybody else is doing, you really don’t do well. I almost won the class in the event as well. I was literally running around like a chicken with my head cut off.”

Ventura won two races in his championship season in Super Street. He won his first race at Fontana. But he missed the first Super Street event of the season in Arizona.

Greg Ventura won two NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Super Street events in 2016.

His Super Street car, a Chevy Nova, was his first race car. He and his father first started racing it in 1991 when Ventura was still in high school. It needed some upgrades, shocks and suspension mainly. When it was ready to race, he entered it in Fontana.

“He passed away in 2012,” Ventura said about his father. “I never won this championship when he was alive.”

After winning in Fontana, he was third in the Super Street standings. Ventura decided to run for the Super Street championship after Fontana. But he needed to make up points that he missed by skipping the event in Arizona. He went to the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event in Oregon. He advanced to the third round and earned enough points to put him in contention for the championship.

“I earned some valuable points there,” Ventura said. “I had to go up there to make up for the race that I missed at the beginning of the year. That helped me propel myself into the championship chase.”

After the Oregon event, he experienced a win drought. He was competitive, but he didn’t win another race until the season finale in Las Vegas, an event he needed to win to take home the championship.

Ventura starts his campaign to repeat as Super Street champion in Phoenix in March. He went to the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series season opener in Pomona earlier this month. He reached the third round in Super Gas. But his focus will be in Super Street.

“I’m not going to chase the points in Super Gas this year,” Ventura said. “I’m going to do the same thing I did last year in Super Street. That first race will be in a couple weeks in Phoenix.”

In addition to racing for the Super Street championship, Ventura wants to qualify for the Jeg’s All Star event in Chicago in July. The top drivers in each of the seven Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series division are invited to the Jeg’s All Stars. It is also a team event, pitting drivers from the same division against other drivers from other regions.

“It’s the best guy in every division,” Ventura said. “The best guy in each division meets in Chicago in July and we’ll race it out.”

Greg Ventura won the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Super Street season finale at Las Vegas

“It’s second to none,” Ventura said. “There’s two people in the world. There are people who do have K&N on their cars and then there’s people that should. In every arena that they have a product in, it’s on my car. I have everything that I can possibly have that the company makes on my racing cars.”

Ventura said he wants to thank K&N, Lucas Oil Products, Taylor Freezers, Carrol Shelby Goodyear and Race Trans for helping him win the Street Stock championship.

Katie Vernola's long-wheelbase RZR is ready to take on the Mint 400

A key element of that learning curve is finding the perfect balance between hard-charging speed and keeping the equipment together. When we asked Vernola about her biggest take-away from the Parker 250, she made that point very clearly.

Vernola's handled the Arizona desert well until she lost a tire

Reigning in the competitive impulse to pin the throttle and charge full-bore goes against Vernola’s aggressive nature. However, she is clearly taking the lesson of her Parker 250 DNF to heart, and adjusting her mindset for the next desert race.

No one has ever made a K&N race suit look better

“My goals for 2017 are to get on as many podiums as I can, and chase the championship title in WORCS and Best of the Desert,” Vernola said.

Vernola knows that K&N will be behind her in her WORCS and BITD racing efforts.

“I started my relationship with K&N four years ago racing a 2012 Polaris RZR 900, and every year has gotten better and better. K&N doesn't just sponsor my three Polaris RZRs with top-of-the-line filters, I also run their filters in my Lexus, chase truck, and RV,” Vernola said.

Vernola trusts K&N filter to keep her engine protected

K&N will be following Katie Vernola’s championship chase in both the BITD and WORCS series. Check back to this news site for full coverage.

J Moto's ZX900 rests proudly on the carpet of the Chicago IMS

The J Moto Gallery KZ900 claimed the K&N Performer Award at the final stop of the Progressive International Motorcycle Show (IMS) in Chicago, Illinois. In each of the seven cities that have been lucky enough to host the IMS, K&N has been a major sponsor of three of the classes of the J&P Cycles Ultimate Builder Bike Show.

J Moto Gallery’s custom started life as a 1978 Kawasaki KZ900. The late ’70s Kawi 900 is a fantastic donor bike for a café custom. It was fast, reliable, and a reasonably sharp handling mount for the time.

A close inspection of the artwork on the ZX makes for great reading

The J Moto KZ features a very cool custom one-off GP-style exhaust. The front forks are rebuilt to keep the front end settled and low-bend clubman-style café bars are bolted to the KZ triple-clamp. The hand-crafted seat fits the café motif perfectly. Classic styled Firestone Coker tires are fitted to the Kawasaki cast rims.

Now let’s get to that paintjob done by Joe Morris Art. It’s as unique as any custom coating you will ever see. The tank features vintage Police Gazette Magazine articles and a classic Texaco-style oil sign star. The entire paintjob is done in a way that gives off a vintage vibe that looks like the bike wears the patina of time.

The J Moto build is vintage cool in every detail

K&N congratulates Joe Morris on a build that carries the vintage café look to another level. The J Moto Gallery KZ900 does the café culture proud.

"Aftermath" is protected from the ravages of the road by a custom rebar crash cage

Joe Morris of J Moto Gallery brought two fantastic Kawasakis to the Windy City's staging of the Progressive International Motorcycle Show (IMS). The Ninja that Morris put on display in Chicago was a decidedly different kind of custom build. J Moto’s 1992 Kawasaki Ninja ZX 750 J is a departure from any other custom bike in this year’s IMS series.

One of the bike’s builders, Mike Hoj may have put it best in an IMS video interview when he called the Kawi, “completely freaktified and remodified … the list goes on and on about the custom work we did to this.”

Notice the crossbow at the ready for quick urban defense

In keeping with that post-apocalyptic vibe of the bike, there is another intimidatingly unique element. “We have a fully functional crossbow attached to the side with a custom made holster in case it gets real squirrelly in the street for you,” Hoj says.

Of course, no urban assault bike would be complete without full knobby tires. That aggressive rubber spins on both ends of a stretched Ninja box aluminum frame. Up front there are caged dual round headlights to illuminate the chaos that the Kawi will have to carve through.

The intricacy of the artwork comes into view on a close look

One can almost see the ZX being the only thing to survive the nuclear winter alongside the cockroaches! Are those burnt orange highlights the radiation glow of the post-apocalypse?

K&N congratulates Joe Morris, Mike Hoj, air-brush artist Flex, and Josh D. Plath on a work of moto art that is a welcome departure from the often over-sanitized world of custom bike building.