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“GREY BULLET” RX9 DESTROYS ROTARY RECORD

Darrel Jackson photo

Less than eight weeks after Edwin Burgos posted the first-ever five-second rotary-powered quarter-mile, Joel Olivo watched his Siquitraqui Motorsports “Grey Bullet” 2021 Mazda RX9 surpass the 5.956 world record held by the “Loquito Killer” RX8 with a blistering 5.935 at Orlando SpeedWorld in Bithlo, Florida. With renowned import racer Juan “Juanchy” Illanas at the wheel, Olivo’s machine made history in multiple areas. The first run under six seconds was produced by a three-rotor engine (20B) while the Olivo/Illanas braintrust used a two-rotor (13B) Wankel to claim the new record.

Olivo, the man behind Siquitraqui Motorsports in Puerto Rico, usually drives his new RX9, but for this test session, he stated, “I had to work from outside to accomplish this”, and put the trusted Illanas in the cage of the Choli Race Works chassis. Using a 13B Mazda engine from Moncho Performance equipped with a new Precision Next Gen XPR turbocharger on the 2-rotor engine, Pito Tuning controlled the 79-cubic inch screamer through an amazing series of runs during the session. Starting with a 6.09, the immaculate uncluttered Mazda ran 6.06 and 6.01 while clocking a staggering 0.943 sixty-feet elapsed time.

The 5.935 came with another new world record of 3.843 seconds in the eighth-mile, a full five hundredths of a second quicker than the three-rotor (20B) record holder of Burgos. Oliva and Illanas just missed Australian George Rehayem’s 20B world speed record of 237.63 mph while hitting a best of 236.94. The “Grey Bullet” team also fell short of the 190.67 mph record eighth-mile speed of Burgos with their own 186.46. However, it appears the battle is only beginning between the 20B and 13B “killer bees”!

This story was originally published on February 3, 2026. Drag Illustrated

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