Automobiles & Bikes

Bergenholtz Racing


In 2006, the Bergenholtz brothers contracted Mike Madriaga and his friends from Prototype TV to shadow their race crew and their Mazda 3 race car at the Las Vegas Speedway.

“Man we remember hearing about these guys at the illegal drag races back in the 1990s, they would clean house until the “five-o” rolled up, then it was off to the next clandestine spot,” reminisced the director of the video, Mike Madriaga. “These brothers were always ahead of the game.” Many that raced back in the 1990s also remember when the brothers busted out their CRX with wheelie bars at the Battle of the Imports races in Palmdale.  “I think it was like 1997 or something like that,” continued Madriaga. “That was epic because no one could understand the logic behind placing a set of real-wheel-drive wheelie bars on a front-wheel-drive car.” That special day at the Battle, the brothers broke the quarter-mile record.

Bergenholtz Racing Mazda 6

Bergenholtz Racing Mazda 6

Fast-forward to 2006 in Las Vegas. Carlos Soria and Angel Muñoz were Madriaga’s assistants this day who captured the footage with a Canon XL-1 3CCD camera. “It was 135 degrees out there,” Soria said, “about 25 degrees than the rest of Las Vegas.  I tried my best to keep the camera still despite the commotion and heat.”

Bergenholtz’s crew stuffed ice down in the Mazda’s turbo’s intercooler and kept the import cool enough to propel them with a “W” at the end of the video. Muñoz added, “Their teamwork won them the race, watch it o the video.”