SIERRA VISTA — Bill Rohlinger had never seen the show "Pinks All Out" before he went to a taping in Tucson in November and ended up competing on the show.
It's surprising, considering Rohlinger's life in Whetstone, like the show, is centered on drag racing. "Pinks All Out" is a show on the Speed channel that prides itself on grass-roots drag racing.
The show gets its name from the "Greased Lightning" days of street racing when drivers would stake their pink slips on the race. Contestants don't wager the titles to their cars on "Pinks All Out," rather the show travels to racing strips throughout the country and local drivers compete for a $10,000 prize.
It claims to be the highest rated original lifestyle series on Speed, a channel devoted entirely to auto racing enthusiasts.
But Rohlinger spends his time as a drag racer not by watching it on TV, but by building cars for other drag racers as his full-time job, plus trying to race somewhere at least once a week during the season.
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"The rush of the car is like being shot out of a cannon," he said. "It pins you in the seat and you can't get up. Some people say there could be a $100 bill on the dash and you couldn't reach it."
Rohlinger leases a small garage just north of Huachuca City from Terry and Bob Woods, who work right across the gravel parking lot at The Supercharger Store, where they build custom ProChargers that are shipped to drivers inside and outside of the United States.
Their store doesn't advertise. The two brothers sell to drivers based on word of mouth in the racing community and traveling to races in Tucson during the year.
So Terry and Bob Woods and Rohlinger went to Tucson for "Pinks All Out" to show products, not to race. They ran Terry Woods' blue-and-orange 1974 Plymouth Duster in the trials just to show what the machines could do.
The show works by choosing 16 final racers through trial runs. After each driver has finished two qualifying runs, one time interval is chosen to be featured in the show.
The final 16 are not necessarily the fastest drivers. They all just ran trial times within that chosen time interval, making the final races a real battle, better for the competition of entertainment television.
But early in the show, the technical crew suspected sandbagging, so they added a competition to the show: the Quick 8 — the eight fastest out of more than 400 drivers who were in Tucson that day.
So the Plymouth Duster was called to race.
And with Rohlinger in the driver's seat, it won. The car's fastest time on the strip came at just 7.97 seconds during the elimination rounds of the Quick 8.
"I was in the stands watching the race," Terry Woods said. "This car grabbed the crowd because it was like 'The Little Engine That Could.' It had the smallest tires and the smallest engine out of all of them. It was fun to watch."
With the win came an $8,000 gift certificate for the National Automotive Parts Association. Much of the share went to Woods, because Rohlinger said he deserved it for putting most of the investment into the car.
"Terry tunes it. He does everything," Rohlinger said. "I have the easy job. Just park my butt in the seat and go."
But Rohlinger did have a bigger role in the car than he lets on. He built the car and finished it in 2006. "That car to me is the most comfortable car I've ever been in and I don't know why," Rohlinger said. "I've built cars for myself that don't feel as right as that car. Everything is just right; I'm at home. And the car's got a whole lot left in it, even after this."
The Tucson "Pinks All Out," which features Rohlinger and several other Cochise County drivers, was filmed at Southwestern International Raceway and opened the new season on the Speed channel Thursday.
