Charles Madrid

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (July 2007)

Dr. Charles Madrid, more commonly known as Dr. Charles is one of the founding fathers of sport compact racing. He worked at Pit Crew Motorsports in 96-97 before moving to Atomic Motorsports. After a while, Dr. Charles moved to Area 51 Fabrication, then Autolink Motorworks, before racing for Team Bergenholtz and finally coming to Skunk2 Racing. He was one of the first people to do engine swaps such as the first H22A-powered CRX in 1995, H22A-powered Honda Civic in 1997, and finally the K20A-powered Honda Civic in 2001. He currently owns a 1988-1991 civic wagon with a k24 ewngine swapped into it.

Dr. Charles is known to be the guinea pig for a lot of people. Offer him a car, tell him what you want, and he'll work his magic as one of the best mechanics in the Honda world. He is also known for his record-breaking 30-minute engine swap (b16a) .

Doctor Charles has appeared in many television programs such as Discovery Channel's "Street Racer" (which didn't make it past the pilot). Ironically, they had him working on a Mitsubishi/Diamond-Star Motors Eagle Talon that was against an EK chassis Civic owned by a Leila Flores of Temecula, CA. Doctor Charles is known to be a huge supporter of the Honda/Acura scene, with a great disdain towards mitsubishis motors.

He has also appeared in a miniseries on the SPEED Channel entitled "Street Tuner Challenge." It chronicled a build of a Honda Fit that was given to Skunk2 by Honda Motor Corporation. The Fit was pitted against a 1.8t Golf GTI and the Sony Xplod Mustang. The Fit lost in the program, coming in third. Madrid has commented on Honda not allowing Skunk2 on swapping the L15 motor out for a K20.

He has appeard on the second season of street tuner challenge, once again working on a Mitsubishi four-wheel drive vehicle. A 2003 Mitsubishi motors EVOLUTION IX, a throw back to the pilot episode of street racer challenge. Charles is quoted saying "I'm not a big fan of Mitsubishi, but they hit it right when they made the EVO"

On the Discovery Channel, it showed doctor Charles working at a shop he owned, the name of the shop is Atomic Motorsports, in Irwindale CA. However, this was before he moved to Skunk2 in Norco, California.