All about Underground Racing: the shop that builds 3000HP Lamborghinis

Today we’re talking about the shop that builds Lamborghini so fast that even the most die-hard Ferrari fans can appreciate them.

Underground Racing, or UGR, builds the fastest Lambos in the world. They may not have been the first, but they're undoubtedly the best. Over the years their cars have dominated in competition, becoming one of the most awarded names in all forms of straight-line racing, whether it’s standing or rolling, ¼-mile, ½-mile, or even 1-mile.

We’re going to talk about where they started, their journey, and where they are now, including their history and some of their notable builds and records. So, if you like tuned exotics that pump out stupid-high horsepower figures, stay tuned.

The history of Underground Racing

Underground Racing was founded in 2003 by two brothers, KC and Kevin Howeth. Before this, the older of the two, Kevin, had built himself a reputation as a Mustang tuner in the Charlotte NC area. In the late ‘90s, he would work on his buddies’ cars in his spare time, doing some light modification. Soon, KC would follow suit.

The brothers were involved in the street racing scene in Charlotte. They earned a name for building some of the fastest cars in the area. They were most acquainted with Ford, working on a few Saleen Mustangs.

1999 Saleen Speedster S-351, Vortech Supercharged.

After doing this for a few years, it made sense to try and make their hobby into a profession. They made a website named ‘undergroundracing.com’, which surfaced in 2001. Originally, this wasn’t meant to promote their services, but rather it was a private, password-protected forum to organize street racing in the Charlotte area, hence the name.

It wasn’t until a couple of years later when they thought ‘Let’s do something with this.’ In 2003 they officially made Underground Racing into a business, acquiring a shop to work on customer cars. No promo was needed as they had already built a reputation at this point.

There isn’t a huge circuit racing scene in North Carolina, and this is reflected in their builds. After all, the nearest road course is across state lines. In a universe where UGR is based out of SoCal, they might have been focused on setting the fastest time around Buttonwillow. But given their location, it was all about straight-line performance: ¼-mile drag racing, ½-mile, or just late night highway runs.

If you enjoyed drag racing and had some extra money, the car to have was a Dodge Viper. The second generation Viper launched in ‘03, featuring a naturally aspirated 8.3L V10 that put out 500HP. This was great and all, but the Howeth brothers saw it and thought ‘What if we stuck some turbos on’. So, that’s exactly what they did. It wasn’t too long before they were the go-to shop for building drag Vipers.

UGR headquarters in 2005

Their main clientele were Viper owners. They could get these cars up to about 1500WHP on c16 fuel–not bad for the early 2000’s. Occasionally they would dabble with other stuff: Supras, Corvettes, and maybe an EVO. They probably couldn’t imagine the changes that were coming in the next 5 years.

How UGR became known as a tun Lambos tuner

The Lamborghini Gallardo debuted in 2004. For the first few years, UGR didn’t have one come through their shop. The first twin-turbo Gallardo was completed only a year after launch by a shop called Heffner Performance.

It seems that UGR didn’t pay much attention to the Gallardo, at least not until 2008 when a return customer, who previously had them build his Viper, brought in his ‘05 Gallardo. In his words “They did an awesome job [with the Viper], the car was super driveable.” The last point, driveability, would become a big sample of their builds. Given their experience, the customer trusted UGR with his baby.

We can see the progression. They went from basic Mustangs, to Saleens, to Vipers, but Lamborhghins were on a whole new level. Not only are they more expensive, but they’re mid-engine, AWD, better aero, etc etc… about the only thing it has in common is the V10 engine layout.

While we typically think of exotic mid-engine cars as track weapons, they're also pretty good at going fast in a straight line. The Howeth brothers recognized this. The build commenced, and only a few months later they were dyno tuning it.

You can see this car being dyno tuned in UGR’s very first YouTube video from 2008. The car put down 1,026 whp on pump gas in the first iteration and would continue to be developed in the following years.

While the bros had some crazy builds under their sleeve, this one blew them away. It made over 1000 hp on pump gas and was still fully streetable. A few months later this car would go on to set a ¼-mile record (Lamborghini specific), becoming the first Lambo to run a 9-second pass. It still wasn’t as fast as some of their Vipers, which could run 8’s, but it was still the fastest Lamborghini, and people took note.

The thing led to the next, and not much longer UGR was the go-to Lamborghini tuning shop. People would ship their cars across the country just to have them built by UGR.

UGR in 2012. All Lambos; a stark contrast from just 7 years before

And for the last 17 or so years, they’ve been doing the same thing: building Lambos and setting records. The only thing that’s changed is the tech that's available, both from the factory and aftermarket, allowing for progressively faster cars year after year.

They’ve also experimented with some Ferraris, and more recently Audi R8s, but they’re still primarily a Lamborghini tuner. Their slogan says it all: “World’s fastest street-legal, twin-turbocharged Lamborghinis”.

What makes Underground Racing so successful?

Currently, UGR has about 20-some employees, but in the early days, it was just the brothers. Sure, only two, but they made quite the dynamic duo with Kevin specializing in tuning while KC did the fabrication. Really, that’s all you need to start turboing cars.

Marketing

There are a number of shops that build Lambos: Heffner, AMS, and Texas Speed. The reason why you might have heard of UGR but not the others is because they do pretty good job at marketing.

Creating a forum, whether they planned to start a business or not, was a genius move. Not only did their site have a forum, they also had a ‘videos’ section in the pre-YouTube era. And, as soon as YouTube took off, they were uploading videos there too.

This was well before the days of ‘automotive vlogging’, so their videos had a lot more substance than just installing 2 parts and making a 25-minute video out of it. Their content features dyno runs, events, and records. A notable video is one of their Gallardos gapping a Bugatti Veyron, the million-dollar-plus, ‘fastest production car’. Everyone thought it was the sh!t until it lined up with a UGR Lambo.

They’ve also made a number of SEMA appearances, and more recently, have fostered a pretty spicy rivalry. You would think that a Lambo tuning shop would clash with similar shops, like Heffner, or the others; instead, UGR goes back and forth with ‘Team Boosted’, a GTR specialist.

R35s vs Lambos–both platforms have their pros and cons. GT-Rs are front-engined, making them less likely to wheelie with crazy high HP figures, while the Lambos are undoubtedly more aerodynamic.

So, who builds the fastest cars?  It's hard to say. It’s been a war of attrition between the two for the past several years. Basically, someone wins one season, then the next, the other party brings an even faster car.

Street drivability

The brothers pride themselves in building cars that retain the original driving characteristics, full interior, air conditioning, and other niceties that a lesser shop might delete. This makes sense because if you’re spending 250K or more on a Lambo, you probably want it to be more than a dedicated track car.

Sometimes they’ll add a cage and parachute, but only if the class requires it. Note that UGR competes exclusively in street-car competition.

Records and the cars that set them

Marketing your stuff is great, but building the fastest and quickest cars is effectively free publicity–people love talking about this stuff. While they may not have been the first shop to slap turbos on a Lambo, they're definitely the best, and here we’re going to cover some of their most notable achievements, plus the cars behind them.

Like we’ve said from the start, UGR is all about straight-line competition, ranging from standard ¼-mile drag racing, all the way up to the Texas mile. The cool thing is that these aren’t just customer cars, the brothers actually compete alongside customers. Some event include WannaGoFast Georgia and Shift Sector California, both standing ½-mile. But where these super-high HP Lambos really shine is roll racing.

They’ve dominated TX2K, which is called ‘the Superbowl of street car events’, from 2017 onward. They compete in both roll and drag racing, sometimes with two UGR vehicles meeting in the finals.

They have held Huracan/R8 records such as fastest standing ½-mile, quickest/fastest ¼-mile, and fastest ¼-mile rolling. Even more impressive, they’ve held all three at the same time, and dominated them going back to 2010.

Notable cars

2002 Dodge Viper GTS

• Twin-turbo
• 1546 WHP
• 8.0L V10
• 6-speed
• First 7 second Viper (¼-mile) - 7.96 @ 186 mph

Back in their Viper days, this was probably one of the most iconic builds. It was featured in magazines, videos, you name it…This one is a twin-turbo, but they also did supercharges. Currently, there are Vipers pushing over 3K HP, but remember, this car debuted in 2006.

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2006 Lamoborghini Gallardo

• 1500+ WHP
• 5.0L V10
• 6-speed
• First 9-second Gallardo (2008) - 9.97 @ 159 MPH
• 241 MPH standing mile (2009)

This is UGR’s first Lambo build. It started around 1000HP, but over the years it was pushed to over 1500HP. They had already built much faster Vipers, but given the lack of development at the time this was an impressive car nonetheless.

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2014 Lamborghini Huracan LP-610-4

• 2000+ HP
• 5.2L V10
• Built 7-speed DCT transmission
• First 7-second Lamborghini - 7.80  ¼-mile @ 187 mph (2016)
• 233 mph standing ½-mile world record (2017)

This time they were the first to the punch. The Huracan was introduced in 2014 to replace the Gallardo. Before the end of the year, UGR had a turbocharged it. This red LP-610 is a shop-owned development car.

Despite sharing the same engine as its predecessor, the Huracan has a bunch of advantages, mainly a factory 7-speed DCT to replace the 6-speed manual or ‘automated manual’. Right out of the gate, their first Huracan showed just how much potential this platform has.

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2021 Lamborghini Huracan STO

• 3000+HP
• 5.2L V10 w/ billet block
• Pneumatic shifted sequential w/ billet gears
• R888R tires
• Fastest and quickest street draggy 60-130 in 2.31
• Standing ½-mile 250+ mph (2024)
• TX2K roll race record @ 246 mph (2025)

And jumping ahead to present times, this is probably their most ambitious project yet. The big difference is the billet block and sequential transmission (it seems they found the limit of the DCT).

Back in ‘09, their first Lambo was able to go 240 mph in the standing mile. This car was able to go 250+... in half the distance. Think about that for a second. Still, even with these crazy speeds and HP figures, the owner of this car asserts that it’s completely streetable; it even set the fastest street Draggy time from 60-130 mph.

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2017 Audi R8 

• 3000+HP
• 5.2L V10 w/ billet block
• Dodson built 7-speed DCT transmission
• Fastest/quickest Audi R8/Huracan (at the moment)
• First 6-second R8/Huracan - 6.94 & 218 mph (2025)

The R8 and Huracan share the same V10 (they’re all part of the same auto group after all), so it’s not surprising that URG also started building these R8s. At the time of writing, one of their R8 builds just set a ¼-mile record.

These are just a few of the most notable records from UGR over the years. Remember, all these cars have full interiors and are street-legal.

Wrap up

Simply put, you can’t really touch Underground Racing when it comes to building exotics. Will a new challenger emerge to start taking wins and records off UGR? Maybe, but if that happens, you can rest assured they’ll come back the next season with something even faster. They’re talented and competitive, and they’ll be setting records until the day they retire.

While we can’t help you twin-turbo your Lambo (that’s what UGR is for), we can help with wheels for it. Or, if you don't own a Lambo, like the majority of us, that's aright because we got wheels for just about anything you can think of. We got brands like Rotiform and ADV.1 so you can turn your Audi S6 into a budget Lambo. Head over to our shop to find your perfect wheels.