Image courtesy Turbo Magazine
I just learned about Shaun Carlson’s extremely untimely death. Before I say anything, I want to extend my deepest condolences to his friends and family. Shaun was a great guy, talented in everything he did, and although I haven’t seen him in years, I’ll miss him.
If you were even lightly aware of the import aftermarket in the 90s – especially the burgeoning drag racing scene – then Shaun Carlson was likely a familiar name. He cut his teeth at McMullen-Argus (later Primedia, now Source Interlink) in the early days, working on publications like Truckin‘ and Minitruckin‘. He was a good writer, excellent photographer, and had an way of making hard-core tech issues easy for layman enthusiasts to grasp.
He was also a devoted gearhead, and one hell of a fabricator. I remember he had an old early-90’s Mitsubishi Diamante wagon that, Shaun being Shaun, he had modified extensively. He popped the hood one day to show off the turbo system he had installed on the V-6. The work was beautiful: chromed pipes expertly welded with the smooth curves perfect for moving compressed air without restriction. I asked him where he got the work done, and when he told me he did it himself – including the extremely tricky welding on the aluminum intercooler – I knew then that his days in publishing were numbered as he was obviously far too talented to just write about this stuff.
My suspicions were confirmed when he left publishing and founded NuFormz, and the rest is history, as they say. At 35 years old, Shaun had already transformed one racing genre with his tube-frame front-drive Honda Civic dragster, and was busy transforming another with his involvement in drifting. Shaun touched a lot of lives in his all too short life, and he will truly be missed.
Update: In my haste posting this yesterday I neglected to mention the cause of death. Although nothing official has been announced, Shaun suffered from Brugada syndrome, a genetic disease that can cause sudden cardiac arrest.
