With the dawn of a new season upon us, we offer our picks to win the Full Throttle and Get Screened America Pro Mod titles this season. There’s nothing scientific behind our choices, but simply an analysis of the prior season and the movers and shakers in the off season to formulate the racers we best feel have what it takes to get the job done in 2012.  If necessary come November, we like our crow cooked medium-well.

Top Fuel

Antron Brown

We know, we know. How in the world could we possibly pick against any car or team associated with Alan Johnson? The Al-Anabi team has won back-to-back Top Fuel titles with Larry Dixon and Del Worsham and this season they’ve brought on statistically the best leaver in the category in Shawn Langdon. The best reaction times coupled with the best car is a potentially dominating formula. Khalid Balooshi, also new to the team, represents a bit of a Wild Card, in that he’s an exceptional champion driver whose only shortcoming at this point is experience in an 8,000 horsepower dragster. But we feel pretty strongly that this is Antron Brown’s year.

In 2011, the former Pro Stock Motorcycle standout won six races and led the points as late as the Arizona Nationals in Phoenix in what was a spectacular season by any measure. Ultimately it was Worsham who pulled away to the Full Throttle crown, with Brown settling for third in the Countdown chase, a little over for rounds out. And that’s left perhaps no one more hungry than the soft spoken driver of the Matco Tools dragster.

Antron Brown had the second best season of his Top Fuel career last year, winning six races on his way to a third place finish in the standings.

Brown returned to form last season after a somewhat dismal 2010 season season when he claimed just one victory after a career year in 2009 that saw him earn six wins in 10 final round appearances, seep the “Western Swing,” and amass more round wins and a higher winning percentage than any other driver in the class on his way to a third place finish in the Countdown.

We’re well prepared to dine with a double order of the aforementioned crow when the sun sets at Pomona, but with a new package at Al-Anabi Racing to shake things up in that camp, we think the winning combination of Brown and crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald will finally break through with that first championship this year.

Funny Car

Mike Neff

You’ve got to feel for Mike Neff after he amassed more points than any other driver in Funny Car from start to finish last season and missed out on his first championship as a driver. Unfortunately, under the Countdown format, it’s not necessarily how you start, but how you finish, and in those six closing races to the season, Matt Hagan rose to the occasion in a way his foes could not. Frustrating for Neff no doubt, but that’s how the game is played.

Not only do we feel that the former tuner-turned-driver will bounce back to win the title this season, but we WANT to see him win it. While his counterparts are calmly being strapped into their race cars, Neff, donning his full firesuit and helmet, is making last-second adjustments to the tune-up on his own race car before frantically climbing in the seat and riding his own bomb to the finish stripe. In a time when crew chiefs have one job and drivers have another, Neff is a virtual throwback to the days when one man did it all, and we can’t help but respect that.

Liek Matt Hagan before him, Mike Neff will be looking to bounce back from a frustrating season that he dominated before falling short at the end.

In just his third season as a driver and with only one win to his credit in those first two seasons, Neff came out swinging in 2011, winning Gainesville and taking the points lead following a runner-up finish in Houston – a lead he wouldn’t relinquish until the second Countdown race in Dallas in September. Along the way, he earned four more wins, including the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. But first round losses at three of the six Countdown races and quarterfinal finishes at Reading and Pomona spelled disaster for a season with such promise. Like Matt Hagan, who returned to claim the title following a crushing defeat the year prior, we think nothing is going to stop Mike Neff in 2012.

Pro Stock

Greg Anderson

With four-time champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. returning to the class, there’s little doubt that the entire face of Pro Stock is going to change this year. The 52-time Pro Stock winner joins a stout crop of racers chasing the title, including young Vincent Nobile, who claimed three impressive wins last season and fellow Mopar driver Allen Johnson who’s a championship waiting to happen, along with Erica Enders, Rodger Brogdon, Greg Stanfield, and others.

Last season, the Summit Racing teammates of Greg Anderson and Jason Line returned to their dominant early 2000′s form, and although Mike Edwards snuck in to close the year sandwiched between the two Summit Pontiac’s atop the points sheet, the Ken Black Racing teammates were the class of the field. Line, the 2006 Full Throttle Pro Stock champion, won a career high six races and led the points in all but four of the season’s 22 races. Despite reshuffling the points for the Countdown, he built up an insurmountable points lead by the fifth race in Las Vegas to seal the title.

To say that Greg Anderson and Jason Line were resurgent last season would be understatement. While Line captured the title in convincing fashion, Anderson was right there with a season to remember of his own.

Anderson, meanwhile, found himself on a late season charge that included another Indy trophy for his mantle, and it’s that momentum that we expect to see carried into 2012 as the four-time series championship seeks redemption for a pair of seasons out of the top spot.

Pro Stock Motorcycle

Andrew Hines

The Indiana-based rivals of Vance & Hines and Hector Arana Sr. and Jr. put on a heack of a show in 2011, and we can only hope for an encore performance in 2012. Arana Sr., a former champion in the class, put his son aboard a identical Lucas Oil Buell in a move that paid unparalleled dividends. The second-generation rider rode to three-wins in his rookie season as he and his father waged a tag team war against the Screamin’ Eagle Harley Davidson V-Rods of Andrew Hines and Eddie Krawiec. A war won by Krawiec.

Armed with unrivaled resources in the two-wheeled division, the Vance & Hines riders are the preeminent favorites year in and year out, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

Hines, the second of team co-owner Byron Hines’ sons to win NHRA championships, hasn’t claimed a title since 2006, ending a run of three-straight championships. But during the years between then and now, the second-generation rider has never been far outside the championship chase, scoring multiple wins each season, including a career best five wins in 2010. In 2011, he finished third behind Krawiec and Arana Jr. For a rider with that much talent on a bike that good, it’s hard to believe five years has elapsed without a title, and for that reason, Andrew Hines is our pick to slap the #1 back on the wheelie bars of his Harley Davidson next winter.

Three-time champion Andrew Hines hasn't won a title since 2006, but he's also never been out of striking distance. We think "hungry" is the word.

Pro Modified

Danny Rowe

Considering the question marks that surround the category after a number of off season changes, Pro Modified is a real crapshoot.

If not for a rough start to the season that left them with too many points to make up, the turbocharged entries from Roger Burgess’ R2B2 camp could’ve completely changed the outcome of the championship. While they faltered, the nitrous entries of Khalid Balooshi, Mike Castellana, and Rickie Smith did what no one thought they could do and mopped the track with their forced induction brethren.

Reigning champ Balooshi has moved on to the Al-Anabi Top Fuel seat vacated by Del Worsham, and tuner Steve Petty, the virtual mastermind behind the crushing performance of the R2B2 cars in the latter half of the season, has moved to Troy Coughlin’s JEG’S operation. To add to that, following a number of recent developments, no one really knows for sure if R2B2 will even field any cars this year.

As good a season as champ Khalid Balooshi had, he still finished only 31 points ahead of Danny Rowe, who failed to qualify twice. Eliminate those races, and the California native likely hoists the trophy. For that and other reasons, he's our pick in 2012.

The one constant in all this change is California native Danny Rowe, who put together a spectacular season that was second only to the one delivered by Balooshi. Consistency was the name of the game, and at the season finale in Las Vegas, the driver of the Sterling Bridge Camaro was the only racer with a shot at Balooshi for the crown. All that separated the pair was a round a half, and if not for a pair of crushing DNQ’s at Atlanta and Indy, Rowe would’ve easily waltzed his way right to title town.

In late 2007, Chrysler made a huge splash in the automotive market when they unveiled the third generation Dodge Challenger, which featured body lines and a stance impressively similar to the Challengers of the early 1970′s. With a concept already in place, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits and Judy Lilly debuted the Drag Pak Challenger factory-built race cars in July of 2008 at Bandimere Speedway in Denver, marking the first vehicle of its kind in decades. Just months later, Ford revealed its Ford Mustang Cobra Jet at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, which made its glorious debut in Pomona in 2009 as John Calvert drove Brent Hajek’s FR500CJ to the winners circle. Both cars have been improved with each model year offering, and both have taken the NHRA Stock and Super Stock ranks by storm. Ford and Chrysler were back in drag racing with a vengeance, and the racing community loved it. But all that remained to complete the holy trinity was participation from the General.

GM's COPO Camaro drag racing concept, unveiled at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, is expected to enter production in the middle of next year.

Just two years after the famed Chevrolet Camaro made its triumphant return to the automotive market following a seven-year hiatus, the team at Chevrolet under a cloak of secrecy, began assembling their early concept for a fifth-generation, factory-built Camaro race car to complete alongside the Challenger and the Mustang to satisfy its legion of fans. And with its unveiling in Las Vegas and what the drag racing world hopes to soon be its production, the final piece of the puzzle will be complete, and something that those who lived through the factory-involved era of the 1960′s were sure they’d never see again, will become a reality.

The Spotlight Has Shifted

The difference between the original factory drag wars and factory drag wars 2.0, however, is that class racing – that being Super Stock and Stock – is sadly no longer the grand stage that it was in the 1960′s. During that era, class racers were as well known coast-to-coast as the top nitro competitors with major race bookings and front cover features in HOT ROD, Car Craft, and the like. For Detroit’s Big Three to step out on a financial limb as they have to deliver this flashback to the glory days, only to compete in virtual obscurity in a bracket racing format is a complete disservice to their efforts and the opportunity this situation presents. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as a big a fan of Stock and Super Stock racing as you’ll find, but these cars simply deserve more.

Brand pride and loyalty of fans is what drove the overflowing and historic popularity of class racing in the 60′s, and believe it or not, this same element is still alive and well in gearheads of every generation today. We have nearly 100,000 followers on Facebook whose daily comments and responses prove that as fact. Sure, the national love affair with the automobile has waned in the last half-century, but Ford enthusiasts still want to see a Mustang best a Camaro or a Challenger, and likewise for the fans of the other brands.

While this seemingly improbable opportunity exists, the drag racing world and the manufacturers need to take full advantage of it, and a premier stage for which they can compete heads-up in a classic, my brand versus yours battle is the only way to appropriately showcase these machines. Be it the NHRA or another series or promoter, there’s a goldmine here if done right and promoted – emphasis on the done right and promoted.

Despite Economic Turmoil, People Still Buy Muscle Cars

The road version of these late model muscle cars that the factories have re-produced for drag racing are incredibly popular on the road – despite a national average gas price of $3.69 per gallon as of this writing, Americans are scooping up more of these gas-slurping muscle cars than hybrids. And with the 20-30 age and 40-plus demographics both gobbling them up, there are in essence two or more generations of muscle car-loving men and women with a keen interest in the outer limits of the automobile, and in no place is that more evident than drag racing.

Not only can such a battle between the brands create a buzz around drag racing, but the possibility of bringing new fans into the sport is almost assured. Tell me where you’ve heard this before; but fans want to see cars that they can relate to, and when the cars on the track are little more than the one in your driveway with bolt-on or minor modifications, there’s plenty to relate to.

Unfortunately, these cars will never attract the attention they deserve at NHRA divisionals or as unpromoted “also-rans” in the early morning and late evening at national events in index/bracket-based classes that even some hardcore fans don’t fully understand. They deserve something bigger, and bigger is what we can only hope will keep the factories involved for many years to come.

Not that you need to hear it again, but most of the world is in economic turmoil. A lot of you reading this might have had to sell a race car to survive or have one and simply cannot afford to operate it. There are many forms of racing classes out there, from Index to Heads Up, and while some Index classes can be expensive to run, most associate heads-up classes with a lot of dollar signs.

Regardless if it’s the ADRL, NHRA, NMRA, NMCA, PSCA, ORTC, NEOPMA, or local track series, there are a lot of carry over classes between sanctioning bodies. These can include Pro Street/Mod, Outlaw 10.5, Outlaw Drag Radial, newly popular 275 radial and Outlaw 8.5 plus naturally aspirated classes.  The problem is that a lot of these racing sanctions have relationships like Iran and Iraq; when they need to be working together.  The doorslammer racing world needs standardized rules for these big categories that everyone uses.

John Sears' X275 class has fared pretty well from different organizations changing the rules, which is one of the main reasons that it has been a successful class.

Similar Classes, Different Rules

Take for example NMRA Hot Street and PSCA Hot Street.  Both are heads up, naturally aspirated classes that carry over a lot of the same rules, though PSCA Hot Street cars run two to three tenths faster than those running in the NMRA.

The main differences? Less weight minimums, no spec fuel, and the use of wheelie bars at the PSCA. While these differences may seem minor, having more horsepower and less weight with the ability to control launches with wheelie bars can drastically change the vehicle’s setup. Why can’t these (among other major racing sanctions) rule committee guys work together to standardize one set of rules everyone can use?

Spec Tire Size Classes Need To Be More Loose

Then there are spec tire and Outlaw classes like X275, Outlaw Drag Radial, Outlaw 10.5, Outlaw 8.5.  Largely these need to be what they were originally intended for; run what you brung on the class spec tire. While there are global rules that need to be addressed – because you can’t have a tube chassis, fiberglass-bodied Outlaw 8.5 car – engine combinations need to be open.

Another aspect is track length standardization.  Most classes like X275 or Outlaw 8.5 all run on an eighth mile, because it’s too damn scary to run them out the back door in most circumstances, there are some of the aforementioned classes that vary from series to series.

Pro Street/Mod is one of those classes that can vary wildly depending where you run.

Pleasing The Masses

I believe in being diverse, and some rule fluctuations can occur because there are a couple guys running a specific combination that needs help (or penalty for being too fast) to be competitive in the class; it allows people to build what they know, and sometimes on a budget.  On the same token, a class rules cannot be accommodating to non-competitive combinations, in which some racers may need to seek a more common engine selection on par with the rest of the people in the class.

Can’t We All Get Along?

It needs to start at the racer to sanctioning body relationship with an open mind for what has to happen to make the rules more universal.  Then those rule suggestions needs to be taken to a House of Representatives-type meeting where these organizations discuss and collaborate on a unified set of rules.

There are people out there willing to race where their cars can be legal and competitive.  Constantly changing rules and not having uniformity forces many racers to park their cars more than they want.  Not only will this have a greater impact on racer turn outs, it also might encourage growth.  So let’s band together and email our rules committees: WE NEED UNIFORM RULES!

It’s amazing how many people you can meet being involved with a hobby. Be it sports, rock climbing, sky diving, and especially as a car enthusiast. Automotive gatherings are obviously a mecca of hot rodders, gear heads, and casual enthusiasts just wanting to mingle. Anybody could walk up to any other person in the crowd and ask questions or shoot the breeze of just about anything that pertains to the automobile.

It could take place at just about any setting too: drag racing events, car shows, parts stores, “unsanctioned” race activities,  or at the local hangout. Not to mention thanks to the internet we now have message forums and Facebook. Making new friends in the car game is easy, and just about everybody has their individual talents. Personally, I know guys who can do bodywork, some that are willing to help out at a drop of a hat with a flatbed trailer and a pickup truck, and others who can wrench on just about anything… in their sleep!

Brian: The Best Kind Of Car Guy

These are the best kind; the ones who are willing to do anything on a car, but are also there for you as a friend in other scenarios. Not just in car-related situations, but when you need a hand around the house, a wingman when you’re bar hopping for hotties, or a drinking buddy when you’re having girl trouble. Fortunately for me, I have a friend like that; one who makes MacGyver look like an average Boy Scout with his technical savvy, can mechanically fix anything on wheels, and is always ready at moment’s notice when you need to enjoy a Saturday night out with a buddy.

Guys like Brian are the best, they are willing to do anything on a car!

His name is Brian. I’ll spare you his last name, but this kid knows his way around a car better than some people I know who have actually went to tech schools to learn the stuff. He makes his own tools when the occasion calls for it. I’ve seen him use parts off of cars to help mend something on another one he was working on. He has no problem pulling all-nighters, either.  Hell, there were times when we didn’t even start a project until 10 o’clock at night, only to be finished at around 8am.

How did I meet him? I actually met him ten years ago this coming January at a local hangout where all the young kids who at least thought they had fast cars would meet up to talk trash or partake in illegal automotive activities. Most of these consisted of doing burnouts, doughnuts, blasting their mega-watt stereo systems, and/or finding a desolate stretch of road to see who was the fastest. This was only a few months after the first Fast and the Furious film was released, so I’m sure you get the picture.

He drove a ’97 Cougar during those days of youth and confusion, and I had just picked up my WS6 off of the showroom floor. I also owned a Blue Oval product at the time, despite being a die-hard GM enthusiast, but let’s not get into that. He was more of a Ford person though, but soon after getting acquainted with my Trans Am, that all changed for him. He would eventually go on to pick up a Trailblazer SS several years later, which ultimately dipped into the 11.90s with nothing more than a very healthy shot of nitrous, some weight reduction, and a few intake and exhaust tricks.

Brian's Trailblazer SS.

He’s helped me plenty on all of my projects too, including the three cars that I have now. I don’t even want to think about how much money he has saved me and others over the years with his self-taught skills. Brian is proof that there are good people out there, always willing to lend a hand, and is still a true friend at the end of the day.

The Reality

Unfortunately the reality is, for every golden-hearted person out there, there are ten more willing to stab you in the back at a moment’s notice. During the course of the 2006-2009 car seasons, I was the president and one of five founders of an all-GM car club in my area. Being based in an area that consists of mostly GM vehicles, the club was open to anybody who owned any factory-produced, high performance GM product. This ranged anywhere from a ’64 Chevelle SS to a late model, turbocharged Cobalt SS.

Image: Automotive Airbrushing

This also included GM trucks, SUV’s, and sports cars that fell under our specific criteria, and we had a good number of people in a relatively short amount of time. Members would come and go for obvious reasons (loss of interest, moved away, sold their cars, etc.), but there were also those that saw the club as nothing more than an excuse to cause drama and take advantage of other people.

Most of the drama usually revolved around fighting over women (more like groupies, if I’m honest) and some members turned out not to be the car enthusiasts they initially presented themselves as. These guys were the types that seemed to have bought a muscle car by accident, never held a wrench in their life, and whenever they needed help modifying their ride, relied on other people. Now on the surface of it, the latter seems like a natural thing to do after all, right? Maybe. But when you go over to a guy’s house and his idea of “help” is literally standing there watching, while you (and maybe one other person) are sweating bullets in the hot summer sun wrenching on his car tends to get old after the first or second time you do it.

A group of late model Vettes at one of our local shows. Image: Sam Crank

There were also those instances where you needed to keep an eye on your tools and whatever valuable, but easily accessible parts you have lying around your shop as well. You may be surprised how many “sticky bandits” there are in automotive circles pretending to be your trustworthy best friend. I didn’t have this problem personally, but other members had.

But it all wasn’t bad times. We had cookouts, went to all of the local shows and drag events together, and got to know each other a little bit better. As a result of the latter, yours truly made new friends and new enemies, but that’s the gamble you play when you deal with people on a public level. The point of the story is this; enjoy your cars, treat people how you want to be treated, never fully trust anyone that you don’t know, and don’t always assume that someone is your friend simply because you have similar interests. I speak from experience.

Intake air temperature, oxygen, knock, mass air flow – some of these sensor names are still Greek to many people out there. For those that know what they are, you have really only used these words in tuning for the last few decades.  A new computer bought today is old technology tomorrow and while the automotive technology can lag, recently it has caught back up with the information age. This all sounds like a trip around the “Spaceship Earth” ride at Epcot, but it’s a reality that has been emerging more and more in the performance aftermarket in just the last couple years.

Remember when you needed that many gauges?

I built my first performance vehicle in the late 1990s and I remember paying a lot of money to get it tuned, at best, semi “correctly”.  There was that one guy in my town (or that you had to fly in) that specialized in the type of aftermarket standalone ECU I had.  He charged me an exorbitant amount of money to dyno test it, because he knew that he was the only one that could do it.  Whether it was switch chips, EPROMs or the more advanced ‘on the fly’ tuners that still needed to be shut down between adjustments. It was a bunch of numbers on a grid that was ran on MS-DOS-looking programs. It sucked.

Remember all the gauges?  It was like sitting in the cockpit of a commercial airliner.  Boost, coolant temp, fuel pressure, oil pressure, oil temperature, EGT (pyrometer), air/fuel, and more could be seen in ONE vehicle at any local hang out spot.  There are even companies that specialize in making gauge holders that fit in inconspicuous places just because there was no more room on your pillar, dash, and air vents.  Between the tuning and gauges cost, you were knee deep in a second mortgage on your house.

Traditional gauges are still functional, but race-only type gauges can be substituted for digital, portable types.

Finally (thank God) technology has caught up.  No longer do you need a pillar full of gauges to get the information you need or pay a tuner to fly in to tune your vehicle. Don’t get me wrong, pillar gauges are still a vital asset to have – I have an AEM boost and water/meth gauge in my 2011 Mustang – but the less vital gauges can now be consolidated into LCD displays.

For example, I use SCT’s Touch Screen Xtreme at the track to both monitor and datalog intake air temp, coolant temp, and my wide band, plus load in track-only tunes.  Plus, the tune in my vehicle is so stable that I don’t need to look at anything else while I drive. Additionally, an AEM X-WIFI wirelessly streams dual EGT and a single channel wide band directly to my iPhone…without the need of an app.  Now anyone has the ability to monitor over 50 critical engine functions with a single device.

New digital tuners like the SCT TSX can not only tune your vehicle, but monitor a wide range of sensors in a wide variety of layouts. The X-WIFI (right) streams dual EGT and a single channel wideband to mobile devices.

An additional option that has made monitoring easier is the addition of 0-5 volts output from an electronic gauge controller.  This added feature allows a single gauge signal to be inputed into a variety of data loggers and stand alones.

Where prices have tumbled the most in the last 10 years is the cost of tuning.  While stand alones still have their place in racing, factory computers have become so advanced that power levels of over 1000HP on the stock PCM is now a reality. More manufactures are using wide band 02 sensors from the factory, (like the 2011 Mustang) as it offers spot-on air/fuel ratios regardless of driving conditions. They are so repeatable that you can simply tell a tuner what modifications are on the vehicle and get a properly-operating tune right in your email inbox. For carbureted folks that are scared to convert, there are kits like FAST’s EZ-EFI that installs on a vehicle in a few hours and never has to be taken to a dyno to tune.

While the 1960s might have been the best time to be a muscle car enthusiast, I believe that 40 years down the road the late 2000s will become the new prime era to own muscle cars.  Not only are the vehicles more powerful, but the ability to make more horsepower has become so much easier.

Even for people with carburetors can convert to fuel injection in a few hours and run a auto tuned PCM.

When you’re in the automotive publishing business, one of the consequences of the job is that you often get asked, “how do I get sponsorship for my race team?” It’s a decent question – racing is expensive, and it’s natural to want help when you’re building a new motor or upgrading your car for next season. What I usually find, though, is that the racers have only a vague idea of what a sponsorship really is, or how to go about getting one. So, I thought it would be worth a few minutes to give a few pointers. Keep in mind that I’m no authority on the subject – there are a lot of people better equipped to answer the question than I am, and I can only tell you what I see from atop my ivory tower here at powerTV. Take it for what it’s worth…

• Understand what you’re asking for, and what you have to offer

When I ask a racer, “what are you giving in return for the parts you’re asking for?” I seldom get a well-thought-out answer. Sometimes it’s along the lines of, “Their part will be on the fastest Scat V4-powered Nash Metropolitan west of the Rockies!” That’s not a good answer. Aftermarket manufacturers are in the business of selling parts, so you need to convince them that kicking down a supercharger, set of heads, or even a box of lug nuts will result in them selling more of them overall. Unless having their part on your car means that other people down the line go out and buy it at retail, all giving it to you does is make one more that they DIDN’T sell, which is a bad way to stay in business.

This fact, by itself, makes pure race parts very, very hard to get for free. If their entire business is selling just to racers, then there’s no advantage to giving those parts away to someone, especially if that particular part is essential to being competitive in your chosen class. You may be better off shooting for something with a street application as well, making the argument that winning with those parts will make guys with daily drivers want to run it, too.

For a sponsorship to make sense, you have to offer value in exchange for what’s being provided. It’s a marketing expense for the manufacturer, and they have a lot of different ways to potentially spend that budget, other than on parts for racers. You’re competing with print and online advertising, event and class sponsorship, and even the cost of going to trade shows, so you have to be able to demonstrate exactly what the investment in your racing team buys. Being able to say, “last year I ran at 12 events in two different series, had my car on display at four car shows, got a feature in a print magazine, and our plan for next year includes building a new car during the off season” is far better than, “dude, I will TOTALLY put your sticker on my car…”

What comes up when somebody Googles your name?

• Have a history

In the Age of the Internet, everybody leaves fingerprints, but even so, it can be surprisingly hard to track the racing history of even fairly well-known competitors. Some racing sanctions are better about keeping records and making them available online than others, so it’s really up to you to be able to present your full racing resume. Team websites are good for this, though you have to spend at least the minimal time and effort to keep them up to date. Having a site with the last information from the 2009 season is almost worse than having nothing at all.

At the very least, Google yourself to see what’s out there. If a potential sponsor can’t easily reconstruct your racing history from the first page of search results, have something ready to hand them that lists your accomplishments.

• Use contingency

A lot of racers miss this one, but in some race series, winning drivers can make thousands of dollars a race just by playing the contingency game correctly. This is no exaggeration – there is real money to be made this way, and it’s an easy way to get an “in” with manufacturers. Once they are used to seeing your name in the contingency reports from the sanction, you can make the transition to sponsorship more easily. You can make the argument that rather than paying you contingency on the back end, it would be a better deal for them to simply provide parts up front. Of course, if you’re doing well, you may not even want to go that route…

Charlie Booze, Jr. is the king of contingency in the NMRA - every one of those stickers earns him a payday when he wins, and he wins a lot. It's not unusual for his contingency alone to come to $6,000 per event.

• Be realistic in your expectations

It’s a tight economy and everybody has their eye on the bottom line, so for some companies, giving away free product even to the most qualified racer just isn’t financially viable. While getting an expensive part kicked down at no cost might be a non-starter, getting a “good guy” price or even something at cost is usually doable no matter what the company’s budget and financial situation is. The exception to this general rule would be things that are in high demand – again, there is little incentive for a company to let you have something at cost that they could sell at full retail to someone else on the waiting list.

• Find the right person

At every company, there is somebody who is the decisionmaker for sponsorship. That could be the owner, but in most cases there will be someone in the marketing department who holds the purse strings for all things parts-related. Becoming known and liked by that person is the key to having a successful relationship and getting sponsored. This cuts both ways, though – getting a reputation with just one marketing director as being difficult to work with, unreliable, or a pain in the ass will be a serious handicap, because in this business everyone talks to everyone, and even direct competitors often compare notes. Be polite, respect their time, don’t be a pest, but make sure that your proposal is being seen by the right person.

• Be professional

Yes, you are a badass, the untamed rebel men want to be, and women want to be with. You might also be the guy in 130 different Facebook wall photos, throwing the horns of the goat with a stripper on your hip and a 40 in your hand. With very rare exceptions, rockstar behavior is only tolerated from actual rockstars, and you are not a rockstar. Behave like an adult. Don’t have a reputation for wild partying in the pits after the track closes for the night, destruction of rental cars, or reckless behavior. Don’t go on Yellowbullet and post up a bunch of porn. Don’t badmouth your competition, and for God’s sake, don’t cheat or get a reputation as the guy who is always arguing with the track staff or race sanction.

Nobody wants to spend money on someone who is a potential liability, or who may turn around and bite the hand that feeds them at the first sign of adversity. Your reputation, in the end, is all you have to sell, even if you are the most winningest MF’er who ever walked the earth.

That’s about the best advice on the subject I can give. There are a very, very few racers who can break even with their hobby, and fewer still who can make money. If you can get a freebie here and there, win a few races, and get a reputation as a racer who is worth knowing, you’re ahead of the competition.

Like anyone involved in the sport of drag racing, I have my own personal bucket list of race tracks and events that I’d like to attend and take in a race at at some point in time, and hovering near the top of the list for much of my life has been the historic Raceway Park in Englishtown. And so when the opportunity arose to cover David Hance’s must-see Shakedown at E’Town drag race spectacular, I was already readying my trusty see-through National Dragster ink pen, circa 1990, to cross another one off the list.

Visiting the Napp family’s iconic facility for the first time was a bonus of the trip, but this weekend was all about the Shakedown, which in nine short years has become one of drag racing’s premiere standalone events and one that any fan of heads-up drag racing needs to have on their bucket list as well.

I have my own personal bucket list of race tracks..and hovering near the top of the list for much of my life has been the historic Raceway Park in Englishtown.

The Pro Mod Blown field featured a field comprised mostly off lesser-known racers from the Northeast and Canada, who regularly compete with the Northeast Outlaw Pro Modified Series and the Pro Modified Racing Association. But this impressive collection of competitors delivered on the racetrack with no five-second performances and no clear-cut favorite to win it all. Even in Pro Mod Nitrous with Mike Castellana and the all-conquering Al-Anabi team in attendance, the soon-to-be ADRL champ had to survive an onslaught of shots by the competition from the the likes of Fredy Scriba, Isaias Rojas, and John Hall to reach the winners circle.

As expected, the Outlaw 10.5 and Outlaw Drag Radial fields featured a driver lineup as strong as you’re going to find anywhere all season long – all in one place on the same weekend on a racetrack ripe for the removal and replacement of records. And sure, we all would’ve enjoyed seeing these cars race all the way to the boards, but there’s little doubt that Hance and company made the right decision to reign these small-tire beats in to the eighth-mile. All told, just one car was wadded up all weekend, which is a real testament to the decision made in the name of safety based on some truly spectacular accidents in previous years at this event.

For the first time at the season’s edition of the Shakedown, Hance added the wildly popular X275 category to the fight card. Not only was this the first time these cars had competed at Shakedown, but it was the first time this Midwest-based writer had seen these machines and personalities first-hand. And my only response is: can we get some of this stuff in Indiana, John Sears?

Perfect weather, stellar racing, a spectacular venue, and a national event-meets-local street night atmosphere all combined for a great weekend of racing, and one that ought to be on your calendar next October.

The Extreme Imports were a late addition to the lineup, and prior to seeing them in action in Englishtown, I could honestly say that I was uninterested from a spectating point of view – that was, until Shakedown. Sure, they’re obnoxiously loud and aren’t the V8 “American Iron” that fans of heads-up drag racing associate with, but this bunch could certainly entertain.

I could honestly say that I was uninterested from a spectating point of view - that was, until Shakedown.

Nearly half of the field hailed from Puerto Rico, while the others were scattered around the Eastern part of the United States. But all displayed an enthusiasm for drag racing that we don’t often see in our traditional racing circles, and were clearly knowledgeable about hardcore drag racing rather than “fart can” racing on the the streets, and for that, I believe they all gained a ton of respect in front of the massive New Jersey crowd.

To say that Shakedown was one of the best drag races I’ve ever attended would be an understatement. Perfect weather, stellar racing, a spectacular venue, and a national event-meets-local street night atmosphere all combined for a great weekend of racing, and one that ought to be on your calendar next October.

Despite the near-record heat that turned frigid cold on Monday, the crowds could arguably be considered a home-run during these economic times in a location just a stone’s throw from one of the nation’s hardest-hit areas, with only a few empty seats littered about the grandstands during the professional rounds. And the 9/11 remembrance prior to the opening round of eliminations was one of the most moving and elaborate pre-race events the NHRA has ever conducted.

But yet, for reasons myself and a host of others in attendance are still trying to pinpoint, the “Big” and the “Go” of the Big Go just weren’t there. The inexplicable magic that surrounds this once-heralded race seemed to be missing. You could feel it in the air and you could see it and hear it in the reaction of the drivers and race teams. This wasn’t Indy: it was a six-day national event with ESPN’s hype machine running on overdrive.

Sure, the on-track differences between Indy and other national events have been largely insignificant for many years – a fact that racers and fans openly acknowledge and tend to debate around Labor Day weekend each year – but there’s still something extra special about Indy. But that magic created by decades and decades of historic and timeless moments is waning, and sadly, the NHRA doesn’t appear concerned with stopping it.

If you were at Indy five years ago and returned this year, you would’ve noticed several glaring holes in the racing program and the overall picture of the sport’s biggest event that undeniably castrate what Indy was and should be.

The U.S. Smokeless Showdown, famously known as the Big Bud Shootout and one of Indy’s most popular and anticipated traditions, is no more. Ditto for the Ringers Gloves Pro Bike Battle for the Pro Stock Motorcycles, which also served to provide Indy a weekend lineup and an atmosphere unlike any other race on the schedule. These days, only the Mopar HEMI Shootout and the always-exciting Stock and Super Stock class eliminations remain, and while certainly marquee attractions in their own right, they alone can’t make up for the loss of the professional battles that were a staple of the Big Go.

The National Dragster staff also pulled the plug on their famous Daily Dragster publication, which was annually produced at one race and one race only. In years prior, special online sections and photo galleries and at one time even an entire website dedicated to the U.S. Nationals was published before the NHRA seemingly gave up hope on their own race. And while the online coverage was forgotten soon after the Daily Dragster’s became job security for track cleanup crew, they were but another of the minute elements that made Indy something different from the rest.

The upscale corporate hospitality area near the finish line on the West side of the track and the 1,000-foot grandstands on the other are also gone; replaced with an RV lot that gives drag racing’s grandest stage the same trackside appearance as a Saturday night bracket race at the local eighth mile.

And the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series classes, where the prestige of an Indy victory remains as special as it ever has in 57 editions, was short some 300 entries this year; a truly concerning fact when you consider that just a handful of years ago it took multiple grade points and some quick timing just to get in to the U.S. Nationals before the exclusive field of racers from all corners of the nation was completely filled. One could say the high price of fuel was to blame, but when racers have historically planned and budgeted for this one race all year long, it’s safe to assume that other factors are at work here.

If you were a drag racing fan and you weren’t at Indy, you wanted to be. In online forums, the Nationals were all the talk. Racers and fans would beg, borrow, or steal to make the trek to the Big Go. All eyes in the drag racing world were on Indy over Labor Day weekend. But this year, the U.S. Nationals came and the U.S. Nationals went. With each passing year, the aura of Indy has diminished and become more and more like the other 21 races on the schedule.

In the early 1990′s and culminating in the 1996 divorce of open wheel racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the legendary Indianapolis 500 were dealt a crushing blow. Amidst two decades of political turmoil between the teams and sanctions, southern bred NASCAR had risen to unparalleled prominence, and suddenly the most famous auto racing event in the world appeared doomed.

In the 15 years since the CART and IRL went their separate ways, the Hulman family and those at the helm of the IndyCar Series have worked to restore and maintain the image of the Indianapolis 500. Drivers have been aggressively marketed, the purses have expanded, and the traditional month-long schedule was shortened to reduce the growing costs to race teams and facility operations. Special attractions, celebrity appearances, and unrivaled pomp and circumstance have all played a role, as well.

And while sure, the prestige of the 500 isn’t what it once was, neither is any other sporting event in this day and age. But it remains the greatest spectacle in racing, and each and every Memorial Day weekend, a crowd that far surpasses any other sporting event on earth turns out at 16th and Georgetown to witness a race unlike any other.

In the drag racing world, the U.S. Nationals has always been a race to witness unlike any other, and we can only hope the NHRA wakes up and aggressively takes the reigns, intent on keeping it that way.

I’ve got a great job. Really, I do. Everyday is a reminder of things that are important. Here’s what I mean; Last week I was doing an interview with USAC Sprint Car driver Mike Spencer. We were talking about Sprint Car driving tips. One of Mike’s tips was to find a mentor. Someone that you respect and want to learn from. The seriousness and sincerity in Mike’s voice as he talked about finding the right person to learn from was, quite frankly, a learning experience for me.

Keith Dorton stays busy with his shop and helping writers with technical publications, but you can still have access to him through technical conferences.

I get to talk to some of the brightest people in the automotive industry on a daily basis. That’s my job and it’s easy to take that for granted, especially if you are just doing a job. But…here’s the reality of the situation. Everyone reading this right now has the same opportunity to talk to the same talented people that all of us in the media do.

Sure, I make contact with Marketing Directors and Vice Presidents of Advertising often when researching an article. But more often than not, these leaders of industry direct me to their technical department for specifics on the parts or components. When I say Technical Department, what I mean is the people that staff the tech lines at the company. Yup, you heard right, the same people that answer the phones when you call the tech lines.

The people that are manning the tech lines are not the receptionist types, sitting behind a computer, asking what year, make and model car you have like the clerks at your local parts stores either. These are very talented racers and car builders that companies have brought in to take care of very specific technical questions that their customers have. Make no mistake about it; these people are very talented and we all have access to them. Anyone can get great technical advice for just the price of a phone call.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some of the biggest and brightest minds in the business that are harder to get in contact with. People like Doug Yates, Keith Dorton, Dr. Dean Hill, Ron Shaver and Gary Stanton. Understandably, these folks are a little more difficult to talk with because their time is rapidly absorbed with running businesses and developing new products.

Think about sitting down with someone like Dr. Dean Hill, whose work in chemistry and fuels has taken him from Bonneville and acting as the fuel checker for all of the NHRA National Meets to consulting for NASA on the Apollo Project. Dr. Hill knows about “cheater fuels” and how they work. Do you think that you could learn a trick or two from him? I did.

Dr Dean Hill knows more about fuel than anyone else on the planet. His love is racing but he has been a consultant to NASA on the Apollo Space Program. Dr. Hill is a wealth of information and can tell you all about "cheater" fuels.

One of the best kept secrets in racing is the Advanced Engineering Technology Conference (AETC) that is held in-conjunction with the PRI Tradeshow in Orlando. Yes, there is a charge for the conference, but for what experiences you are exposed to for the three days, it is worth the money and time. You get to hear these industry leaders talk in depth about their personal experience with different theories and parts. There are luncheons and breaks where you can talk one-on-one with these heroes and everyone has equal access.

What is most impressive about these types of conferences is that the speakers check their egos at the door and you converse with them as peers. Trading thoughts and sharing ideas. This year’s AETC conference is scheduled for November 28 through the 30th in Orlando. You can go to their website at www.aetconline.com to find out more about it.

The point here is not to be overly promotional about a specific conference or company but to point out how easily information that can help your racing program can be accessed. Simply pick up the phone and talk to the experts on the tech lines. If you are like me and have hero worship from a Master Technician like Keith Dorton, then find a conference that he will be speaking at and schedule to attend. You will be amazed at what you can experience and how fast your learning curve will advance by doing this.

In case your were wondering, yes, I did attend last year’s AETC conference. My understanding of Racing Engine Technology advanced by light years because of what I learned there. There were some speakers that I had limited knowledge of prior to the conference. For example, Dr. Andy Randolph gave a presentation on the advanced science of NASCAR Cup engine optimization which completely changed my thoughts on combustion. I had very limited knowledge of Dr. Randolph prior to that presentation but walked away understanding how much fun fire and combustion can really be. I mean, we all love fire, but Dr. Andy takes it to a whole new level.

Dr. Andy Randolph is the Technical Director for Earnhardt Childress Racing with a degree in chemical engineering. A true "firebug", Dr. Andy specializes in combustion. Attending a seminar where Dr. Andy is speaking should be on everyone's bucket list.

Don’t miss an opportunity to learn, especially if you have a question or problem. Pick up the phone and talk to one of the tech experts. Treat yourself and go to a conference. Talk to the heroes at your local track. With any luck, I’ll see you there as I’m gathering information for myself.

Referred to as the “1,000 Foot Compromise,” the Spring Fling 20′s format is rather unique in the bracket racing arena and provides a happy medium for racers from the north, who are more accustomed to 1/4 mile racing, and those from the south, who typically compete on the 1/8 mile as they converge upon the same stage. And despite the finish line being out of the norm for any driver in the field, from all accounts, the racers by and large have given it an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

While such an event being held on the 1,000 foot race course that’s become customary in the NHRA nitro ranks isn’t particularly significant or earth-shattering, what it has done is quietly inched 1,000 foot racing closer to wide acceptance from the drag racing community.

In addition to the Biondo and Seipel brainchild, drag racing’s waterlogged counterparts in the Lucas Oil Drag Boat Series have also reigned in their three top categories to a 1,000 foot distance in the name of safety.

Since the NHRA made the unprecedented transition to a shortened race distance for the first time in it’s then 57-year history at the 2008 Mopar Mile High Nationals in Denver in the wake of the tragic death of Scott Kalitta, no topic in the sport has been more widely discussed or come under more fire from the racing community. Traditionalists put their foot down and voiced their opinions with their wallets, as dwindling attendance and falling television ratings  were at least partially attributed to what many considered 3/4 of a real drag race.

But nearly three years later, the 1,000 foot negativity has all but subsided among fans that once demanded quarter-mile-or-else.

And now, following a rash of incidents in other categories, including the unfortunate passing of Mark Niver and Neal Parker last season, the catastrophic tire failures of a couple of A/Fuel Dragsters, Leah Pruett-LeDuc’s recent beach excursion, and Pro Modifieds running just a mile an hour and change from the 260 barrier, it’s hard to imagine that some rule adjustments haven’t been tossed around in the upper level boardrooms in Glendora. Which begs the question: would racers and fans prefer 1,000 foot racing across the board rather than castrated race cars whose performance capabilities are set back 20 years in the name of making the full pull?

Drag racing is and always has been about records first and foremost, and while Top Fuel and Funny Car crew chiefs are still pushing the performance boundaries that have been on the move since the day the sport took its first breathe, it’s clear that that continual journey to the depths of wheel-driven potential will have to cease in order for quarter mile racing to return. In essence, the alternative to a shortened distance is race cars turning numbers seen during the George H.W. Bush presidency. The NHRA has indicated some wariness with Pro Stock Motorcycles running 6.70′s at almost 200mph, and the Pro Mods are nearing Scott Cannon’s 5.73 that was essentially the straw that broke the camels back for quarter mile outlaw racing, meaning decision time could be on the horizon for a couple more categories.

Despite being a slap in the face of a tradition as deeply rooted as any in motorsports, the continued pursuit of ultimate performance may outweigh negative progress, and as much as those in the sport object to it, 320 less feet may just be the start of a new tradition.

Now that much of the drag racing world has had their turn on the old soapbox, it’s time this writer throws his two or three cents in the pot. But rather than drone on and on questioning how long the series can remain financially viable, I’m going to take this in another direction and question just what exactly was wrong with the former administration.

During his years in the sport, few figures have received more consistently negative commentary from the masses than Kenny Nowling. He’s been criticized for being flamboyant, arrogant, and driven to be the reigning figurehead of the sport in a way that’s rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

To be open with you, I’ve never met Kenny. I’ve never spoken with him on the phone. I haven’t exchanged emails with him, and can’t honestly say that I ever even exchanged glances with him at the racetrack. I prefer to take the high road and not judge a book by its cover, and without meeting the man it would be unfair to draw a concrete opinion. With that said, from my observances over the years, I have to admit there’s merit to the negativity.

But Kenny’s personality is beside the point. A lot of people don’t like Tiger Woods, Terrell Owens, or Alex Rodriguez – this guy included. But their impeccable talents are unquestionable. In the motorsports realm, Kyle Busch has an international fan club of haters and he earned every one of them, but to say the kid isn’t one of the best drivers of this or any generation is pure blasphemy.

Even today, when the Nowlings’ whereabouts are as unknown as Osama Bin Laden’s were for the last decade, Kenny is still the recipient of childish words of hate from grown men that even a potty-mouthed 12-year old would be unlikely to make. And whether he’s deserving of any of that or not, one simply can’t deny that Pro Modified wouldn’t be where it’s at today without his efforts.

In 2001, along with business partner Dave Wood, President of AMS Staff Leasing, Nowling brought arguably the most popular category in all of drag racing to the NHRA’s grand stage. For five seasons he was the driving force behind the entire series, handling everything from parking to promotions and everything in between. And in 2005, while still involved with the NHRA effort, he also founded and operated the competing ADRL. In 2006, Wood withdrew his support of the NHRA series and at that point, Nowling left and focused his efforts on the ADRL.

In just six short years, the eighth mile outlaw series grew from a handful of poorly-attended races at small southern venues to a Woodstock-like phenomenon that filled premiere tracks to the brim and beyond, snarled interstate traffic for miles, captured national media attention, and sent the NHRA brass retreating to their foxholes to draw up a responding attack.

Last August, Al-Thani purchased a stake in the series from former partners Dave Wood and Tommy Lipar and later took full ownership of the organization. In a rather curious development, Nowling “stepped down” from his position and entered the purported role of head of international development. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

Nearly the entire original staff of the ADRL, from the top down, was purged and replaced. Publicly, the former staff has been described by the keyboard crew chiefs as a group of unprofessional rag-tags unfit to run such an organization. But a series of this magnitude clearly cannot be run by one man, meaning this collection of front office and field staff were also part of that explosion of success and thus must have done something right.

The NHRA has long been criticized for being too corporate and straight-laced, unwilling to think outside the box, unapproachable by the racer or the common man, and focused only on the bottom line. Kenny and his staff gave the people what they wanted, and then they demanded a corporate and straight-laced attitude and feel and danced in the streets following his ouster. And now with nearly all remnants of the original ADRL out the window, the fields have dwindled, spectators are dressing like bleachers, controversial new policies have been instituted (zero race makeups and $40 restricted area fees being the big ones), and the “outlaw” atmosphere that once made it so great is slipping away.

Sure, the new ADRL , but is it really better now?

Oh, and for those wondering, no, they didn’t really kill Kenny. At least we don’t think so anyway.

Somewhere along the way on a two decade journey, a gradual but obvious change occurred in the very DNA of Pro Modified racing. What was once a category with ingredients of one part competition, one part entertainment – just add water and stir – became more about winning than entertainment or innocation.

The early days truly defined entertainment value in our sport, with exciting and innovative machines that often overstepped the bounds of the rules, plenty of colorful personalities, themed racing operations, intense battles and rivalries on and off the track. It was a “grassroots meets professional” racing persona all it’s own. Lately it seems the “show” aspect of the class been mostly whittled down to only on the edge-of-control nature of the cars. The exciting personalities, the rivalries, and the off-track sideshows that put Pro Mod on the map – seems to have faded.

I recently ran across a dated piece on the interwebs regarding longtime racer Tommy Gray and his line of Undertaker themed race cars. Gray and company were perhaps the ultimate showmen around the turn of the century. Wanting to make his racing operation stand out amongst the rest, Gray forged a revolutionary concept to create a brand, if you will, by making people identify with his car.

He took the very first Undertaker car to Darlington Raceway and sold plum out of tee shirts that weekend. From there, he began to dress his crew in elaborate halloween-like costumes consisting of skeleton suits and black robes, with a hearse and a coffin all part of the starting line attraction. The fans ate it up. Johnny Rocca did something very similar with his one-of-a-kind “Ironhorse” Mercury and his indian dances on the starting line.

So, what happened to that stuff?

Today, Pro Modified and the designations that other sanctioning bodies have given it’s more popular than it’s ever been, competing in more places before larger crowds with larger fields for higher purses. But for the purists at heart, you can’t help but admit that, in a way, it sold it’s soul for that success. Think NASCAR here. Cars these days are precision-engineered machines – mostly monkey-see-monkey-do 1968 Camaros – being tuned by some of the some intelligent men in the business all with one and only one goal mind: winning. If there’s a major rivalry in all of Pro Modified racing, I certainly doesn’t know about it. If anyone out there is trying to build their own unique brand, this writer didn’t get that memo, either.

Several factors can be to pointed out here. It could be the influx of corporate America adorning the sides of the race cars. It could be the shift of the racing and racers outside of the once-predominant South. It could be the move to more politically correct environs like the NHRA, where Scotty Cannon and Shannon Jenkins mouthing off to one another to the crowd’s delight would be sternly frowned upon. Pro Modified is still cool. It’s just morphed into a different kind of “cool.”

We’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions on the subject. Do you miss the simpler days of Pro Modified, or the high-tech giant that it’s become? Feel free to write us or leave a comment below.

I get that all the time. I have what is probably the slowest car in regular Pacific Street Car Association competition, a 2004 V6 Mustang with a little shot of nitrous that will run mid-15′s on a good day. The class I compete in uses an Open Comp format, where you’re racing against an index based on your best time in qualifying, minus a tenth. That means that consistency, not speed, is the key, and a 15-second street-driven car can be a winner against 9 and 10-second Mustangs, if I do my part.

Photo: PSCA

Technically, the rules don’t require me to wear a helmet when I race, though there are a lot of tracks that go beyond the NHRA minimum standard and make everybody wear one. I also don’t technically have to wear a 3.2A/1 jacket but I do anyway. Something that happened this weekend is making me rethink my level of safety equipment, though. While the rules are based on the ET of the car you’re driving, the wild card here is that there is Open Comp and bracket-style formats of mix cars that run radically different speeds on the same track, and the point where they come closest together is also the point where both cars are moving the fastest – the finish line.

What happened to me this weekend is a perfect example. In the first round of Mustang Maddness competition, I was paired up with Kyle Thorpe and his Fox notchback. I was dialed at 15.67, and he had 10.49 on his window. My side of the tree came down, I left, and kept an eye on my rearview as I headed down-track. At the top end, Kyle was bearing down fast, and we were both on breakout passes. I stayed in it, and as he caught me in the traps, he was on the brakes to keep from overshooting.

As Kyle’s car transitioned from the sprayed-and-prepped part of the racetrack to the bare asphalt past the finish line, still on the brakes, you can probably guess what happened. Both front skinnies locked up, and his car began to move toward the center line. He steered away, let off pressure on the brakes, and when the fronts grabbed again, they took him away from me but hard into the wall on the other side.

I got to watch it all happen in slow motion, just a few feet ahead of me. He slipped past at the line, there was smoke, and then the car darted into the wall. After the initial impact, the car bounced back toward the center line and I was as hard on the brakes as I could be without locking them up myself, but Kyle’s Fox was still right there 20 feet ahead of me and drifting towards me. It seemed like it took 30 seconds to unfold even though it was just moments, but my car finally slowed and the gap widened, and Kyle’s Mustang drifted back next to the wall and came to a stop.

I pulled up on the other side of the track next to the wall, had my belt off and the door open before I was stopped, and ran over to hit his kill switch and see if he was hurt. By the time I got to Kyle’s door, he had forced it open and the first thing out of his mouth was, “I think I broke my foot.” I helped him squeeze out between the car and the wall, got him sitting down, and by then the safety safari and ambulance had arrived.

Kyle’s car is probably a total writeoff. The entire front clip was pushed about a foot to the right by the impact, and the firewall on the left side got hit hard enough to crush in on his foot. The door bar for his 6-point rollbar probably saved him from more serious injury by keeping the side of the car from coming any farther in on him. The motor stayed oil-tight and didn’t seem to be visibly damaged, though, so that might be salvageable.

We were both very lucky. It would have taken nothing at all for both cars to come together, and as hard as he hit the wall, it was fortunate that Kyle’s car didn’t roll. I didn’t have to be wearing a helmet, but I was damn glad I was, and after the fact I thought about what I would have done if I had to pull him (or myself) out of a burning car with bare hands and just a 3.2A/1 jacket for protection.

I’m also thinking about how high the closing speeds are between my car and the competition. It makes it very hard to judge things at the stripe – as a matter of fact the two top guys in the class (both close friends of mine) have said how much they hate running against me because it’s impossible to fender race when there is only a split second to decide whether you’re carrying too much speed.

I like the fact that my daily driver is also my race car, and it’s very satisfying when I win a round against a trailered 10-second Mustang with a car that has a trailer hitch on the back. But this was too close to disaster for me, and I think the solution might be to speed things up, ironically. Closing speed is the key – a blown tire could send a car into the back of mine at 140 miles an hour while I am only doing 90, and that’s what I would really like to avoid.

But in the meantime, when people ask me why I wear a helmet in a 15-second car, I can show them the pictures of the crash I got to watch up close and personal, and maybe they will understand.

Then, during the off season, Roger Burgess’ formidable R2B2 camp quietly shared their intentions to field a turbocharged car in a plan that later included a new partnership with Personett and his ’68 Camaro. In testing, with Proline honcho Eric Dillard at the wheel, R2B2′s new ’53 Corvette cranked off several 5.8-second laps, proving they were more than ready for their turbo debut. This, with a reduction in turbo size from 91mm to 88, mind you. Meanwhile, Chip King and Dennis Radford were putting the finishing touches on their new combos, while Troy Coughlin was knee deep in the yellow paint being applied to Clint Hairston’s killer small block Pro Street GTO that he would campaign while awaiting completion of his own car.

By the time the Get Screened America Pro Modified Series opener in Gainesville rolled around, all eyes were fixated on this new collection of turbocharged entries, and much of the discussion revolved around the future existence or lack thereof of the blown cars and to a greater extent, the nitrous-assisted racers.

And then Khalid Balooshi stepped into the conversation and silenced all that chatter mid-sentence as he hoisted the hardware and posed for the cameras. Twice.

From the standpoint of pure potential, Balooshi and his fellow nitrous fraternity members had the odds stacked against them.  Fortunately, Wally Parks opted to race the cars on the track rather than paper sixty years ago.

Fresh off a dominating season in Pro Nitrous in the Arabian Drag Racing League in Qatar that was capped off with a new world record, the”Battle for the Belts” crown, and the points title trifecta, Balooshi just plain outran Californian Danny Rowe for the Gatornationals crown. Then three weeks later, after thumping everyone at the ADRL season opener, walked out of Las Vegas with another trophy. This time in a surprising all-nitrous finale with feisty veteran Rickie Smith.

If the nitrous cars were dead, someone evidently forgot to inform the nitrous racers.

Not only did Balooshi win Gainesville however, but he also sprayed his way to the number one qualifying slot, ahead of Rowe, Smith, and Burgess, in that order. On one of the best tracks in some of the finer conditions these racers will see all year, none of the combinations dominated the others.

To their credit, the turbo camp boasted low ET of the weekend with Burgess’ 5.84 in the opening round, but he and Personett both bowed out of eliminations in the second round. That left two nitrous cars and two blown cars in the semifinals. The final round margin of victory between Balooshi and Rowe was a mere .016; less of a gap then the Pro Stock final.

In Sin City, the final qualifying order was headed up by Burgess, with the blown car of Jay Payne second, followed by Balooshi and Smith, and Coughlin’s turbo car rounding out the top five. The rest of the qualified field was rather lopsided with ten of the sixteen sporting superchargers, but the parity at the top speaks volumes. Under mild spring conditions hovering around 90 degrees, each of the three engine combinations took turns recording low ET of each round of qualifying.

The semifinals on Sunday looked quite reminiscent of Gainesville, with Smith and Balooshi on opposite sides of the ladder; Balooshi in a rematch with Danny Rowe and Smith facing Burgess, who had been the quickest car in each prior round.

Burgess certainly should’ve been in his first final round behind the wheel of a turbo car, but in a prime example of why we don’t race these cars on paper, a huge 5.94 to 6.01 performance advantage on the racetrack was negated and then some by a days-late .226 reaction time while ‘Tricky Rickie’ did what he does best by remaining solid on the tree. In the other pairing, Rowe tripped the beams just a hair too quick, sending Balooshi to yet another final.

And thus, the two lone nitrous entries in the class, with their obituaries written and funeral arrangements made, were the only racers left standing on Sunday afternoon. And while the impending growth of the turbocharged army in numbers and accolades is hard to doubt, a couple of nitrous racers have proven that not only is the level of parity in Pro Modified perhaps better than it’s been in a long while, but on at least two particular weekends, everything was in their favor.

NHRA preseason testing historically kicks off before the calendar turns to February, and the IHRA’s Nitro Jam tour has been well underway by that point the last couple of seasons, as well. But around this time of year, the only racing you’re really going to see or hear much about involves left and right turns. And as gearheads at heart craving anything that involves a combustion engine in any way, shape or form, we’re on it like stink on poop.

Possessing ample knowledge of the ins and outs, the stories and the characters of NASCAR, I still don’t consider myself a fan of the three-ring circus act they’ve got going on down in Charlotte. But every winter, like clockwork, I find myself enamored by Daytona 500 coverage on television. If there’s a tire test or a practice session being televised – which is less exciting than paint drying any other time of the year – I’m tuned in. And then I browse some of the popular drag racing forums and find that I’m not alone. We’re all just clamoring for some racing at any cost after a winter that felt as though it began years ago.

First, there’s the Barrett Jackson Classic Car Auction, which has nothing to do with drag racing other than the presence of Joe Amato, Darrell Gwynn, and Linda Vaughn. And then there’s the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona – which I’m a big fan and WILL find a way to attend one of these days – followed by all of the NASCAR festivities. And then it’s over and we all denounce that we ever watched any of it until next year.

Those lucky enough to reside in regions that have racing opportunities year-round don’t realize just how good they’ve got it.

A couple of years back, I had the opportunity in late-February to travel down to Orlando for a couple of weeks to shoot what would be the final Fun Ford Weekend/Battle of the Brands race and the NHRA Division 2 meet at Orlando Speed World. I got on a plane frozen to the core and headed up into the ever-present gloomy sky and landed in the sunshine and 80 degree weather. And there was racing. And women in bikinis. And I felt like a fish out of water. After enduring then-25 years of cold weather until sometime in April, it was as if my own internal clock was buzzing to inform me that tolerable temperatures and racing were still two months away, but through some ‘Back To The Future” time continuum occurrence, I had altered the process. Elsewhere in the country they’re shoveling their way out to shop, and I’m getting sunburnt. This I could get used to, I thought.

This photo (whether real or not) is a bit of a stretch, but people in many regions of the United States probably felt like this much snow stood outside their homes this winter.

Trevor Bayne has won the Daytona 500, the Winternationals are in the books with Gainesville approaching, our jaws have met the desk thanks to David Wolfe and Kevin Fiscus, and the Division 2 Lucas Oil Series is halfway through it’s season; say what?! Here in the midwest, some tracks are a couple weeks out from opening the gates and those in the northeast and elsewhere will be soon to follow. And before you know it, we’ll be complaining that it’s too hot to go racing. And we’ll wish it were cold. And then it’ll be cold and we’ll wish it were hot. Discontented creatures, we are.

After Dover Motorsports closed up the Memphis Motorsports Park last October, attention turned to another of their holdings, the Gateway International Raceway just across the mighty Mississippi from downtown St. Louis. And before the official announcement was even handed down this fall, it was well known the track would be terminating its operations until further notice. Now, Gateway wasn’t my “home track” by any means and I doubt anyone there knows me from Adam, but I’ve probably spent as much if not more time there than any other track in the midwest over the years. I’ve had the pleasure of racing, winning, and witnessing some great races and moments there. The place really is a mid-American mecca that was visited by racers and fans from all across the country thanks to its central location. And as such, it meant a lot to a lot of people.

Like many, I never knew the original incarnation of Gateway. I can recall being 12 or 13 years old and making the short three hour drive over to St. Louis for a little weekend R&R vacation with the family and my father and I had heard there was a racetrack nearby. So we pulled out a map (you know, the paper kind that doesn’t talk to you) and went old school geocaching for it. By the time we arrived rains had wiped out the racing for the day, but not before we took some time to chat with the locals about the place. The old strip was in its final days, surrounded by graders, dump trucks, and a quarter mile dragstrip drawn out in the dirt.

The late Steve Grebeck honored at the 2002 Mobil 1 World Ford Challenge.

Like many, I have a lot of great memories from the track. Those not only include winning a handful of races of my own there, but taking in several exciting World Ford Challenges, the NHRA Sears Craftsman Nationals (that later changed names) in the blazing June heat, NMCA, Monster Mopar, the ADRL, and many others. During its time, it has claimed the lives of Top Fuel racer Darrell Russell and Super Gas competitor Phil Burghard, saw record shattered, upsets accomplished, and tens of thousands of new Missouri-Illinois racing fans made.

A massive crowd takes in the 2003 NHRA Sears Craftsman Nationals in 2003. Something many may not recall is that the St. Louis event was for a short time the only scheduled night race on the NHRA tour.

In spite of its closure, there is reason to remain optimistic about the eventual reopening of some portion of the facility. I don’t particularly know the lay of the land nor the intentions of local politicians and investors, but the location doesn’t exactly seem ripe for the picking from a development standpoint. If anything at all, it could serve as an extension of the landfill across the street, but doesn’t come across as your Wal-Mart or condominium complex sort of area. Meaning it could be safe from total extinction for a while.

Jason Scruggs and Joey Martin compete before the largest crowd in Gateway's history at the 2009 ADRL Hardee's Gateway Drags.

Area native and drag racing announcer and photographer extraordinaire Bret Kepner recently shared on his Facebook page the finer details of the financials and business models of the facility that proved to be its downfall and that information doesn’t bode well for the track on the surface. But, with Dover Motorsports display of willingness to practically give Memphis Motorsports Park away at auction, a list of rumored “race-minded” interested buyers, and the leverage of the money that its weekly and annual events generate, there’s no reason to write the Gateway International Raceway off just yet.

While no official word has been handed down thus far with four months remaining before the opener in Houston, it was been widely speculated and all but expected that the series will institute minimum weights for one or more of its categories to maintain a strong level of participation moving forward. Because like any smart business, those at the helm know the fans come to see the cars, and if there are no cars, the whole shebang is doomed. While there’s been some public mention of Pro Nitrous receiving a weight rule, it would seem a given that Pro Extreme would be given the same treatment.

There’s a reason that current and former eliminators that once competed on a performance-based, heads up format are no longer, and it simply comes to down to money. While not an apples to apples comparison, the NHRA and IHRA’s Stock, Super Stock, Competition Eliminator, and Modified Eliminator were once classes where the fastest machine took home the hardware. However, those that have the desire and the money to win will always do whatever it takes to accomplish that mission, and before you know it, those without the fiscal wherewithal to keep up fall by the wayside. The very same situation has taken place in Top Fuel and Funny over the last couple of decades, as the sanctioning bodies have gradually put the kibosh on extensive testing and expensive aerodynamic enhancements that were driving away their lower-funded peers.

Despite the relatively humble beginnings of the ADRL six years ago, the cost of remaining competitive has seen a sharp upward trend with each passing season that will only continue to snowball. We could all easily point the finger in any direction – some being more obvious than others – at setting the spending spree in motion, but keep in mind that these racers have done nothing wrong. The ADRL created an exciting, wide open affair and those that can afford to do so are simply taking advantage of the situation. The nature of the beast, you could say. But before it gets any further out of control, series officials simply must take a proactive stance and place the proverbial cap on it.

Sure, imposing minimum weights isn’t going to change who runs at the top and who doesn’t. Those with the financial resources to do so will continue to build lightweight race cars and place the ballast where they want it. They’ll still invest more into research and development, spend more on trick-of-the-week engines and drivetrains, and they’ll still test extensively to reign among the elite. But in evening out a key facet of the playing field, those on the opposite end of the spectrum will have reason to believe they can be competitive to some degree on their budgets, thus keeping car counts at or above healthy level that fans have come to expect. This continued growth in participation is what the series needs to remain viable in a highly competitive business.

To date, the rules for all classes with the exception of Extreme Pro Stock have focused only on elements that deal with safety and the power adders that are permitted. This is a far cry from other sanctioning bodies who have restrictions in place on nearly everything but the color of the car. Pro Nitrous is rumored to be receiving not only a weight minimum, but a restriction on engines to the current 5.3″ bore spacing standard to curb costs.

Pro Extreme meanwhile, is a whole different animal with two vastly different combinations occasionally competing alongside one another. And to that end, while no major rule changes are expected in 2011, Extreme 10.5 represents a practically unprecedented debacle with varying combinations that is already leading to a decline in participation. I touched on this in a recent piece here on DRAGZINE, and while myself, like those within the ADRL, have no clear cut answer, something must be done before this class becomes “Pro Extreme Lite” with  all screw-blown cars and disappointing fields.

Minimum weights and other limitations in what has traditionally been an “outlaw” series certainly isn’t what Kenny Nowling and his staff envisioned, but it was only a matter of time before they were left with little choice. And while many of their competitors have waited too long to act, the ADRL should be commended for taking an early and aggressive stance on the matter, showing they are poised for a long and bright future ahead.

There is a popular thread on Yellowbullet.com pondering the question “Is NA Heads-Up Racing Going Extinct?” They are speaking of all motor, heads-up, small tire, street car racing. The top cars run in the low 8′s at 160+ mph. There are 5 or 6 classes for these cars to compete but they all have different rules.

Racers have suggested coming up with one set of universal rules for the majority of classes to adapt. This would allow racers many different places to compete with there combinations. The east coast X275 Drag Radial class has done this and has come up with a set of rules that are used at about 5 different tracks. Getting to the top in this type of racing requires a lot of expense and effort. Building a car for one class and spending all the money and time on a combination is somewhat risky. With the stroke of a pen, a combination or an entire class could be gone, leaving a combination with with nowhere to compete.

Right now we have the NMCA/NMRA, PSCA, OSCA, RAM (NA SHOOTOUT), and Milan Dragway as the most popular N/A 10.5″ classes. Each series has it’s own positives and negatives. What some racers are asking for is a set of rules that will allow many cars to compete and be close to each other in performance with maximum effort combinations. This is easier said than done with all the different combinations out there. Some NA racers have actually crossed over to the dark side, changing there combo and running a power adder like nitrous. They feel it is less expensive and there are more places to race. Here are some of the current rules out there. There is also another thread on Yellowbullet asking racers to chime in about there thoughts of this universal set of rules.

What’s Left of the Supporting Series

The National Muscle Car Association (NMCA) has there Pro Stock class. This class has been extremely successful in the past but recently they have not been drawing many cars. The rules are long and they do this to even out the different combos that are permitted. They also have the Mean Street class for an even more restricted form of this type of racing.

The National Mustang Racers Association (NMRA) has there Hot Street class that has been very successful over the years. It is a small block Ford only class with many rules. They also have there Pure Street class that is much more restrictive.

The Ontario Street Car Association (OSCA) Pro Stock. This Canadian class has been pretty successful. They are expecting an even better season next year with a new sponsor and new cars being built.

The NA Shootout (RAM) NA 10.5 class. They feel they have a set of rules that allow for all combinations to compete. They have had much success with there series and have had some very close racing. NA Shootout also has a Drag Radial class that is more restrictive, requires a 275 radial tire and stock suspension.

The Pacific Street Car Association (PSCA) Hot Street Class. They also allow for most all combinations.

Milan Dragway’s All Motor Class. While this class is only run at Michigan’s Milan Dragway, it has been very successful. The rules are very simple and allow for almost all combinations to race. Many feel the rules are too basic and give an advantage to a specific combination. This doesn’t seem to stop many racers from competing since they have had very good turnouts.

The Outlaw Small Block Association has a couple small block only classes. They hold races in Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland.

What Needs to be Done

In my opinion, having a universal set of rules is a great idea and would be beneficial for this type of racing. The rules are the biggest thing. I really like the most of NA SHOOTOUT (RAM) rules since the cars are very close in performance and they get a good number of cars. Some say if a maximum effort big inch motor car showed up, they could have two tenths on the fastest car. If this happens I would think there would be weight added to the big motors. RAM allows for any combination and the rules try to equally them all out. This is extremely difficult to do and you must use a maximum effort combinations to compare.

One of the problem you see is racers asking for a weight break because they don’t want to use the faster components. For example, if one transmission is faster than another, you can either run or choose not to. If you choose not to, you will probably be giving up some performance. Some feel that since one transmission is slower, they should get a weight break. There are two ways to look at that. You could say, “If you want to be competitive you have to use the fastest stuff out there.” You could also say, “That you would have to spend a small fortune on every ‘trick of the month’ part to get ahead of the other guy who will try to outspend you.” Both are good arguments and most series give the weight breaks to get more cars to compete and be competitive.

Many say it makes no sense spending $7,000 on an item to go out there and race for $1,200. They are right and the complete car probably cost over $50,000. The people who do this type of racing are not in it to make money. I think they just love to compete and the challenge of what they can do with a combination. Many just love the screaming engines, wheel stands and grabbing the gears at over 9,000 rpm.

I like some of the Milan rules. They really seem to work good in getting cars but i do not like the way the weights are. They favor the big inch, small block and big inch, big blocks. I like most of the PSCA rules but I feel there weights are too light. There rules are probably allow the cars to be the fastest of all the series with the possible exception of Milan. All of these classes work and they are doing well. The OSCA rules are also well thought out. They are more restrictive than Milan and have a list of heads they do not allow. They also allow for a W tire, which most other series do not allow.

The NMCA’s Pro Stock class allows for a variety of combinations but rules are too restrictive in my opinion. They do a great job of keeping the cars close in performance but the long list of rules excludes many cars from competing. The NMRA has always had a good thing going with there Hot Street class. It is kind of like a mini-Pro Stock class which, for many years, has had large turn out of cars with close to the same combinations. This class is obviously a small block Ford only class with a long list of rules. The OSBA has a small block only class that some of the top guys compete in but is limited to a small block. You could also go back and look at the classes that are not around any more like NSCA’s Real Street and FFW Street Bandit.

I feel that if a unified set of rules were made for NA 10.5 racing they would have to be kept very simple and it would make it very easy to check each vehicle. The more rules the less number of cars that can compete. Also some argue that more rules make it more expensive to keep up. A quick visual inspection is all that would be needed and it would not be hard to pump the engines to check displacement. Each car would be weighted after each run. To allow every combination to be competitive would require a mile long list of weight adjustments. I would keep it simple and yes, some combinations would not be fast enough. That is just how it is. Over time, there will be a few combinations that will prove to be the best and that’s what the top cars will be running. You could always go with one combination like NHRA Pro Stock has but this class would be something that many existing combination can run.

After looking around and getting some other opinions, I put together a set of rules for an extremely fast class, that would allow many to compete. Most were taken from the series that are already out there. I would think something like this might work:

.400 Pro Tree – 16 Car Qualified Field – Pro Ladder

ENGINE:
400 cubic inches at 3000 pounds.
Add 3 pounds per inch for over 400. Deduct 3 pounds per inch for anything less than 400 inches.
One carb or Throttle Body

HEADS:
Two valves per cylinder maximum.
One spark plug per cylinder
No billet cylinder heads

FUEL / FUEL SYSTEMS
Gasoline & Alcohol only (No Nitromethane)

Oil Retention Device:
Required. Device may be custom-built ballistic blanket-style or metal-style (I.e., bucket) device. Metal pan may be no longer than the engine from the front of crank shaft to the rear of the flywheel. Pan must be inside the frame rails and fabricated to retain oilliquid. Pan must attach to the frame via conventional fasteners or straps. Pan must be a minimum of 3 inches above ground.

Diapers:
They do not have to be SFI rated.

Transmissions:
Auto Transmissions: Any OEM American automatic transmission or a replica of an OEM American automatic transmission that uses planetary gears and torque converter permitted. Pneumatic, electric, hydraulic, etc. shifters prohibited. Any gear change must occur from direct action by the driver.

Manual Transmissions: Any OEM or aftermarket transmissions. Any gear change must occur from direct action by the driver. Pneumatic, electric, hydraulic, etc. shifters prohibited. Add 150 lbs to listed base weight.

FRONT SUSPENSION:
All cars must retain stock suspension, aftermarket tubular control arms, coil over kits, or OEM front strut retrofits are permitted. But must be a direct bolt on, no welding modifications permitted. Aftermarket Racing Struts with spindle mounts or hub mounts designed for tube type front ends are prohibited. Stock wheelbase will be enforced on all vehicles.

Front End:
Stock frame rail from firewall forward required. Firewall to remain in the original location. Bolt-on replacement units allowed. This needs to be verified in tech that the bolt on factory mounting point are used with the bolts present.

REAR TIRES:
Maximum size: 30 x 10.5 Slick (No W tires) or 295/65R15 Drag Radial Tire

Exterior:
Body panels can be replaced with factory appearing bolt-on replacements.
No one piece front ends – Aftermarket front end that is all connected together (both fenders and nose).
No tube chassis cars

Interior:
Stock appearing interior required, including two front seats.

MUST MEET ALL NHRA RULES INCLUDING LICENSE AND CERTIFICATION

Nostalgia drag racing as we’ve come to know it comprises the cars and stars from this era, further leading to the credence that this period of time in history is what we shall deem “nostalgia.” My good friends Merriam and Webster define the term nostalgia as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.” Thus, anything that occurred prior to the present moment can essentially hold a nostalgic place in ones heart and mind.

In my late 20′s and still the butt of plenty of wet-behind-the-ears jokes from the feisty old timers, I’m part of an entirely new generation of drag racing followers and competitors who look back on a more recent era of our sport much in the same way our baby boomer fathers reminisce about the 1960′s. We grew up during the 1980′s and 90′s. Our childhood recollection includes cassette boom boxes, Pac-man, a freshly white Michael Jackson, Beavis and Butthead, and Kenny Bernstein’s moppy mullet.

I distinctly remember my father calling me into the room one Sunday back in 1989, where the broadcast from one of the races was on, and my only real vivid memory of sitting there watching it that day is seeing the “Nuclear Banana” of Eddie Hill on the tube. But from that moment forth, I was hooked. I attended my first U.S. Nationals in 1990 and came back with a massive collection of decals and hero cards, and I wore my Kenny Bernstein t-shirt (which I recall being slightly ticked said “King of Speed” rather than “Budweiser”) plum out. These days, as I do my weekly research for our Flashback Friday features, almost like clockwork, I catch myself engrossed in stories or Diamond P clips from the 80′s and 90′s. Sorry, Boss.

While I possess a limited resume of life experience and even less in the sport of drag racing, looking back, the late 80′s and early 90′s seemed to signify the end of what most would consider to be simpler times. And that didn’t just apply to life itself, but extended to this great sport, as well. The corporate world and attitude hadn’t yet infiltrated the professional ranks making it the bland, politically correct performance that it’s become today.

Race teams didn’t operate out of state-of-the-art facilities in Indianapolis, and many still towed their competitive nitro burners in an old goose-neck trailer behind a dually pickup that also served as their pit vehicle, and showmanship was still as much a part of the game as winning was. Racers had nicknames, cars had flashy paint schemes, crews still wore t-shirts, and the packed houses brought the stands to the ground after any of the crowd-favorites notched a win. There were still plenty of remnants of the old days in that period that have completely disappeared today. And in a fact that still boggles my mind, a relatively small television network in Nashville showed nearly every race live. I repeat, L-I-V-E. The voices of Steve Evans and Dave McClelland still resonate with drag racing fans everywhere and the duo will never be surpassed.

Back then, you just never really knew what you might see at a race. Today, John Force and Austin Coil run a finely-controlled ship, but in the early 90′s, Force waged arivalry with a young chap named K.C. Spurlock that took place before they ever lit the stage beams, as the pair regularly competed for the longest burnout to a raucous applause. Starter Buster Couch was as much a figure as any of the drivers, and he certainly didn’t take any crap from Warren Johnson and Scott Geoffrion.

A kid named Del Worsham campaigning on nickels and dimes won races. Funny Car racers would nonchalantly burn one to the ground, borrow a body, and win the whole shebang. Some would burn up two or three a weekend. Exciting, wall-slapping pedalfests were a common and welcome occurrence, and the crashes and blowovers could fill a “Thrills and Spills” film in a hurry. And who could forget the shattering of what will likely be the last major performance barriers in history, as both Top Fuel and Funny Car surpassed 300MPH and entered the four-second zone, while the Pro Stockers dipped into the sixes at over 200MPH.

One of the truly memorable elements of the period of the early 1990′s was the clear changing of the guard amongst the professional competitors, as two different generations of racers converged on the very same playing field. Many future, unanimous hall of famer’s who literally built the sport with their own blood and sweat alongside Wally Parks were still very much a part of the game, and they were competitive to boot.

Young kids like myself, born long after what could be described as the heyday of drag racing, got the opportunity to see legends like Don Prudhomme, Ed McCullough, Don Garlits, Tom McEwen, Bruce Larson, Dick LaHaie, Bob Glidden, Connie Kalitta, Shirley Muldowney, Tom Hoover, and many others compete just like they had in their prime before hanging up their firesuits and motoring off into the sunset. Sure, we missed the days of the slingshot dragster, backup girls, fire burnouts, and the like, but that wasvery cool to get the opportunity to see these legends on top of their game. Opposing them were young guns like Cruz Pedregon, Worsham, Whit Bazemore, Mike Dunn, Cory McClenathan, Scott Kalitta, and, of course, Kenji Okazaki. It was a great period in the sports history. It still seemed like a little slice of the old days. And when you compare those times to today, it really was.

Just in the same way that curiosity begs the question of whether the automobiles produced in the 90’s and 2000’s will ever be highly sought after resto-rides like themuscle cars from the 60’s, so too does one have to wonder if the machines that inhabited the sport of racing during the late 90’s will ever receive the “nostalgia” moniker. Because I’m here to tell ‘ya, if they ever bring the Oldsmobile Cutlass-bodied floppers, the Dodge Daytona and Pontiac Firebird Pro Stockers, or the Top Fuel dragsters with the airplane front wheels on them to the California Hot Rod Reunion (or any event for that matter), this guy will be the first one in line to get in.

A 37-Car Field in SSO – National Trail, 2000

The opening race of the first “full” season of NMRA competition took place at Columbus’ National Trail Raceway, and the fledgling series got off to an amazing start with an actual bump spot in the Super Street Outlaw class. SSO was far different then – today it’s a true-10.5 class, but in 2000 it was a melting pot that pitted full-race Mustangs against legitimate street driven cars. All told, there were no fewer than 37 cars vying for 32 spots (bumped up from 16 originally) in the program, and no less than 17 cars running 8.99 or faster in qualifying.

Pole position went to Chris Derrick with an 8.439 at 172.43, and sped up to an 8.282 at 173 in the first round. The win eventually went to Tim Lynch, but the ladder for that race reads like a who’s who of NMRA racing – Notables included Leo Johnson, Brian Sorby, Bruce Hemminger, Dave Hopper, John Urist, Carlo Catalanotto, Lou Proto, and Joel Howard. One interesting DNQ – Mike Murillo, and his 101mm, 1700 hp Star Car in its first turbocharged incarnation. Traction problems kept Murillo out of the show, but like many others running in that seminal race, he’d go on to big things in NMRA competition.

Job Spetter, Jr. Makes the First Seven-Second Pass In SSO – Bowling Green, 2000

Columbus was literally and figuratively just the beginning for SSO – by the end of the season, there were hints of things to come, and there was no better example of what the future would look like than Job Spetter, Jr’s championship-winning Fox notch. Winning 5 out of 6 races in 2000, Spetter capped the season off with a 7.97-at-177 MPH pass at the finals at Beech Bend Raceway that would capture a long list of firsts: First SSO car in the sevens, first car to run 7′s on a true 28 x 10.5 tire, first “stock” suspension Mustang to run sevens (and still one of a short list with that on the resume, even to this day). Spetter and the car would go on to take another two tenths off that record-breaking performance at the 200o NMRA finals and pick up another 9 miles an hour before they were done in competition, but that’s the thing about firsts – somebody else may go faster, but they’ll never be able to say they did it before he did.

Steve Grebeck Shatters the Pro 5.0 Record with a 6.77 – Maple Grove, 2001

By the second full season of NMRA competition, the premiere Pro 5.0 class had made a huge leap in performance, heralded by Steve Grebeck’s unprecedented charge deep into the sixes. At the 2001 Fun Ford Weekend season opener, Grebeck made the first 200 mile per hour pass in a Pro 5.0 car, running a best ET of 7.01, and followed up with a 6.83 in NSCA Outlaw trim at the Rising Sun Shootout in Maryland. All eyes were on Grebeck for the NMRA Maple Grove round, where the debate about whether a six was possible at full weight would come to an end. Grebeck and his team wouldn’t just rewrite the record book – a 6.77 at 208 would tear it to confetti, and he would go on to run as quick as 6.65 and 213 in the car that would define Pro 5.0 for the rest of its existence in NMRA competition.

Tragically, less than a year later, a catastrophic top-end crash at the FFW 2002 season opener in Orlando would end Grebeck’s life far too soon at age 36, but his legendary accomplishments in Pro 5.0 in such a brief span can never be overstated or forgotten.

Charlie Booze’s Perfect Season – Hot Street, 2004

The naturally-aspirated, no-wheelie-bars Hot Street class is a brutal test of man and machine, which makes Charlie Booze, Jr.’s undefeated 2004 season in the NMRA a remarkable accomplishment, but what’s even more amazing is that he also managed to pull off the 2004 championship in Hot Street’s sister class, NMCA Pro Street, as well. Between the two series, Booze won 13 events that year, had three runner-up finishes in Pro Stock, and was 55-and-4 in round-wins.

Booze continues to campaign the same ’92 hatch he’s run for the past eight seasons, and was the only Hot Street racer to dip into the 8.50’s in 2009. With a slew of new cars out or on the way, Booze is still the man to beat in the NMRA’s premiere all-motor class.

Mike Washington ‘s (Almost) Perfect Season – Factory Stock, 2003

NYC firefighter Mike Washington notched his first NMRA Factory Stock win at the 2002 Bradenton season opener, and went on to finish fourth that year. In 2003, he almost beat Charlie Booze to the punch in the “perfect season” category, getting all the way down to the last round of the last race of the year in Bowling Green still undefeated. In that matchup against Jamie Holten, Washington’s clutch pedal caught on the overtravel stop designed to keep it from going all the way to the floorboard and wouldn’t come back up, costing him the race and the no-hitter for the season.

Though the 2003 championship was his by a mile, 2004 wasn’t nearly as easy, and Washington finished second in points. “We had built a brand-new engine program for Factory Stock, came out, and had our asses handed to us by the four-valve Modular cars,” Washington admits. “We decided that we were done with Factory Stock racing at that point, unless there were major rules changes.” After taking 2005 off, Washington returned to FS in 2006 but subsequently moved up to Real Street, only to once again return to FS where he runs today.

Mike Hauf Wins $20,000 – Pro 5.0, Bradenton 2007

In a bid to encourage car counts and reward the top finishers in each class, for the 2007 season the NMRA unveiled a new ‘shootout’ format that created a race-within-a-race during Saturday qualifying. The first shootout, for the Pro 5.0 class, happened at the Bradenton season opener, and featured $5,000 to win, with Vortech doubling-down and offering a $10,000 bonus if the same driver won Saturday’s shootout and the subsequent regular elimination rounds on Sunday.

Defending class champ Mike Hauf did just that, despite having to run against Tony Bischoff (who had appeared mid-season in 2006 and won every Pro 5.0 round he’d ever been in up to that point) in the shootout finals. A holeshot win in the shootout and a victory over David Schorr in the money round on Sunday meant that all told, Hauf would pocket almost $25k in regular purses, bonuses, and contingency.

The End of Pro 5.0 – Beech Bend, 2007

For seven years, the top rung of Mustang doorslammer drag racing was the NMRA Pro 5.0 class. Over that span, the cars evolved from back-half outlaw style to purpose built tube frame chassis, and elapsed times fell a full second from top qualifier Billy Glidden’s record-setting 7.679 at 174 at that first Columbus race. Racing at the highest level is never inexpensive, but by 2005 the cost of entry – a Pro Mod style roller, competitive engine program, and a rig to haul it around – could easily top a half-million dollars, and in a down economy, the car counts had begun to dwindle.

Another factor in the downturn was the death of Fun Ford Weekend, which had previously provided another venue for top-level teams, but had devolved into a “Battle of the Brands” series before finally ceasing operations at the end of 2008. With as few as three Pro cars in the lanes at some 2007 events, the NMRA had little choice in the matter and quietly ended the class by simply omitting it from the 2008 rulebook, making the World Finals at Beech Bend in 2007 the class’ last hurrah. Some Pro 5.0 racers moved over to the still-viable NMCA Pro Street class, others went ADRL racing, and a few downsized their tires and switched to the up-and-coming Outlaw 10.5 format, which offered numerous one-shot big money events that made better economic sense. Today, Pro Outlaw 10.5 is the NMRA’s top class, and interestingly enough, elapsed times and trap speeds are fairly comparable to the heyday of Pro 5.0.

Jarrett Halfacre Disqualified – Super Street Outlaw, Atco 2008

After wondering out loud how Halfacre could be neck and neck with him to the 330, then put three tenths on him to the stripe with a smaller turbo, Richard Lelsz and his crew dropped the hammer and filed an official protest after Saturday qualifying. Tech inspection revealed a line coming off a CO2 bottle leading to a nitrous-type solenoid concealed in the fender. When asked to remove the body panel so that the “object” in question could be identified, Halfacre refused, packed up the car, and left. The result was a two-year competition ban (subsequently shortened to a single year), and the forfeit of what was, up until then, second place in SSO points for 2008.

The official protest form for Halfacre's car.

While Halfacre was never explicitly caught cheating (the NMRA was very careful to point out, “There was absolutely NO proof established to support the statement that this driver and vehicle were illegally using nitrous oxide in conjunction with a turbocharger. The basis of this action is based solely on the refusal to cooperate with a formal protest and teardown request.”), the incident polarized the racing community. The silver lining coming out of the Atco suspensions (which also included Brian McCormick’s RS car for valve spring pressure “grossly in excess” of the allowable limit, and Steve Gifford’s FS entry for ported cylinder heads without the applicable added weight) was the clear message that the NMRA tech department wasn’t kidding around about keeping a level playing field.

Tommy Godfrey Breaks into the Tens – Factory Stock, Bradenton 2010

NMRA Factory Stock is the “entry level” heads –up category in the series, but being competitive in the strictly limited, naturally-aspirated class requires pro-level commitment and deep pockets. The holy grail of FS competition has been a ten-second pass, and while several competitors have been brushing against that barrier last year, it would be Tommy Godfrey who would finally break through. He did it in a convincing manner at the 2010 season opener, too, running 10.96 in the third round of qualifying to capture the top spot, then proving it wasn’t a “timing error” with an even quicker 10.89 in the first round of eliminations on Sunday, and yet a third ten (this time with a .92) in the finals against John Leslie, Jr.

What’s even more amazing is the back-story – Godfrey had to work on Friday and sent his crew chief Eric Holliday ahead with the truck and trailer, and he almost didn’t make it to the track. A snow storm in North Carolina and an errant driver crossing over from the other lane damaged the driver’s side of the truck, but left it still rolling. Never let anybody say that the guys in the NMRA’s heads-up rank and file aren’t every bit as dedicated as the big boys.

John Urist Runs 7.29, Sam Vincent Tops it With a 7.28 – Super Street Outlaw, Bradenton 2010

You knew we weren’t going to get all the way through a NMRA history top ten list without mentioning five time Super Street Outlaw champ John “Fireball” Urist, but out of all the many war stories we could pick, perhaps his battle with Sam Vincent at the 2010 season opener is the most appropriate. True champions are defined by their competition, and nowhere is that competition as intense as it is in SSO. Nitrous racer Sam Vincent has been battling the blower and turbo cars for years, and in Bradenton he proved that spray is here to stay in SSO. After Urist laid down a record-eclipsing 7.29 at 194 in Friday’s qualifying, Vincent responded by one-upping him with a 7.28 at 192 the next day to snatch top qualifying honors away from Urist.

In eliminations, a broken converter ended Urist’s day in the first round, and Vincent went out one round later in a 7.38-to-7.34 loss to John Macdonald, but once again the bar for SSO had been elevated and the war between bottle and boost rages on.

Still Counting…

That brings our Mustang drag racing history lesson up to date, but this is a story that’s still being written at every race, and we wanted to give you a chance to share your own NMRA moment here in the comments. Mustang racing is about participation, so don’t be shy – let’s hear what you would nominate to your own NMRA Hall of Fame!

No Hot Rods Allowed…Ok, I get it…but ENOUGH already! I’ve been living with you people and your rampage against all that is good and cool and fun in the world of Drag Racing for better than 40 years now. And just when I think it’s not possible for you to lunge off in completely the wrong direction YET again, Wham! There it is. You never let me down!

It really started when ya killed Fuel Altered…that was bad…but then, just when those big, hulking twin engine Top Gas Diggers started getting popular and goin’ fast, you snuffed them too. And then there was Modified. Only someone who truly HATES cars would even consider rubbing those guys out, but…ya did it. I’m not even gonna talk about Buddy Ingersol’s Buick. I still lose sleep over that one

I mean, those are just highlights. Over the years I’ve watched you manage to screw up and castrate…like…everything…seriously!

So I guess you must have been running out of things that offend recently, because you really had to dig deep to come up with this last one…the banning of the breather mask. Do you not understand that Drag Racing had one stark, visual distinction that set it apart from all other motorsports? A FACE and that face was the BREATHER MASK.

Don’t you understand how beloved that image is? Take a walk through the pits at one of your events sometime and look at how many people…a bunch of them not even born yet when that particular safety item went out of vogue a quarter century ago…how many of your paying, loyal customers relate to and even revere that image that is so unique to your..their…OUR sport. I see it on everything…T shirts, bumper stickers…even tattoos. I actually saw it in traffic today, (which is what prompted me to write this) in the back window of a pick-up truck.

I know it can’t possibly be a safety issue. I know this because I tried as hard as I could and I have never found one single instance of a death or even debilitating injury that was a result of wearing one. Oh, sure, there are a bunch of old timers at the reunions these days with “raccoon eyes” but hey, that’s a badge of honor. Looks like it did its job well during the quarter mile Bar-B-Que known as the 60′s and the 70′s.

I wish I could say the same for the flip up visor you guys feel is so much safer. I’ve seen the results of those things blowing off and even melting to the drivers face.  And I can think of one unfortunate racer who literally had his eyes burned out of their sockets before he ingested enough fire to actually kill him because that thin plastic shield could not handle the concussion of a bad blower explosion. Ugly, brutal stuff here, but you’re the one who took a proven, viable safety item and deemed it obsolete for no good reason what so ever.

Wearing a breather and goggles was my own personal choice, and it had little to do with the coolness factor. I felt safer and more secure with it. And, in the future, when I am operating a car at a track that is out of your menacing, controlling, smothering reach, I’ll wear it again.

Some will always see the glass as half full…others half empty.  But, when it comes to the state of Drag Racing today, it’s becoming more and more obvious that we’ve simply got the wrong size glass.

“Nostalgia” is huge.  I hate to use our version of the N word, but unfortunately, it’s what we’ve got.  All over the country, people are building slingshot Fuelers, Retro bodied Funny Cars, and even (gasp) Fuel Altereds. like it’s 1969 all over again.

Then and Now – Indy 1969 vs 2010

Indy, 1969. John The Zookeeper Mulligan runs  6.43′ for low ET of the meet.  It’s the first event the Beebe and Mulligan Fueler is using a late model 426 and they appear unstoppable.  They draw Tommy Ivo in the first round, and have him covered to half track, when driveline issues lead to clutch disintegration, oil pan puncture, and an intense under-cowl fire that not only takes the team out, but leads to Mulligans death 13 days later.  Don Prudhomme proceeds to wade through the remainder of the field and wins the event with a 6.51,  I was 7 years old and could barely read, but I remember accounts from this race like it was yesterday.

Indy 2010. I don’t have a clue who won…I have no idea what the speeds or ET’s were.  Hell, I don’t think I can even name five current Top Fuel drivers or cars. I’m not the only one either.  On Monday of this past Labor Day weekend, realizing that the US Nationals was happening just five hours up the road, I hit all of the message boards that I normally frequent.  The Yellow Bullet, The Hamb, The Classic Funny Car Board…combined membership of well over 200,000 fellow gearheads and Drag Racers…and not one single mention of what was happening at what once was the biggest, most prestigious Drag Race in the world.  Indy 2010 was a non-event.  For all intents and purposes, it didn’t happen… for most of us.

The 1969 Winternationals final between Mulligan and Don Prudhomme - Photo By: Cacklefest.com

A Look Back Through the History of Drag Racing…from the 70′s back.

So, this got me thinking…and reading.  Somewhere our sport came off the rails, and I was determined to find that point. Out came a stack of old magazines.  Copies of Hot Rod, Car Craft, Drag Racing USA, High Performance Cars, SS&DI…ranging from the very early 60′s to the late 90′s.  And this is what I found:

The mid to late 60′s were a golden age.  All reports and accounts were vibrant, full of enthusiasm…everything was growing, expanding and alive, and right up until 1971 or so, the emphasis was always on the future.  Drag Racing was not only a sport, and a hobby, but a cultural movement that was in tune with the people and the times.

Beginning at around 1972, the culture appeared to be on the ropes.  The safety people,  environmentalist movement and the economy conspired to crush the musclecar movement and began to push away the casual street/strip guy.  These were the folk that would have previously climb the various ladders and formed the Pro ranks during the 50′s and 60′s.

Magazines began running vintage road tests of things like 409 Chevies and 421 Pontiacs.  The hard core Drag Racing magazines began referring to the good old days and ran features on famous cars and racers from the past..they talked about stuff that was only five years old as if it had happened centuries ago. This was better than 35 years ago!

The Funny Car movement was still in full swing and growing at this point in the early 70′s, but less frequent and less detailed event coverage was the order of the day.  People just didn’t seem to care.  The Top Fuel cars of this era began to take on a very utilitarian appearance, and when compared to the polished jewels of the previous decade, were downright ugly.

Remembering the old days - Ron Colson pulling a burnout wheel stand - Photo by: Draglist.com

As the World Turns, Circa 1980s

By the 1980′s, the Winston money had completely transformed the upper ranks of the sport.  Car names, driver nicknames, racecars that could do double duty on the show circuit had just about completely disappeared. The fine line that had separated the serious professional from the backyard Hot Rodder had become a gaping chasm.  Neither one could identify with the exploits or machinery of the other.  The Dark Ages of Professional Drag Racing had begun.

But then, at the end of the decade, the first sparks of what we know today as “Nostalgia” began to appear.  A handful of guys on the West Coast began dragging their old pipes out of the rafters, and informal events featuring tire smoking slingshots started to make the news.  It was still obscure, and very limited in scope, but it clicked with enough people that a legitimate movement was born.  I myself was running with a few Big Show NHRA cars at the time, but was so stoked by the idea, that I went and build myself a Slingshot Top Fueler.  It was a thing of beauty!  160 inch Woody Flexy Flier, polished, chromed Blown 392, multi colored candy paint..Never got to actually run it, but that’s another story for another column.

So, that brings us to the present.  It’s not  “what’s old is new again”…it’s more like, what’s old is the only thing that is actually happening. The magic year seems to be 1970.  The big 3 automakers each have cars styled and themed directly from this time as their flagship performance offerings.  I own a Coffeehouse and am surrounding every night by 20 year olds who sing along with every Beatles song, have Hendrix blacklight posters on their walls…they discuss the work of Jim Morrison as if they’re waiting for him to turn out something even freakier than American Prayer…and the Slingshot Dragster is the new state of the art!

What we have here is a quest for purity, simplicity and soul. Not only in the general culture at large, but within the sub culture we know as Drag Racing.
That glass half empty thing….it’s obvious to me now.  As a Sport, Drag Racing’s glass is more than half empty, as are the seats at events that were once considered iconic. The sport of Drag Racing has been sterilized, commercialized and commoditized to a point at which it’s not even recognized by those of us who love it the most.  And this is because….wait for it….drum roll please…Drag Racing is NOT A SPORT!

Yes, it is a competition…but it’s not a sport.  Drag racing, at its highest form is an exhibition of speed and power within the cultural art of Hot Rodding.  Going fast and winning races is just a small part of the bigger picture.  The color,  the smell, the sound and the PERSONALITY of the machines and their caretakers are far more important in the grand scheme of things than the latest innovation or broken record.  Now, the trick…the task in front of us is to somehow erase everything that has conspired to pervert and mutate this ART over the last 40 years, and get back to it’s point of purity.

Back in 1970, the common ideal amongst the radical sect was that the system needed to be torn down and rebuilt in order to fix it.  That message is as valid today as it was then. The sport of Drag Racing needs to be disassembled from the top down, and rebuilt in order for it to survive and then thrive.  I do believe the time has come for a revolution.

The stock suspension, drag radial-tired craze has seen enormous success over the last handful of years and has and continues to spread like wildfire across the United States. It has even garnered the attention of some racers across the pond who have begun bolting the radials onto their various styles of race cars as well.

While drag radial racing is certainly enjoying it’s heyday at this very moment in time and likely for the foreseeable future, this style of heads-up, street car racing has been exceptionally popular for years since Fun Ford Weekend, NMRA, NMCA, NSCA and World Ford Challenge put the class on the map back in the late 1990’s.

The dwindling car counts over the years in some of the previously mentioned organized series led to an overflow of interest in outlaw-style racing, and with it brought an influx of racers – new and old- into the radial movement. So too, have the number of high-profile and lucrative races, and an outburst of advancements in performance.

However, it isn’t the race cars themselves, the marquee events that have made promoters as famous as the racers, or the numbers on the scoreboard that really make this radial world go round.  It’s the people…the personalities and the ingenuity that they possess.

Although both the north and the south can lay claim to being the birthplace of varying forms of radial tire racing, all corners of the nation now have a piece of the pie. From Donald Long’s extremely popular Outlaw Radial Tire Championship series and grudge racing in the south, to the MIR and Cecil County races and the Shakedown up north, the growing contingent in Texas, the True Street Drag Racing series and other events in the midwest, to the Pacific Street Car Association and West Coast Hot Rod Association out on the left coast.

Each of these geographical regions and racing organizations boasts a great following of racers and race teams that are all very tough competitors in their own right.  Unfortunately, these geographic separations affords little – if any – opportunity to bring them all together on one stage to truly gauge how they stack up against one another.  Long’s simply genius “The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia” back in March was the closest thing to such a happening that has occurred to date, but even then the turnout was only a drop in the bucket of the overall radial contingent.

For this reason, narrowing down this huge collection of racers to the five toughest and most feared is a very tough job.  There are so many great competitors out there that are deserving of being on such a list, that it’s literally a travesty to have to leave them out.

There are however,  a few racers that have been involved in the radial tire classes practically from the beginning, who have set records, won races, championships, gotten in the minds of their competitors, and practically put butts in the stands simply by showing up at a racetrack.  They have undeniably left a mark on the sport.  These gentlemen are mentioned in no particular order, because honestly, its tough enough just to break it down to five, much less have to rank them.

“Big Daddy” Dwayne Gutridge

Our list of the five most feared radial racers would be completely irrelevant if Big Daddy wasn’t included.  In fact, if we were to produce an article naming the single greatest drag radial racer of all time and it didn’t involve him, we’d risk losing all legitimacy and endure public bombardment and protest.

Widely considered the father of drag radial racing, Gutridge has been around from the very beginning and has truly done it all and seen it all. And he continues to be a force in the sport and one of the most recognized names and personalities in the business.

“It’s like a personal rivalry [with Big Daddy]. He very rarely screws up – he’s definitely a tough competitor,” said fellow northeastern racer Alex Vrettos.

Gutridge got his start in the late 1980’s around the time that the Ford Mustang became a hit with the enthusiast market with the introduction of the 5.0 engine, running his 1988 GT in some of the earliest Ford events alongside some of the greats including Joe Lombardo, Gene Deputy, Brian Wolfe, and “Stormin Norman” Gray.

Gutridge recalls a time in the early 90’s, while regularly racing at Raceway Park in Englishtown, picking up Falken and Yokohama radial tires at Pep Boys simply to save the time and effort of removing the street tires to install the slicks at the track.  He was fast from the onset, consistently outperforming nearly everyone at the time and later, following his success on BFGoodrich’s new drag radial tire, forged a relationship with the company that was instrumental in much of the early success of competitive drag radial racing.  He also played an integral role in the adoption of the drag radial class in the NMRA and the World Street Nationals in Orlando.

The outspoken automotive performance shop owner from New Jersey has long been at the forefront of innovation and an integral part of the Mustang movement, possessing a knack for doing more with less that his competition hastily admits as he continually shows them the door.

Paul Major, another of the northeastern racers, has had the opportunity to line up alongside Gutridge on many occasions.

“He just finds a way to compete with less than everybody else. Somehow, someway, he always finds himself making things happen, and I give him all the credit in the world.”

David Wolfe, who is a close personal friend of Dwayne’s and has acted as crew chief on his car for several years, has also had the opportunity to line up alongside of him.

“His car is always fast and you better be there. You better not mess up – that’s all I can say. And you better make sure your cars fast.”

His accolades truly speak for themselves. During his short tenure with the NMRA, Gutridge won seven events and was undeniably the face of the class.  He won the World Ford Challenge three times and after his switch to the Fun Ford Weekend series, won the championship in both seasons that he competed.  He was the first in the 9’s and the 7’s, and the first to surpass 160, 170 and 180 miles per hour.  Following his exit from FFW in 2004, he chose to go down the outlaw path.  He won the popular Shakedown at E’Town in 2006 and 2009 and upon calling his shot, ala Babe Ruth, wheeled his relatively underpowered small block into the magical 6-second zone.

David Wolfe

David Wolfe could well be considered the silent giant of drag radial racing. The blue collar, Fort Worth, TX-based chassis fabrication shop owner and his Ken Nelson-owned 1989 Mustang LX have been out less times than could be counted on one hand, but when that car does roll out of the trailer, the aura is reminiscent of Muhammad Ali stepping into the ring.

Said Long “everytime he comes out, he’s just on fire.”

Wolfe has long been well-renowned in the sport not only for producing world record-setting and championship-winning suspension components, but his expertise and ability to make any car – not just the stock suspension cars that are his specialty – go fast.  And while definitely quiet, he is unapologetically confident in his abilities. He works hard, he’s good, he knows it, he’ll tell you what he can do and then he’ll do it.

“He’s a trailblazer and a trendsetter. If you look up drag radial in the dictionary, his picture is there,” says David Hance.

Wolfe got his start in the drag radial craze back in 2000 and was an integral part of the early, formative years of the class in the NMRA. At the time, he acted as crew chief on a handful of cars, including those of world champion Job Spetter and close friend and teammate “Big Daddy” Dwayne Gutridge. He points out that Dwayne was very much the reason that he got involved.

“You can’t race David Wolfe – it’s just hard to race the guy. He’s just brilliant and if it doesn’t work, he can make it work, that’s the way he is,” said Gutridge.

Paul Major echoed that statement in saying “the guy is extremely smart and real good at getting a car to work and getting the power down – I don’t know that there’s anyone better.”

In 2005, Nelson dropped off a half-finished car at the Wolfe Racecraft shop and asked Wolfe to build a winner. At World Ford Challenge 9 in 2006, he came out with the car and not only won the race in almost effortless fashion, but shocked everyone with a 7.40 at 197 mile per hour lap, a record that stood for nearly three years.

Earlier this year, he put on what is widely considered one the greatest performances in the history of drag radial racing, coming out of nowhere with a new engine combination at the ORTC event and became the first stock suspension, drag radial-tired car to run in the 4.4-second range – numbers that no one expected. Except Wolfe himself, of course. And he made it look incredibly easy, much as he has before.

The rules makers have had to practically pencil-whip his type of combination out of the game as other racers don’t even want to line up alongside his rocketship. That’s intimidation, and David Wolfe has earned it.

Steve Jackson

Image credit: Steve Jackson Racing

Image credit: Power Block TV

Steve Jackson is a relative newcomer to drag radial racing when compared alongside many of the other current greats, first entering the fray in 2008. But during his short tenure thus far, has without question left an indelible mark on the category and forged a name for himself as one of the most feared competitor on drag radials today. To say that Jackson is outspoken would be an understatement, but it’s that fire for competition and confidence he exudes that has made him incredibly popular. The performance of his race car certainly hasn’t hurt either. Prior to David Wolfe’s big outing earlier this year, Jackson was the world-beater in the category, bar none. His crushing numbers practically made “Stevie Fast” a household term. And while not at the top at present, he has vowed to reclaim his title as the quickest racer in the world on drag radials and that’s one bet most would be willing to take.

David Hance summed it up well, stating “He’s exciting…you expect a baseball-like play, like he’s going to hit a home run every time he comes to a track.”

Jackson got his start in the grudge racing scene in the south, but has since divided much of his time between the grudge races and organized events. But regardless of where the “Killin Time” Mustang shows up, it is undoubtedly the car to beat. And there is virtually no one that’s safe from being called out for a little match racing.

Jackson won the 2008 ORSCA EZ Street title in his first year of competition, before stepping up to Limited Street in 2009. There, he reset the drag radial world record on two different occasions, all while running on a set of radial tires with stock suspension against his slick-tired counterparts.

“Pretty much we just love to crush people,” he stated.

Jackson already has numerous Limited Street and Drag Radial wins to his credit in the last two seasons, and estimates to have won more than twenty stock suspension and match races throughout the country to date. He strikes fear into the heart of the competition and because of his outspokenness is very much a love him or hate him individual, but Steve Jackson is more than deserving of being mentioned among the best.

Said Paul Major “he’s one of the top guys out there, and definitely commands respect.”

John Kolivas

Johnny K, as he’s commonly referred to, is one the most well-respected competitors in the sport. He’s managed to do a lot with a little, and carries himself with humbleness. He is also one of the fiercest competitors out there, one that every racer in the class gets up for when he’s in the other lane. And John earned that reputation. When he isn’t busy winning one championship after another, he’s still one of the toughest racers in all of drag radial to beat.

Said Steve Jackson “Kolivas is hard to beat because he’s got his stuff together and he’s very consistent. He knows his racecar and he knows how to read the track. He doesn’t beat himself a lot, so you’ve just got to flat outrun him.”

Vrettos agreed, saying “Johnny is definitely a tough competitor. He very rarely screws up. He cuts consistent lights and his car tends to work every pass.”

Kolivas officially entered the NMRA drag radial class in 2005 with his familiar white 1995 Mustang Cobra after acquiring the car in 2003, and continually building up his arsenal while competing in smaller local drag radial events. In his rookie year win the NMRA, John had two final round appearances, winning one of them. On a mission to win it all in 2006, Kolivas did exactly that, winning half the races that season and claiming his first championship – a title he would not relinquish until his exit from the series following the 2008 season. In June of 2008, he became the first NMRA Drag Radial racer to eclipse the elusive seven-second barrier.

While Kolivas has yet to personally drive up to the time shed to pick up a 6-second time slip, his car, with close friend Joel Greathouse at the controls, has. And that certainly has to weight in the minds of his competitors when that white Cobra stages up in the opposite lane.

“He’s just tough. He definitely isn’t someone I’d want to be racing against,” said radial promoter extraordinaire Donald Long.

Wolfe agreed, commenting “when he’s there, you know he’s there – I have a lot of respect for him.”

Kolivas has focused on outlaw radial racing over the course of the last couple seasons, racing nearly anywhere this combination is legal to compete. This has even included a visit to NMRA’s Super Street Outlaw category, where he reset the national record on a set of 275 radials and the tires were subsequently ruled out almost immediately following the event.

These days, he continues to be one of the most decorated and feared competitors in drag radial, consistently going rounds and racking up the wins at ORTC and other outlaw events, all the while quietly continuing to build on his legacy in the class.

Troy Pirez

Troy Pirez Sr. is another of the racers that has been around from the early, formative years of radial tire racing and has virtually done it all and seen it all in the sport as one of the original drag radial pioneers.

Pirez and “Big Daddy” Dwayne Gutridge both go back to the beginnings of drag radial and know a thing or two about competing against one another.

“Put Troy Pirez at the top of my list. He’s an old school dude…he ran on BFG’s. He’s still winning – he still knows how to win. He’s running nitrous, but he still knows how to win. Most respect…if me and him line up, it’s old school. I know Troy is going to cut a good light and he’s not going to give you the race – you’re going to earn that win.”

The veteran from Florida dates his radial racing days back to the mid 1990’s when BFGoodrich first put a drag radial tire on the market and the organized events began to pop up. Pirez grabbed three wins at Bradenton Motorsports Parks’ heads-up events that were formed in 1997 before making the switch to Factory Street in the NMCA in 1998.  He then competed in the Traction Advantage category in the defunct NSCA in 1999 and 2000 where he won a championship and was the first racer to break into the 8-second zone. Pirez also held the Extreme Street national record for a time on BFG’s before the tire was outlawed in the class.

These days he, along with son Troy Pirez Jr., bide much of their time close to home at Bradenton, Sunshine Dragstrip, and other tracks around the state of Florida where Pirez has long been a dominant force and has gathered more wins and trophies than even he can remember. But occasionally, he ventures out to some of the larger events, where his white and orange 1988 Camaro is a familiar site and a force to be reckoned with anywhere he shows up.

“I’m Troy’s number one fan. He’s one of the main reasons for the explosion of drag radial in the past couple of years. He’s the king of making funny videos, he’s an accomplished racer, and he wins. He’s a colorful personality that the class has really benefited from,” said David Hance.

Pirez and his tried-and-true big block nitrous combination have recently found new life in the increasingly popular 275 radial craze, where he disposed of an incredible field of challengers from around the nation in February to pick up a big win at The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia.

So there you have it; our purely unbiased take on the top five most feared racers in the drag radial world today. Through hard work, determination, and many years of experience behind the wheel and under the hood, they have each left their own unique mark on what has become a hugely popular venue in the sport. And when you think Drag Radial, you think of this group of racers. but with an ever-growing crop of racers coming into the fold all with the same amount of drive to win, it’s safe to say this list could very well have a different look to it just a couple of years from now. And luckily, we get to sit back and revel in what these men (and women) do.

One of the great things about drag racing is that it’s really easy and cheap to do. Well, at least at first, that is. While all it takes to go out and bracket race is a car that’s not currently on fire and maybe a helmet if it’s quick enough, once you decide to go heads-up racing, the cost jumps exponentially. One of the big challenges facing racing organizations is how to convert those grassroots racers in the local bracket ranks into full fields for their heads-up classes, and the parts manufacturers who support those organizations with advertising dollars would love to see more racing where speed (and therefore money spent on parts), not consistency, wins trophies.

While it’s possible to spend an arbitrary amount of money drag racing if you want to go the Pro Mod or Outlaw 10.5 route, what’s the bare minimum cost of entry for heads-up racing? You’re probably looking at $25k for a competitive car, about that much again for a trailer and something to pull it, and perhaps two grand an event for fuel, maintenance, entrance fees, food, hotel, and what have you for an ‘entry level’ class. It’s no stretch at all to put the better part of $75,000 into your first year of heads-up racing. That’s a lot of discretionary income to pour into one hobby, for sure, and it’s hard to come up with a way to drop the cost below that and still win races.

There's no problem filling the lanes for bracket and index classes, but getting those racers to graduate to a heads-up class is an elusive goal.

ProMedia’s PRO series tried to find a solution to the problem with the Cheap Street class, which debuted in 2003 and specified small-block V8’s with flat-top pistons, a narrow approved list of unported heads, flat tappet cams, and spec-jet single stage nitrous systems. Most interesting was the claimer rule, adapted from similar practice in the circle track world – The top eight qualifiers at a race could put cash on the barrelhead at the end of the weekend and buy the engine, transmission, or carb right out from under the winner or runner-up. Under the initial rules, a long block was worth $3000, a transmission and converter $2000, and a carb had a price tag of $500, with a limit of one claim per year, per component category.

The idea was to make building an expensive class-killer motor a risky proposition, because anyone who could get into the top eight (and light fields made that an easy task) and come up with the cash would simply take it away from you. Unfortunately, racers hated it, and complained until the claimer rule was dropped at the end of the first season. By 2005 the class was dead and replaced with Street Race, which had its own wacky weight adder rule that penalized event winners with an additional 20 pounds for the rest of the season. Per the press release from ProMedia’s VP of Events, Charlie Harmon, “Although it was a popular concept with spectators, the racer turnout with the existing rules in Cheap Street continued to struggle in 2004. We had a very hard time developing the class as an entry level eliminator, and this was a hard decision to have to move in a different direction. As there seemed to be no easy way to salvage the original class, we worked hand in hand with Car Craft Magazine to re-develop Cheap Street into Car Craft Street Race, a category we can now truly say is the ultimate real-world street car class.” Needless to say, Street Race was also short-lived, and the successor in the NMCA series today is Street Radial – hardly an “entry level” class, with cars running 8.70’s.

Steve Fulgham (in the near lane) and Rick Hatch are the guys to beat in PSCA Street Challenge. Unfortunately, they're about the only guys in the class, too.

A similar experiment in the process of failing is PSCA’s Street Challenge class. As originally conceived, SC was intended to be a heads-up category for real street cars on real street tires – P255/60R15, 180 or better treadwear, and no drag radials or road race tires. After a ton of interest at the first few events, it became clear that the class would be dominated by just a couple of cars, and as of today you better be able to run 9.90’s in the mid-140’s if you want to win.

Street Challenge is a perfect example of what happens when you make the rules less restrictive to try and throw a net over the largest number of potential competitors (and Street Challenge has almost none, other than the tire size; cars are limited to a single power adder and aren’t weighed). Though you might have a bigger pool of people who are eligible to race in the class, only a small range of the possible combinations will actually stand a chance at winning, and a lack of stability in the rules means that nobody’s going to risk purpose-building a car for the class when it’s likely that the rug will get pulled out from under them next season. Ask anyone who used to run NDRA or NHRASC about it, and they’ll agree that rules chasing cars (rather than the other way around) is one of the major reasons the Sport Compact racing bubble popped.

Factory Stock might be the NMRA's "entry level" heads-up class, but it's not cheap by any standard.

If fewer rules don’t work to bring down the cost of racing, you might be tempted to say the answer is a more restrictive rulebook. But a look at NMRA Factory Stock and NMCA Mean Street, both series’ entry-level naturally aspirated classes, will tell you that unless you want to be an also-ran, it’s going to take some serious money. Limitations on engine and drivetrain components mean that they’re always getting pushed to the breaking point and beyond, and if you intend to campaign in these classes you better budget for multiple replacement clutches, transmissions, and valvetrain components. Then there’s the fact that tight, strictly-enforced limits on major parts mean that you’ll be spending more money and time on the minor ones that aren’t closely specified in the rulebook, in search of any tiny advantage you can find.

It’s no wonder that alternate racing formats like “True Street” have become popular recently – they offer the trappings of a heads-up tree and no breakouts, without actually being real drag racing. There are no eliminations, and everybody gets their three runs in “competition” no matter what. But even there, with only bragging rights on the line, there’s still an arms race, and unless you want to spend a lot of money, you’re going to have to settle for an index trophy rather than the overall win.

I don’t know what the answer is – if I did, I’d be consulting out to every doorslammer series in the country at $500 an hour. I do know what the answer isn’t, though, and I can make a pretty good list of things that doom affordable racing. Rules that are too broad, to include every car possible (but ensure that most aren’t even close to competitive). Rules that change so quickly that nobody can be guaranteed a car built now will be legal, let alone a frontrunner, in six months. Asking racers with day jobs to travel more than 6-8 hours each way. Contingency sponsors that pay in discount coupons, or checks that arrive just in time to be included in your estate. But most importantly, treating the slower classes like nothing but filler to kill time while the “pro” racers get their cars turned around for the next pass. It’s important to remember that drag racing is nothing more than entertainment for everyone involved, and there are plenty of fun ways to burn tens of thousands of dollars a year if racers don’t think they’re getting value for their money.

The U.S. Nationals, most commonly known as “The Big Go” or simply “Indy” is the most prestigious and illustrious drag race in the world. It’s the one everyone wants to win and the one everyone wants to witness at least once. Full of pageantry and media buildup, it is the second oldest continuously running drag race in the world, with a rich history of timeless moments that rival the sport itself. But sadly, and much to the denial of many, the race just isn’t what it used to be. It’s no longer Don Garlits shaving his beard on the starting line. It’s not Connie and Shirley in the Top Fuel final. Nor is it a couple of blue collar guys pooling their money and spending all year building a car just to try their hand at winning the worlds biggest drag race. And while the party atmosphere is still there, the stories that come out of the campgrounds surrounding O’Reilly Raceway Park just aren’t what they once were.

Aside from an extra 3-5 independent nitro teams that save up their nickels and dimes all year to attempt to qualify at Indianapolis, you essentially have the exact same field of 16 cars that you find facing off 22 other times a season. The same drivers, with the same cars, and the same tuners, who are all putting forth the same amount of effort to win this race as they do any other on the tour. Sure, they really want to win this one and for good reason. But when you really break it all down, it’s just another national event now. No extra points, no 32 car fields, just the status quo.

My point of this column isn’t to belittle the U.S. Nationals or the professional racers. The current state of the event and the sport as a whole is simply a sign of the times. We don’t live in simpler times anymore, and these race cars take a lot of corporate dollars to send down the racetrack. As such, the U.S. Nationals just can’t be what it once was, no matter how much we wish it could be. But if you dare to break away from the autograph lines and the tee shirt stands and walk a couple hundred yards over the crosswalk to the west side of the facility, you’ll find a grass roots paradise that’s a throwback to the old days in may facets.

For the competitors of the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, this is their Woodstock. It’s a week-long reunion of racers all with a common goal where despite their on-track competitiveness, the brews, the barbeque, and the BS will ensue amongst one another late into the night. Competitors arrive at O’Reilly Raceway Park the weekend prior to the event and virtually set up camp for what they hope to be the full week. Those pitted around you become like family once this marathon event is over.

No other event throughout the year draws the very best racers in the country from every geographic region onto the same stage, and as such, it is unquestionably the toughest one to win. Competition Eliminator features the one and only 64-car field contested all year. The Stock and Super Stock fields are so large that you must actually qualify just to race for a chance at Indy glory. And it all begins with what may be the best kept secret in drag racing – class eliminations. The racers of the Stock and Super Stock categories talk trash all year, pull out all the stops with their race cars all in an effort to win the heads-up battles alongside competitors from clear across the country that they may only meet once a year. And it’s headlined by the Mopar HEMI Challenge, which needs no introduction.

So do yourself a favor: call in sick on Thursday and Friday and head on out to O’Reilly Raceway Park and take in some racing that still has a flavor of days gone by. Unless you’re just hung up on nitro and the famous personalities shoved down your throat on ESPN2, you’ll thank me later.

By: Bruce Hemminger

With only 3 races left in the 2010 season, we knew more work had to be done. We planned to test different drivetrain ratios, different ignition components, and clutch set ups to be prepared for the NMRA Charlotte, NC race. Since we knew there was only 3 weeks in between the Joliet and Charlotte race, Deb and I had to get after it to get everything tested that we wanted to. Unfortunately our first time out testing we hurt the engine. We learned some important things, but getting everything back together was going to take some time. With help from Rich Groh of RGR Engines we got everything back together the day before we left for Charlotte. We also found that my main transmission had a bad main shaft. Luckily we were able to get a main shaft overnighted to the track, so it would be waiting for us when we got there.

Deb, Jeff (crew person), and I arrived in Charlotte on Thursday afternoon. We set up our pit area and then headed to the main office to get the main shaft. The weather was not looking too good and we had to make the decision to take the transmission apart and potentially get caught in the rain or fix it in the morning. I prefer to stay ahead of things as much as I can, so we decided to work on the transmission instead of waiting till the morning. We had just about finished it up and the rain started to come down. With only having to seal the tail shaft housing and seal the inspection covers, it would only take 30 minutes to finish it up and get the transmission back in the car.

On Friday we arrived at the track early to get the transmission back together and into the car. We then got ready to make a test pass to get a feel for the conditions of the track surface. On the test pass I ran 1.361, 3.920, 6.086 @ 113.08 mph, 7.968, 9.561 @ 141.39 mph. I was very happy that we decided to make a test pass because we were going to have to make changes to get the car to respond better on the starting line. With changes to the suspension and tune up for first round of qualifying, I ran 1.359, 3.897, 6.046 @ 114.38 mph, and one second into high gear the car nosed over very bad on me and I lifted. I was extremely upset because I knew it wasn’t going to be good. We got back to the pits and removed all the spark plugs and performed a leak down test. Everything checked ok except for 2 spark plugs. The straps on those plugs were burned a little bit. We then made the changes to those cylinders and got everything else ready for the second round of qualifying. In the second round, my suspension and tune up changes worked with a wheels up 1.328 (back tires), 3.863, 6.008 @ 114.13 mph, 7.873, 9.459 @ 141.65 mph. This pass was good enough to break the class ET record of 9.46 and put me in the number #1 qualifying spot. Also the car nosed over just before the finish line and another meted spark plug strap was the cause. Fortunately everything check ok in that cylinder. Getting a better handle on tune up and the track I knew there was a little more ET in the car for the third round. We made all the changes to suspension and tune up to prepare for Saturdays third round of qualifying and Sundays elimination.

Saturday morning we got to the track and warmed the car up and headed to the scales to verify weight. The car weighed with me in it 3065 lbs just it had in the first two rounds of qualifying. I then walked the track to see how the track surface looked that morning. Everything looked good and I planned to hit the starting line a little harder in the third round. Leaving the starting line higher this time it was a wheels up 1-2 shift 1.321 (back tires), 3.843, 5.988 @ 114.86 mph, 7.853, 9.433 @ 142.28 mph. Not only was this good enough to keep me in the #1 qualifying spot, back up and be the new class record, but it was also the very first 5 second 1/8^th mile ET in NMRA Real Street history. After passing a P&G test, and a nitrous jet size check. This pass is in the record books. Thankfully the NMRA decided to run our first round of eliminations on Sunday instead of Saturday night and since the temps were in the mid 90’s all weekend. We decided to get some food and head back to the hotel and get a good night sleep to be fresh and ready for Sundays eliminations.

Sunday’s eliminations would give me a bye in the first round for being #1 qualifier. I made a 1/8^th mile pass to try some things again to see if it would better the 5.98 1/8^th pass from the third round of qualifying. In the first round pass I ran 1.336, 3.877, 6.011 @ 114.96 mph. ET had fallen because it spun on the starting line, but mph was up. I can take this data and apply it to the next round. We made all the changes needed and were ready for the semi finals. In the semi final round I ran 1.369, 3.887, 6.016 @ 115.44 mph, 7.869, 9.469 @ 137.29 mph. This pass would give me lane choice for the final round. Unfortunate my competitor Tim Matherly, who was on a bye run in the semi final round, he had a mechanical failure. This unfortunate incident prevented him from making the final round and gave me my third win in a row. Deb and I plan to bring the engine to RGR Engines to have it gone over and be ready for testing and the NMRA Columbus Ohio race in a couple of weeks. Hope to see you there!!!

1. Watch and Learn

Chances are that you’ll probably see drag racing in person as a spectator before you do it yourself for the first time. While the racing is the main attraction, pay attention to the other things going on – how cars get called up from the staging lanes, how the guy running the water box positions cars for their burnouts, what hand signals the track staff uses to direct drivers, and most importantly, how the tree and staging beams work. At every test and tune session at every track across the country, there is at least one guy who drives right through the staging beams and pulls up right next to the tree, or gets confused and launches the car straight out of the water box. Don’t be that guy! Learn the process by watching from the stands before you see it through the windshield.

2. Get Ready for Tech

For most people, the first time they run the quarter (or eighth) mile, they’ll be doing it in their street car. Generally speaking, if your car is safe enough to drive to the drag strip, it’s safe enough to race, but you will still have to pass tech inspection before they let you run. The safety rules are based on how quick your car is, but unless you’re running something like a Z06 or turbo Mustang, the requirements are pretty straightforward. Under the hood, make sure your battery is secure, your throttle has two separate return springs, and that you’re not leaking anything. Check your tires for bald spots or cord showing, make sure your OEM seat belts are in good condition, and clean everything out of the inside of your car that might become a projectile in case of an accident.

Inspecting your car yourself before you get to the track will avoid unpleasant surprises in tech.

If your car is slower than 14-seconds flat in the quarter mile, you won’t need a helmet, but even if you don’t it’s still a good idea to have one of your own that meets Snell 2000 or better standards – look for a sticker on the back, or inside the liner on the energy absorbing material to check yours. Some tracks offer loaner or rental helmets, but they’re usually exactly as nasty to wear as you might imagine, so bring your own.

3. Bring the Right Clothing

In addition to making sure your car is ready for the track, you need to be ready too. You can’t race wearing Daisy Dukes, a tank top, and sandals, no matter how sexy you look (girls, this applies to you as well!). You need closed-toe shoes, long pants, and at least a T-shirt. We’ve never done it ourselves, but we’ve had a few friends who have needed to make emergency runs to Walmart to get a pair of sweatpants because they forgot this rule. Additionally, if you have nitrous or a non-factory supercharger or turbo on your car, you may also need a jacket that meets SFI 3.2A/1 standards, which are widely available for less than $100.

She’s gonna need long pants to go with that sweatshirt…

While on the subject of clothing, you’re going to spend a lot of time in the lanes waiting to run, fooling around with your car, or sitting in the grandstands watching other people race, so be prepared. Sunscreen and shade are essential for long summer days at the track, and nighttime races can get chilly in the spring and fall, so make sure you have what you need to be comfortable. You’ll also want to bring water and maybe even a cooler full of snacks; staying hydrated is important, and track food and drinks are often expensive and marginal in quality.

Since most dragstrips don’t take credit cards, cash is king at the track.

4. Hit the ATM

Of course even if you don’t plan on buying any $1.50 cans of Coke or $5 hot dogs, you’re still gonna need cash. Tracks that take plastic are few and far between, so make sure you have enough in your wallet to pay your entry fee, plus some left over for incidentals like race gas, ice for the intercooler tank or cooling down your intake manifold, or surreptitious wagers with your friends. And speaking of gas…

5. Fill Up The Car

Though you might want your car to be as light as possible, and thus be tempted to head to the track with the needle on “E,” you don’t want to run the risk of sloshing gas away from the pump pickup when you launch, stalling the car or worse, making it run dangerously lean. Plus, drag racing kills your gas mileage, and you still need to get home at the end of the day. Do yourself a favor and keep the tank at least a quarter full, so you don’t get a surprise while you’re hot-lapping the car and unexpectedly run out.

You might not need to go as far as carrying a spare distributor, but if you need to swap in one from your buddy’s car, you better have the tools to do it.

6. Bring Tools and Spares

If you’re going to be changing your street tires for slicks or drag radials, you’ll probably want to use something better than the jack and lug wrench that came with your car to do it. It’s also a good idea to bring a jack stand to support the car. If you plan on doing any tuning – adjusting coilovers, tweaking carburetor jets, or whatever – you’ll need the appropriate tools and spare parts. Some guys (and we’re not naming names here, but they know who they are) go nuts with the socket set, stripping out the passenger seats, unbolting the front sway bar, and even draining the windshield washer reservoir to get every last thousandth out of their car. You’ll recognize them by the unattended pile of tools and car parts in their pit spot. At some tracks, you can get away with this and not end up with all your stuff disappearing while you’re making a pass, but those are the exception not the rule. A bicycle chain lock threaded through your wheels, jack frame, and (locked!) toolbox handle, then secured to a lamp or fence post won’t stop hardcore thieves, but it will keep the honest people honest. Another option is to make friends with other racers and take turns watching each other’s pits.

7. Get a Decent Tire Pressure Gauge

A good tire pressure gauge is essential, but it doesn’t have to be anything fancy, at least not at first. Get yourself an inexpensive dial-type or digital gauge (forget the pencil kind that you see in a cup next to the novelty cigarette lighters on the gas station countertop) and resist the urge to compare it to other people’s gauges.

The man who owns two tire pressure gauges never knows how much air is in his tires.

No two gauges that aren’t professionally calibrated will ever read the same, and you don’t care anyway, because as long as yours is consistent, it doesn’t matter if it reads in PSI or teaspoons of baking soda; you will only be using it to adjust pressure up or down to find the “sweet spot” your tires like best.

8. Take Notes

Part of the fun of drag racing is analyzing your runs to see what makes the car quicker, and figuring out how to improve your own performance at the tree. Bring a notebook, pen, and a camera. These writing supplies let you keep track of things that won’t be on your timeslip, like your tire pressure (“Four and a half teaspoons hooks better than five on a cold track!”) weather conditions, and changes to your tune.

Take a picture – it will last longer!

The camera comes in handy when you actually start racing in eliminations, since when the ladder gets posted it’s a lot easier to snap a picture of the printout than trying to write it all down. If you have friends who come with, they can also take pictures of how you’re lined up in the groove, your launch (to see if the car is transferring weight to the rear wheels), and if it has video recording capabilities, your whole run for later review.

9. Don’t be a Douche

Even if you don’t pay attention to anything else on this list, if you follow this particular piece of advice, you’ll be far better off. If you come to the track with an attitude, or simply act like a jerk (even if you don’t realize it), the staff and other racers are going to make your day miserable. Learn the “culture” of the track – do they want cars with treaded tires to drive around the burnout box to keep them from dragging water up to the line, and prefer them lined up outside the groove so that the rubber doesn’t get pulled up? Are certain areas of the pits reserved for regulars? What lane has right-of-way at the turnout? (Hint – it’s usually, but not always, the lane closest to the turnout so that a faster car doesn’t turn in front of a slower one.)

If something lets go, get out of the groove and over to the side of the track. Don’t lay a quarter-mile-long stripe of oil for the crew to clean up.

Beyond getting to know the quirks of the track, be considerate in general. Don’t unbolt the exhaust and run open headers on your 14-second six-cylinder Mustang. Don’t dump your warm intercooler water where it’s going to run downhill into somebody else’s pit. Don’t make a pass if you suspect your car may be about to toss its cookies at half-track, and if you do break, get your car out of the groove and over to the wall as quickly as safety allows to make cleanup easier.

If you drove it in, be prepared to trailer it home, just in case.

10. Have a Plan B or Alternate Way Home

Yeah, we said it. Your car might break, or you might crash. It’s just a fact of life when it comes to racing. Call it superstition if you must, but we think that not having a backup plan in case your street/strip car can’t make it home at the end of the day is asking for trouble. Friends with trailers on speed dial are a good option; the Auto Club might be a fallback position as well. If you’re at an event way out of town, you might be renting a U-Haul pickup and trailer. Chances are that unless your car is a total hooptie, you’ll make it through your day at the track unscathed, but it never hurts to consider, “what if?”

If there are a lot of oildowns, you might want to be prepared to make yourself comfortable while you wait…

That’s our Top Ten list of helpful hints for first-timers. Hopefully, you’ll take it to heart and make the leap from “racing that you watch” to “racing that you do.” You don’t need a ton of money, years of experience, or a full-boogie race car to have fun at the dragstrip, so go find the nearest track and plan a trip with your friends to go race.

Author and President of AED Carburetors, John Dickey

About John Dickey and AED Carburetors

AED Performance was founded with one basic premise in mind; manufacturing of high quality components at competitive prices. Their background includes over two decades in the automotive aftermarket field in design, building, and research and development of high performance components. AED manufactures a complete line of fuel system components, including carburetor kits, billet & birchwood spacers, CNC billet metering blocks & billet baseplates,  and replacement parts. Their R&D facility consists of 3 flowbenches, Mustang dual eddie current chassis dyno, Superflow engine dyno, test engines, CAD-CAM design modeling equipment, and complete CNC machining facility.

Choosing the Right Carburetor

Picking the right Carburetor size for your car & engine combination is paramount in being successful – whether you’re a professional racer or just want the right carburetor for you’re Saturday night special. There are three main parameters that correctly determine your baseline selection. From there you need additional information to fine tune that selection. Let’s start with the big 3.

1 – Cubic Inches

First on the list is cubic inches. Simple parameter for total cubic inches, including any additional bore and stroke.

2- Next is Total RPM Range:

Here you need to know both the minimum and maximum RPM range. Minimum rpm is just as critical as maximum rpm. Foremost, you need to be concerned with the minimum rpm that you have to accelerate from. Several additional pieces of information come into play here – such as transmission type, and converter flash rpm. For example, the exact same engine in a car with a 3500 rpm stall converter will want less carburetor than one with a 5500 rpm stall converter.

It’s all about acceleration – a larger carburetor that might make more torque & power on the dyno will usually run slower ET’s if the engine can’t accelerate properly from the minimum rpm. Remember, engines are not happy when they run below max torque rpm! That’s why the correct converter should flash to roughly 100 to 200 rpm above max torque rpm. Gear ratios also play a role in this calculation, as the car weight does. The heavier the car or higher the gear will affect the time spent in different rpm bands.  This would require a carburetor sized smaller than a lighter car, with more rear end gear (numerically higher).

Camshaft & the cylinder head (intake port volume) also plays a key role in the rpm range. In most cases the camshaft and cylinder head dictates the rpm range. Here’s where you can get confused easily.  In many cases, the bigger the cylinder head (intake port volume) the less carburetor the engine wants; while assuming two similar engines with the same rpm range. A good example is a standard small block Ford & small block Chevrolet. The Ford factory head volume being smaller requires more carburetor than a typical Chevrolet. We have proven this through dyno (engine & chassis dyno) as well as racetrack testing. It comes down to port velocity & choke points (usually pushrod area on head). The induction track only wants one choke point to control velocity, which is usually the cylinder head or carburetor.

3 – Power Level

The third consideration is horsepower. A lot of the previous questions are about determining how much power your engine makes & at what rpm; now let’s get technical & crunch some numbers. Your engine needs a certain amount of airflow to reach a certain power level efficiently. From our 25 years of dyno experience, we’ve found that it takes 1 cfm to make between .7 & .8 horsepower. The more efficient the engine, the less airflow it requires to make the same power.

AED has their own in house CNC machining equipment for aiding in their carburetor designs

The basic formula for carburetor sizing & CFM consumed is (CFM = CID x RPM x VE ÷ 3456). Here CID = Cubic Inches; & VE = Volumetric Efficiency. This is just a rough estimate, as the VE number is the basic efficiency or cylinder filling of the engine. This formula should only be used as a starting point on carburetor sizing, then all the other factors we are discussing will move this number up or down. Let’s take a typical small block Chevy 383ci stroker engine that makes max power at 7000 rpm (assuming 108% VE), plug in the numbers & you get a CFM requirement of 838 on an engine that should make between 590 & 670HP – using our above formula for horsepower per cfm used.

Street motors might be 90% and a great race engine might be 120% (Volumetrically Efficient). The basic “cfm formula” can be figured out simply, but it’s just a piece of the puzzle and all of the previous observations are equally as important. We have found that you would be better off using a carburetor that flows this amount of air at a lower pressure drop (less restriction) like 1.2″ to 1.3″ of manifold vacuum at max rpm. This usually makes more power, but might affect acceleration in a negative fashion. A good example of this is a light car with a loose converter & plenty of gear – with a narrow rpm band – that might actually run better with closer to 900 cfm. This is only if the carburetor is setup correctly with maintaining the correct fuel curve & proper signal to the booster, which will sense airspeed changes efficiently. Have we confused you yet? Don’t forget all the other factors that go into carburetor selection mentioned above.

Explaining the CFM myths in more depth – Real Carburetor Airflow Numbers

Years ago the Society of Automotive Engineers provided a standard for airflow that’s still used today. For 4-barrel carburetors that number is measured airflow at 1.5″ pressure drop (manifold vacuum in inches), or used on a flow bench is 20.4″ water. For example, a 750 cfm carburetor should flow 750 (cubic feet per minute) at this pressure drop. A carburetor has fuel flowing through it, which actually displaces some airflow (usually around 8%) so this should actually be flowed with fuel or wet-flowed.

In 1990 we built our own custom computerized “Wetflow-Bench” to properly measure carburetor airflow & fuel flow. We can measure CFM, pressure drop, air/fuel ratio, pounds of air, pounds of fuel, and correct for weather conditions. We can also wetflow the carburetor throughout the entire rpm range, giving us insight to the complete fuel curve on all throttle bores. The problem comes when some carburetor manufactures do not use SAE numbers. We’ve had many carburetors through the years claiming to be one number and some would be well over 100 cfm less. Some manufactures would use 28″ of water to flow carburetors, and hence the totally unrealistic claims. We don’t play the airflow games as we feel it’s a real disservice.

AED's custom wet flow bench

Maximum Velocity Achieved

As you can see, determining the correct carburetor selection isn’t easy. It’s really part science, part knowledge, and part experience. There is no real formula for absolute carburetor size. I’ve worked on a spreadsheet for years that won’t always work. The proliferation of all the new cylinder heads and manifolds makes selection even tougher. Bottom line is always get good knowledgeable help when selecting carburetion, just like a good camshaft they can tie you’re whole program together properly & make a big difference in performance. It’s always less expensive to do it right the first time.

I hope this helps in getting a better handle on the important things to consider when choosing the right carburetor for your application. If we can be of any help we have a great tech department that can supply the correct AED Performance carburetor for your specific application & budget. Check us out at www.aedperformance.com or call us at 804-271-9107.

Sincerely,

John Dickey
AED Performance
jd@aedperformance.com

Spiro Pappas' single-turbo GXP has taken Extreme 10.5 by storm, grabbing the national record at a mind-boggling 3.88 seconds.

It was an ingenious idea from the word go and the class was gaining interest, sponsor support and stronger fields.  It was healthy.  But as more competitors with financial and technical resources at their disposal have infiltrated the show, the glaring differences and performance ceilings between the combinations have become evident and the parity issue has reared its ugly head, putting the class at a crossroads between explosion and extinction.

Outlaw Pro Modified racer Rodney Rosentiel won the very first Extreme 10.5 race in 2007 with a final round defeat of Marcus Birt with a 4.37 elapsed time.  Because a lightweight, full tube chassis car on 10.5W’s was completely uncharted territory, no one really knew for certain just how quick and fast they were capable of going.  A handful of racers with backgrounds in other classes quickly joined the fray of this totally wide open class.  Mike Hill picked up a lightweight ’63 Corvette, Todd Tutterow slapped the 10.5’s on his supercharged Mustang, and Gary White brought his trick four-banger Scion over from the mostly defunct import organizations.  Throughout that first season, performance advancements were small and only minutely quicker than their big steel-bodied, 3000-plus pound brethren in Outlaw 10.5.

And then Mr. Glidden arrived on the scene…

Billy Glidden, the 2008 Extreme 10.5 champion, has been the most successful nitrous campaigner in the class as he works to make combo competitive with the forced-induction racers.

Billy came in with the stout combination of a lightweight car, a small yet proven engine, and a wealth of experience.  Locked in a tight performance battle with Gary White throughout the latter half of 2008 and into 2009 – which saw the elapsed time standard drop more than two tenths in just a handful of races – the two paved the road for what was ahead and what these cars were capable of.

Pro Modified racing had long suffered from a lack of parity in combinations, and the IHRA tech department had spent years trying to weigh the seesaw battle between the supercharged and nitrous oxide-assisted cars.  When Nowling started the ADRL, he and everyone else knew that with the no rules format, two separate classes were absolutely necessary. The nitrous car simply couldn’t run with the screw-supercharged Hemi, and in order to maintain the health of the series, it was a no-brainer.

However, that very same thought process was not afforded to the Extreme 10.5 category.  When veterans Chuck Ulsch and Spiro Pappas entered the ring mid season 2009, the two refined their vastly different combinations rather quickly, and every hard-earned thousandth of a second that everyone else had gained to that point became an afterthought.

If one does some unscientific math, it’s clear that – given the engines and technology that are currently available – the nitrous racers in this category are fighting an uphill battle without a peak. Sheikh Khalid Al-Thani holds the current, unofficial record for a screw-blown Hemi at 3.63 seconds; a combination very much like that of Ulsch’s Camaro.  Ulsch has been as quick as 3.92, and most onlookers and keyboard crew chiefs agree that it’s perfectly capable of mid to low 3.8-second laps.  Score roughly two-tenths for the big tire over the 10.5W.  So, taking that into account, the quickest Pro Nitrous lap with the monster cubic inch engines is 3.81 seconds.  Even if bolted into the framerails of Glidden’s Mustang or Jeff Paulk’s Camaro, it can be surmised that they still couldn’t hang with Pappas’ 3.88 record.

Unfortunately this is a no-win issue without a clear-cut answer.

Chuck Ulsch, with a screw-supercharged Hemi powering his 1968 Camaro, was the first XTF racer into the 3-second zone in St. Louis last season.

As previously noted, the whole idea behind Extreme 10.5 was to create a playground for the quickest cars on 10.5W tires. Pure and simple.  In that same regard, the heart of the ADRL is its true outlaw format, which Kenny Nowling and his staff pride themselves on and the racers and fans just eat up.  Thus, any sort of rules and restrictions on engines, power adders, and weight breaks being instituted to even out the playing field doesn’t stand a snowballs chance.  With the car counts as they are, splitting the class probably stands slightly lower odds.  Changing from 10.5W’s to true 10.5’s would go a long way toward evening out the combinations, while certainly making the small tire fans salivate at the mouth and create some incredible on-track excitement.  However, the power that these cars are making on that small of a tire would be downright treacherous and unsafe even on the eighth mile.

This is really a tough situation for the ADRL.  Most of the nitrous racers have parked their cars and the qualifying sheets have gotten shorter and shorter.  As the ADRL, you certainly don’t want to see a whole field of turbocharged cars and drive away current racers – including one of your biggest names – while deterring others from coming in to one of your most popular categories.  At the same time, you have to hold true to the vision you set forth or risk opening a whole new can of worms.  In the end, I think that the class will just simply have to be left to run its own course, and let the chips fall where they may.  Like all things in life, not everyone can be pleased.

Pat Musi, Vic Edelbrock and I at Pat Musi Performance

What really got me into racing was my brother's Fox Body Mustang. Now a single turbo 9 second street car.

At first read some might think, “You aren’t new around here?”  While this is true, things-are-a-changin’ here at powerTV.  Instead of a variety of people having their hands in various areas of all our websites, we have consolidated a bit.  I will be taking over as Editor for StangTV and Dragzine, while Kevin Shaw will be handling Street Legal TV and LSX TV.  We will assume full editorial responsibility for our sites.  With that being said, I would like to educate you a bit about who I am.

I first got into the racing scene through my brother, who was a lucky recipient of a fairly new 1987 Buick T-Type at the ripe age of 17.  Needless to say, it didn’t take long for him to blow it up.  With my parents not learning from their first mistake, my brother got a brand new 1990 Mustang hatchback (which he still owns) and began working hard on that.  In 1990, I was only 10 years old and my brother played a very influential role in my motorsports involvement. I worked together with him as the Mustang transgressed from a stock 5-liter into a bolt-on, nitrous-fed street brawler.  A low 12-second street car in the early nineties was respectable, and I spent many weekends crawling into the hatch to turn the nitrous bottle on for some “spirited” street competitions.

Working on Pro Stock engines at Dart with Richard Maskin and Bob Glidden

Fast forward to the age of 16 and I had 7 years of venturing to the track behind me.  Also at this age I wanted to be at the sidelines of the 1320, taking pictures of cars and they roared by me.  After developing a strong relationship with the owners of Bradenton Motorsports Park, they allowed me trackside access for some events.  A hobby grew into a passion with my photography.

By 17 it was time for my first car and my parents had learned not to make the same mistake twice by giving a muscle car to an adolescent.  My hopes of a fox body Mustang were dissolved and reappeared as a 1995 Honda Accord.  Little did my parents know that the Accord itself would be transformed into a 350hp, turbocharged sleeper – as the years progressed.  I still maintained a strong passion for domestic vehicles, though the feelings became shared with imports as well.

Hot Rod Drag Week 2008

Motorsports photography has been my main hobby for the last decade and a half.  I made the transition from film to digital in the early 2000s and would shoot anything that had four wheels.  For side jobs in the mid 2000s, I worked freelance for a variety of manufactures and publications.  I even dabbled in video and developed a relationship with James Lawrence, the owner of powerTV as the company first started.

It was early 2006 and James was looking for freelance videographers, so I came on board as a contracted employee.  By early 2007 I had made the move from Florida to California to work in the new home office of powerTV in Murrieta.  Started out as a videographer and editor, I transitioned to the newly-formed Editorial Department in 2008.  This is where I have been ever since and now have become your Editor for Dragzine and Stang TV.

From a racing perspective, I have participated in local drag racing events, drifting events, and SCCA divisional events.  The fastest vehicle I have ever driven is a friend’s Camaro that I managed to run low 9 second runs in.  With my street cars, I have won many SCCA divisional trophies and placed top three in points for two years.

I really look forward to being your fearless leader of Dragzine as we forge ahead to new racing developments and trends.  If it wasn’t for you, the racer, making this sport as great as it is today – I wouldn’t even be here. If you ever have any suggestions, comments, or I can help you in anyway, please feel free to email me at mgearhart@powertvmedia.com.  Hell, even if you see me at the races, come say hi!

Your Editor,

While there’s undoubtedly a benefit (though small, as we’ll see in a moment) to being a few inches closer to tripping the finish line lights from the moment you leave the line, is it “unfair” if everybody’s working from the same set of bodywork rules? A good example is ADRL’s Pro Extreme class, where it seems like every car is wearing one. But then again, the ADRL rulebook is pretty clear:

BODY: …Maximum front end overhang of 45” as measured from centerline of front spindle. An ADRL accepted extension may be used to reach 45” if the front end overhang of the body is less than 45”…

Essentially, having a car that’s shorter than 45 inches from nose to spindle in Pro Extreme is equivalent to having a car that’s ten pounds heavy in a class with a minimum weight (which Pro Extreme doesn’t, in case you were wondering).

So if a beam tripper isn’t cheating, is it really an advantage? In bracket and index racing where robotic precision rather than raw speed wins races, it certainly can be. But in the kinds of heads-up racing so popular in ADRL and elsewhere, the margins of victory simply aren’t usually close enough to make a 6-12 inch extension the deciding factor in who moves on to the next round.

For example, at the most recent ADRL round at VMP, the Pro Extreme qualified field was trapping between 194.35 and 211.69 in the eighth-mile. On the low end, 194 miles an hour is a hair over 285 feet per second. Do the math, and that means that a 12-inch extension on the front of a car is worth 0.0035 of a second at the stripe. Measurable, for sure, but is it significant? A look at the final qualifying order shows that Bubba Stanton would have been 11th instead of John Stanley if he’d been .002 seconds quicker, but the rest of the field would have stayed exactly the same, regardless of whether they’d had a full 45 inches of overhang or not.

In eliminations, out of four rounds and fifteen pairs of cars down the track, the closest margin of victory was 0.010 for Joshua Hernandez in the semifinal against Frankie Taylor, in the fastest side by side match in Pro Extreme history. Did Hernandez’ beam tripper (Taylor runs one too, of course) make the difference at the stripe? Clearly not in this particular instance, but like any good racer, he’s making the most of the rulebook.

So what about other, less over-the-top drag racing classes? The late model Mustang is probably the most popular car in the history of drag racing, and a stock New Edge SN-95 has an overhang right at 40 inches. Would a 5-inch head start decide races? At 150 mph (220 feet per second) across the stripe, 5 inches is .00189 or a second. Picking up two thousandths of a second with some sheet metal and pop rivets might be worth it to some, but frankly you’re probably better off using the time and energy to practice your reaction times instead.

There’s no disguising it. I have one of the coolest jobs on the planet. Working with all kinds of high performance gadgets and go-faster parts is every man’s dream. When gearheads go to sleep at night, they dream about my job. Maintenance is my life and the only thing I ever wanted to do, so you can imagine my angst when the boss told me that I had to write a column. I’m not a writer, and I have twelve different English teachers that can verify that fact. I turn wrenches. That’s my sole purpose in life. I would be much happier to leave the writing to the computer-oriented, pencil-necked geeks that work in the office. Writing doesn’t belong in the arsenal of any mechanic. Reading, maybe. Writing, never.

I do like my job however, so if I am required to write a column, then write a column I will.

This will be a monthly addition to our magazines, so as a reoccurring feature, I guess the best place to start is with an introduction to me and what I do, then an explanation of what kind of content you can expect to see in upcoming episodes of Ferret’s Final Thoughts. Hang on tight, because this ain’t going to be a politically correct love-fest either. This is raw, gritty, and almost uncensored as it gets. I mean, I’m a shop dawg. What are you expecting, Hemingway?

I am Sean, son of a garage mechanic. Needless to say I have been working on cars since I could crawl. I cannot recall a single time in my life that we took our family cars to the mechanic. If there was a problem with a vehicle of ours it was time to get dirty. Come to think of it, I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t have grease stains under my fingernails. I remember as a 6 year old child laying under my dad’s Chevy pickup, supporting the tail shaft of the transmission, ATF running down my arm, because it blew up as we were leaving town for the family vacation. So, our vacation was spent rebuilding the transmission instead. Maybe not a fun holiday unless you are a gearhead like I am; then it becomes an instructional vacation. This is how I was raised – self sufficient and attentive to the smallest detail. After all, when you are working on your own transportation everything has to be perfect or else you are stuck on the side of the road again. This is the mentality I take with every project I take on; attention to detail and the goal of perfection. Granted, there are always mistakes to be made and problems to run into, but it is how you deal with these problems that makes you a success or a failure. I always succeed – it’s how I was made.

I am a 25-year-old graduate of Wyotech with several years of experience in the automotive industry. I have done everything from oil changes to building entire vehicles from the ground up. I have shed blood and tears over many a project throughout my short life span and see no end in sight (not that I would want an end to be in sight). I have found my calling, and you can call it what you want; grease monkey, gearhead, shop dawg, or for you fancy guys, ‘automotive technician,’ because apparently with our politically correct society I can’t just be a mechanic anymore. I prefer, however, to use any of the earlier terms as I feel this keeps me grounded in my roots. In the automotive world I think sticking to your roots is what it’s all about. How many times have you been in a conversation and heard the phrase, ” they just don’t make them like they used to”? Well I’m made like they used to. I just flat-out get the job done right.

Now that you know a little bit about me, let me tell you a little bit about what you can expect from me in this column. As I had mentioned before I am no Hemingway, so it’s a case of ‘better living through lowered expectations.’ I have been given pretty much free reign with this article, so, as you will find, the topics will vary greatly. For instance, in one column you might be reading a tech article for a job that I found particularly interesting. Then the next column might be about how I’m feeling that particular day or maybe just bitching about traffic that morning. However, I will strive to make it interesting and informative. Hopefully, if nothing else is accomplished from this article it will make your day a little better knowing I have problems in my world too. So with any luck, over these next few columns you can get to know more about what goes on in the PowerTV garage and how we do the voodoo that we do here. Well, at least how I do what I do here; mainly just get real dirty and bump my head on stuff. So until I talk to you next time, stay dirty and floor it!

Sean Goude
Shop Technician, Fabricator
powerTV Media, LLC.

Mike Walker

Those are the facts as we know them right now. Local authorities are investigating the incident, and in time the full details of what happened will come to light. For the moment, eyewitness reports from the track describe an apparent nitrous bottle failure in the pits during a refill, with the carbon-fiber wrapped tank flying high into the air and landing some distance away. No matter what the cause, the tragedy underscores the fact that the racetrack can be a dangerous place, even when we do everything right.

In the armed forces, when a serious accident occurs it’s not uncommon to have a “stand-down” in the immediate aftermath, when everyone in that branch of the service stops their normal activities to focus on safety. Even if the cause of the incident isn’t yet known, it’s an opportunity for everyone to examine what they’re doing and try to identify what Mike Mullane, a retired Air Force Colonel and veteran of three Space Shuttle flights, describes as “Normalized Deviance.” In a talk to the International Association of Fire Fighters in 2008, Mullane laid out the chain of events that led to the loss of Space Shuttle Challenger and its crew of seven 73 seconds into its 10th flight on January 28,1986.

The Solid Rocket Boosters that power the Shuttle during the first stage of ascent are far too large to be shipped in one piece, so they’re assembled on-site near the launch pad. A series of complex joints seal the gaps, with insulation protecting the structural steel and flexible double-O-rings from the 5,000 degree heat of the propellant. Those O-rings were never intended to be touched by flame. Because the SRB’s are reusable – they’re recovered by parachute, disassembled and inspected, then reloaded with propellant – it was possible to examine the seals for each of the 24 flights that preceded Challenger’s final mission, and as early as STS-2, flame damage to the O-rings was discovered.

Per Mullane, the correct, by-the-book response to this alarming revelation was “ground the fleet” until a solution could be found and implemented. But there was enormous pressure to keep up the pace of launches, because the Shuttle program had been sold to Congress as a 26-launch-per-year, low cost spaceflight program. In retrospect, this was an impossible goal, but with funding on the line, deviance from the stated safety standard was the only way to try to keep on schedule. The reasoning was that the SRB had survived flame damage to an O-ring seal, and as long as no more extensive damage was observed on subsequent flights, everything was OK. For the next 22 flights, the recovered rocket boosters didn’t show the same level of damage seen on STS-2, so the deviance from the established safety standard became the norm. The engineers and program managers responsible for the safety of shuttle crews were training themselves to believe that because nothing bad had happened yet, nothing would in the future. Then, on the 25th flight, what Mullane calls “predictable surprise” occurred, with fatal consequences.

So what does any of this have to do with racing? Think about it for a moment and I’m sure you can come up with a few examples of normalized deviance you’ve seen firsthand, maybe even in your own program. Shortcuts that were taken for the sake of making the next round or even just getting to the track in the first place. A perfect example is heating a nitrous bottle with a torch. (Let me be totally clear here in saying that there is absolutely no reason to suspect that this played any role whatsoever in the ADRL incident, which apparently occurred as the bottle was being filled.) Applying open flame to a nitrous bottle is strictly forbidden by every drag racing rulebook, and for good reason. But people do it all the time, and the fact that there’s almost always no bad outcome trains them that it’s OK to keep doing it. You see it in their response when you call them on it – “I’ve never had a problem and I’ve been doing it for years…” “I know how to do it without damaging the bottle…” They’ve normalized that deviance from the safety rules in their own minds.

Have you ever gotten under your car when it’s just on a jack, because it was a pain in the ass to go find a jack stand? Overloaded a trailer because you weren’t going that far? Tested a transbrake in your driveway the night before heading out to a race? It turned out OK, and even though that first time you did it you might have felt a little uneasy about it, the next time you worried a little less, because you’ve set up a feedback loop that reinforces the idea that it will always be OK. The hammer usually falls on an empty chamber, but that doesn’t mean you’re not playing Russian Roulette. There may be 10,000 empty chambers instead of just five, but that doesn’t make it suck any less when you find the full one. Worst yet, you can probably think of a lot of situations where the muzzle of the gun is against somebody else’s head, too, and if you have a little predictable surprise, it won’t just affect you personally.

It’s not being overly dramatic to say that the safety regulations are “written in blood.” Sadly, it often takes tragedy to write a new paragraph in that rulebook, but it’s even sadder when we discard that sacrifice because we’re lazy, in a hurry, or just simply get complacent. My belief is that the best memorial for those who have lost their lives in the pursuit of the sport we all love is to stand down for a moment and think about what we can do to head off another tragedy before it happens. This week, take some time to remember Mike Walker by identifying ways you’ve become complacent about safety, potentially dangerous shortcuts you’re taking for the sake of convenience or haste.