The most talked about topic in all of drag racing this off season has undoubtedly been the NHRA’s Pro Stock eliminator, where sweeping changes to the class’ longstanding rules package were instituted back in July in an effort to bring excitement and added participation to the class going forward. For both the race teams and the fans at home, a lot of questions remain unanswered: what will the cars look like, how will they perform, who will get a grasp on the new combination the best right out of the gate, and just how many cars will there be when the call to the lanes is made at the Winternationals in Pomona?

The centerpiece of the NHRA’s mandates for 2016 in the factory hot rod category is an all-new electronic fuel injection system, with all teams required to utilize a standard issue Holley throttle body and EFI ECU. Additionally, with the removal of the carburetors, teams will also do away with the hood scoops that have been so synonymous with Pro Stock to make way for flat, more stock-appearing hoods. However, as NHRA officials were aware, that would necessitate some creativity in developing a new method for supplying air into the throttle body and the intake, while remaining relatively incognito.

With the support of K&N Engineering, the NHRA and the sport’s elite chassis builders derived a new air intake system specifically for the Pro Stock class, that would feed from a small opening in the lower portion of the grille and deliver the all-important ambient air into the 500 cubic-inch, naturally-aspirated powerplants.

With pre-season testing mere weeks away and with engine and chassis builders up against the clock, teams are burning the midnight oil in order to be ready to hit the track running in late January. At RJ Race Cars in Galesburg, Illinois, the finishing touches are being applied to the new 2016 Dodge Dart of Jeg Coughlin Jr., who will be running out of the Elite Motorsports camp as a stablemate to Erica Enders, Drew Skillman, and Vincent Nobile.

As you can see in the images shown here, the carbon fiber K&N air duct – which is a single part number item mandated by the NHRA for all Pro Stock teams — is bolted up to the front of the Holley throttle body, and is neatly tucked away in the grille, virtually undetectable from a distance of more than a few feet.

“When the NHRA said that we were going to be running fuel injection with no hood scoops in 2016, it created a huge discussion on how to efficiently get air to the engine from the lower grille area of the front end,” says Rick Jones, who not only builds all of the Elite Motorsports Pro Stock machines, but also has served as co-crew chief along with his son Rickie Jones for Erica Enders’ back-to-back world championships in the class.

“It was no easy task to accomplish in just a couple short months, but we had the privilege of working together with Tim White, Glenn Gray, and Bob Blackwell from NHRA, along with Steve Williams and Jonathan Fiello from K&N, during the development and design of this system,” Rick Jones continued. “The final product is manufactured out of carbon fiber by K&N, and they did a fantastic job.”

Coughlin’s new Mopar/Magneti Marelli/JEGS Dodge Dart is the first car to be completed at RJ Race Cars with the new flat hood and air duct system, with the other three team cars to follow shortly behind it.

“To have the first one in our hands and install it this week on Jeg Coughlin’s new Dodge Dart, I can’t say enough about the great job everyone did on this project,” Rick Jones says. “The 2016 season is fast approaching, and we will have Erica’s new car back from the paint shop this week and will be doing final assembly after the first of the year. The conversion to the duct system and other NHRA Pro Stock rule changes are also well underway on Drew Skillman’s and Vincent Nobile’s Chevrolet Camaros, and we expect to have the repainted front ends back from the paint shop any day. In the next couple of weeks we plan to finish all four cars and have them ready for Elite Motorsports to do some pre-season testing before Pomona.”