Interview with 10.5 Heads Up Racer Jim Blair

Jim Blair has worked his way up from nothing into the stardom of 10.5 Tire Heads Up racing. Along the way he picked up two championships: the first in 2004 winning the NMRA Super Street Outlaw Championship and the second with the NMCA in the very competitive Super Street 10.5W 2007 season. His clean silver Mustang is one of the few small block Procharger combinations that can hang with the big boys, thanks to the help he gets from ATF, Scorpion Performance, and his crew.

Jim is a busy man. He spends his time running his Fort Lauderdale, Florida based Able Car Rental company, tending to his family, and racing his car while constantly tweaking and adjusting his parts and combination to make sure he stays competitive.

We were very pleased that he took the time to answer some of our questions and tell us a little more about himself.

Jim, how did you become interested in Drag Racing?

Actually, my first trip to a drag strip was in high school. I had my mother’s Dodge Dart slant six. I didn’t go to race, I just went to watch at La Place Drag Strip in Louisiana. It’s a small drag strip just outside of New Orleans. I went with a couple of friends, they had big cubic inch Chevelles, Corvettes… mainly Chevy’s. The muscle cars of the late 60’s and 70’s.

I didn’t really see myself being able to participate at that level at that age. I was barely in high school…probably about 15 years old. They had a wide range of street cars. At the time I didn’t know what they were but there were Altereds and big tired cars. The main thing was they were mainly GM style cars. All the really fast cars were GMs.

Did that trip make you want to race?

From that point I thought it would be something I would be interested in, but I didn’t quite know how I would fit into it. It wasn’t until much later that I decided that I wanted to get involved in some form or fashion. I met Ron Cox through some friends and he had his red stick shift 95 Mustang that he was getting prepped and ready to race in Super Street Outlaw. I told him that I would like to be part of his pit crew, or basically go to the races with him.

So I spent a year going with him to different events around the country. Some were Fun Ford, some were NMRA. That was the end of ‘99 and beginning of 2000. At the time I owned a 95 Cobra R I bought through a Ford Dealership in Hollywood.I bought it because I knew it was going to be the last pushrod Mustang period and definitely the last Cobra R.

I had the car and had been driving it and doing little tweaks and different things to it, but I really didn’t have any idea of racing it, although I had taken it to a couple of the All Ford races at Moroso. I got spanked pretty good by another guy with a Cobra R. That basically made me want to go faster. After he beat me I went over to his pit and looked at his car and saw the little tricks and things he had done to his car that definitely made him faster.

How did you hook up with Ronnie Crawford?

I met Ronnie Crawford through Ron’s son, Mike Gillette. Mike had a pretty fast street car, and we used to run around in the streets with that. I would bring out my Cobra R and Mike had a blown Mustang that he would drive on the street every day…it was about a 900rwhp car. So we hung out a lot.

Eventually in 2000 I went to Ron’s first NMRA race in Columbus and I was definitely shocked at the quality and size of the field, the speeds and the number of cars competing.

Lynch was there with a nitrous car and Bill Devine was there in Pro 5.0. I believe Jim Summers was there. The Scranton brothers had brought out “The Silver Bullet” for the first time and were running Pro 5.0. They were pitted right next to Ron Cox. I remember the line of people “oohing” and “ahhing” over “The Silver Bullet”.

That was the race that I finally made the decision that I wanted to do it. I thought I could be competitive, I thought I understood it, and I made the decision based on what I saw at that race that I wanted to participate.

So you decided to take your street Cobra R and get it ready for full on drag duty?

We had a lot of work to do to the Cobra R to even think about getting it competitive. I went through a lot of variations of transmissions and motors and blowers and different things until I hit on a combination. Back then I was just like everybody else. I was just following the leader. I just wanted to go fast and I never thought that I would be able to race on a high level with these guys. I just wanted to go out and be competitive and go a few rounds.

I never dreamed when I started this thing that I would have any real success. I just thought it would be something that I would like to do, that I would enjoy doing, and would have some fun while I was at it.

It was a steep learning curve from our first race. We couldn’t make a pass without losing a blower belt. We had potential, but we had a lot of little issues that we had to sort out.

I was at a test session at Moroso and broke a transmission. Somebody had mentioned that Jason Gatlin of The Automatic Transmission Factory (better known as ATF) was a good transmission guy. So I went and met Jason and we got to talking. I started telling him what I wanted to do and he was interested, even though he had a car at the time.


A look under the hood of Jim’s original ’95 Cobra R shows almost no trace of its original 351W factory engine. Here you can see it has been converted over to a Procharged, Yates headed Super Street Outlaw contender.

What happened at your first NMRA race in 2001?

First race I am pretty sure I went out first round against Chris Derrick. It was funny because we would be on a good pass and about 1000 foot I would lose my belt. So even though my times were decent, maybe 8.20’s, my miles per hour were real low. I think some people thought that we were sandbagging and that for whatever reason we weren’t showing our hand.

I guess nobody realized that we were shredding belts at 1000 foot. In the car it looked like black snow was coming through the car from the belts. I think we made one clean pass where the belt stayed on, and we qualified 5th or 6th. After that, I was buying belts. Travis Franklin was selling me all his spare belts as we were going through the event.

What did you do after that race to prepare for 2002?

That’s when ATF and I started doing a lot of testing. We started getting a more professional attitude about it. We started looking at the belt alignment, the tension issues and putting on idlers to get rid of the slap. We started realizing that once we got the belt issues ironed out we started snapping crank snouts and stuff like that.

So you got the belt issues figured out but other parts started to break?

Correct. We started doing a lot more testing and a lot more R&D and buying the best parts available, making sure that once we found a problem we addressed it. During this time I was working with Ronnie Crawford trying to get a better combination, better parts, better cam profiles and different things that we felt we needed. And it just went from there.


Jim came out to his first NMRA race in 2001 to a packed crowd at the Bowling Green Finals.

Were you ready when the 2002 season began?

We went to Bradenton NMRA and I lost first round. I think we were still fighting issues with the transmission at that point so we changed converters.

We went to Reynolds, and in the first round of qualifying it was nice dense air and we ran a 7.80 that pass was faster than Millen’s 7.89 record at that time. That’s when I got discovered. That was a pretty big deal at the time. We made it to the finals against Murillo and lost, spun the tire.

How was the 2002 NMRA season as a whole?

I think we finished in the top 10 that year. We had parts break and various things we went through, but we were definitely moving in the right direction. We were starting to realize the potential of the combination.

I think we went to every race that year. We had finally got to the point where the motor and tranny were dialed in, so we were fighting chassis issues. We were king of the power wheelies. It made for some dramatic launches so I never knew when it came down which way I was headed.

The car was definitely a handful to drive and definitely an issue every time whether the car would come down straight or go left or right. It was famous for either going into tire shake or spin while the wheels were up. Tire shake wasn’t too bad because I knew I was coming down immediately. Tire spin was bad because it would come down very hard and the chassis would unload, then I would be all over the place.

I remember thinking that these cars are really hard to drive. (Laughs) I didn’t understand how these guys could drive them consistently. I never knew from pass to pass what to expect. I basically had one out of three possibilities every time I let go of the trans brake, and two out of three were bad.

You got rookie of the year because obviously you went from nobody to setting the record and a force to be reckoned with….

To potentially somebody…that was a cool race at Reynolds. I got acknowledged by people I really respected. People who I always held in high esteem seemed to recognize what that 7.80 pass represented. At the time I didn’t even realize it, because I didn’t know enough to know what an accomplishment that was. But I remember getting big props from Donny Walsh and Doug Mangrum and the Pro 5.0 guys. They were impressed with that.

The Outlaw guys were probably not too happy, but I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, I guess if the Pro 5.0 guys are giving me props that must have really been something!” We had been working really hard and I always thought the car was capable, but the pass was itself didn’t seem special. The car stayed down and behaved itself and it seemed like a pretty uneventful pass.

I remember Jimmy Dahl rode his 4 wheeler all the way down to the end of the track, walked up to me and shook my hand and I was like “what was that for?” He goes, “man, you just ran a 7.80!” I said “Seven Eighty what?” and he says “Seven EIGHT EEEEE.” So I say again “Seven Eighty WHAT?” He goes “SEVEN – POINT – EIGHT – OH!” and I go “OH!” I remember thinking after that “Wow, not bad.” (Laughs)

It seemed like a different time. In ’02 and ’03 the fields were pretty full. There were more possibilities then. The turbo thing was really starting to catch on. I think in ’02 Murillo won the championship. George Gallegos told me that he went over to Murillo’s trailer and Mike was staring at the computer and George asked him what’s up with that white car. That’s what I was then: “that white car.” So, Murillo is looking at his computer and he says to George, “I don’t know what’s up with him, but I am looking at my computer and I don’t see any seven eighties in this tune up!” (Laughs)


“King of the power wheelies.” Jim amazed the Outlaw field at the Reynolds NMRA race in 2002 with a record setting 7.80 pass.

You did better in ‘03 but didn’t win the championship, correct?

At the end of ’03 we finally got a handle on a lot of different things. In ’03 we had finally gone to the Blue Thunder heads. In ’02 we were still running Yates heads. We started realizing that we had a lot of power on tap that would have destroyed the Yates head, but didn’t seem to bother the Blue Thunders.

At that last race in ’03 we had the chassis sorted out, the tune sorted out – and a 50 cent rotor shut down the whole operation. We knew at the end we had a lot of potential that we were just now able to tap into. Jason found it in the tune and the chassis. On one hand it made it more comfortable for me, but on the other hand we still had 50 cent parts that would break. We had worked our way from one end of the car to the other.

In ’02 I had some good times, but in ’03 I started getting serious about it. We started getting our ducks lined up for ’04.

Was ’04 a really successful and dominating year for you?

Jason had made some converter changes and we had tested at Moroso the weekend before Bradenton, at that hot nasty track, with me pedaling most of the way down the track and the car would run 7.70 to 7.80. Manny Buginga had been testing over at Bradenton before the race and he had run a 7.66 so that was all the talk of the internet.

We showed up Thursday night at the test and tune, and it went right down Broadway. I clicked it off about 1200 foot and it ran a 7.55 and the world changed.

’04 was basically the year we either beat ourselves or broke. We never really ever got outrun in ’04. I take that back. I think I lost on a hole shot to Zack Posey. I had mechanical failure or driver failure, but the car itself never got outrun.

We had turned it down and kept turning it down until we got to Chicago. We won Reynolds that year with a hurt motor. We had pinched a ring land and it was pumping smoke pretty bad. I think I even had mismatched tires. I was still able to win.

Kansas City the car shut off because a connection came loose on the battery. That was our own fault, shoving the charger on too hard. In Maple Grove we blew up blowers left and right.

I won Bradenton, Reynolds, Chicago and Season Final Bowling Green.


Jim’s ’95 Cobra R dominated SS Outlaw in 2004. Jim was able to capture the championship and then sold the car to focus on 10.5W tire racing.

In Chicago you went 7.508 at 186.54. Urist was number two at 7.658. How good did that feel, and did it set the pace for 2004?

I actually raced against Urist on that pass. I think that’s the day Urist decided to put a blower on his car. (Laughs) We won that race and I had a broken intercooler. Every time I would go up on the brake it would take a big gulp of water and stumble like crazy coming off.

I think some of my lights were .150 to .250 range because I couldn’t let go of the trans brake until the engine rpm would come back up. We couldn’t figure out what was going on, but once it cleared up the car would run real good.

How did you feel after winning the NMRA Super Street Outlaw Championship?

I felt like we had finally accomplished what we had set out to do. I thought we dominated. If it were not for some untimely parts breakage we probably would have won maybe five or six races, which would have been pretty outstanding for that time. It was definitely time to move on.

What made you decide to move up to another class?

I had already bought the Bullet in the winter of ’03. I didn’t really know if I was just going to park the white car and race the Bullet, but there was actually a point in time that we were dumb enough to think we were going to race both cars at either the same events or different events.

But knowing how much work it took to run one car, well, we dismissed that idea pretty quickly. We knew we couldn’t compete in the high level with both cars without having a traveling circus. So we decided to sell the white car and concentrate on the Bullet.


The old Scranton Brothers “Silver Bullet” was resurrected by Jim to start racing in 10.5W tire classes. The car originally sported the same turbo setup that the Scrantons used. However, Jim later switched back to the tried and true Procharger based engine.

What happened in 2005 and 2006 after you decided to race the “Bullet?”

We were trying to get the Bullet to run as a turbo car. I thought we gave it a pretty fair shake. We tested a couple of times with it. It seemed like we would get a handle on it and it would get away from us and then we would get it back. The decision was made to convert it back to the blower, since that’s what we knew and that’s what we were comfortable with. That’s what we could be competitive with.

We did some local races in ’05. Raced a couple of times in Bradenton and Orlando with a turbo. We yanked that out and went to what we knew.

The car was state of the art when it came out for what it was in 2000. It was ahead of its time. By ’05 and ’06 it was woefully inadequate for what we needed to do. The car itself was well built structurally, but it was heavy.

You have to realize it was a championship-winning car…they (Scranton brothers) won every race they raced with it in NMCA. The way things are evolving so fast, you have got to constantly re-evaluate and upgrade and change things to maintain any kind of competitive advantage.

2005 was testing with the turbo. 2006 was putting the supercharger combination back on the car, sorting it out and seeing if we could be competitive with it.


Jim stopped by to show me his new Wilson Manifolds sheet metal intake. The cast manifold was limiting power because of unequal air distribution to the corners. The sheet metal piece allowed him to open up the tune.

In NMCA Atlanta of ’06 you showed up and qualified with a 7.21 at 197. Were you ready for 10.5W tire racing?

Atlanta we thought we were ready. On a test and tune pass the car I think ran a 7.06 just prior to qualifying. We snapped the input shaft and buzzed the motor, which dropped a valve. Later on that year we raced at Orlando and the US Nationals.

In ’07 you qualified #2 at Bradenton with a 7.09 at 203 with Millen at 7.08. Were you making progress?

Yeah. We won Bradenton because Markwiecz was broke in the final. I ran a couple of 7.14’s and 7.17’s.

We also ran NOPI that year and won Texas and Phoenix. And we made it to the finals in New Jersey.


Jim’s intercooler exploded, ripping the roof off his car at this NMCA race. His diligent crew was able to patch it back together in time for the next pass.

You wont the championship in 2007. Did you dominate like you did in NMRA in 2004?

No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I was outgunned in the end. I was equal in the beginning, but by the end I was outgunned. Basically I just had enough of a lead that I managed to hold on. If Spiro wouldn’t have crashed in Ohio and fixed the car, no telling where he would have been.

What happened in 2008?

2008 had the same combination, but we had changed the…well, I had some rules issues concerning the chain drive and the removable nose so we had to address those issues.

It sounds like some people complained about the legality of your car in 2007. Were you in a gray zone?

Yeah, I would say I was. I mean, we are all in a gray zone. But yeah, I was close to the edge as far as rules, although nothing that offered a competitive advantage.

Like the chain drive – they needed an SFI certification. Well, guess what? There is no SFI certification for a chain drive. Nobody ever created one. Procharger started to get one and then they went away from it. We put a lot of R & D into that chain drive and basically had to toss it after we perfected it.


Hold your ears when Jim does his burnout. People have said his car sounds like a “huge mountain motor” when in reality it barely topped 400 inches.

Was the chain certification requirement a safety rule?

Yeah it was a safety rule thing. As far as I can tell I never took out anybody in the third row, so I don’t think it was unsafe. In the spirit of the rules I had to change. I realized that I couldn’t win that battle. I had to convert to a direct drive because I really had no option. This changed the position of the blower, the radiator, the steering rack, pretty much the entire front nose of the car.

You have to always sort of evaluate the letter of the rule and the spirit of the rule. The intent versus the spirit of it, and you’ve got to be able to differentiate from something that is well meaning and valid versus well meaning and inane for lack of a better term.

There are rules that strike you, like the removable hood is cosmetic. There is no competitive advantage. Everybody basically has a one-piece front end. A removable hood is an illusion. I didn’t have one so we had to create one.

The chain drive was something that required a lot more work and a lot more effort, yet I felt in the spirit of safety I had to address it. We addressed them both. One was a cosmetic easy fix. The other was a mechanical reengineering of the whole front of the car, and we didn’t know how the car was going to react as far as movement of the radiator and replumbing the cooling and stuff like that.


This cool transparency that Jim and ATF supplied was shot with the nose on and off the car. Note the direct drive blower and relocation of the front accessories.

How would you sum up the 2008?

Suck city! I used up all my luck in 2007.

It wasn’t bad. We ran the first and the second and the third six-second small block passes with a blower car, and we did it in less than ideal conditions on less than ideal tracks. It gave me some ideas on the mechanical side of the combination of what I could do to increase the longevity, while maintaining the power level.

I have seen some things now that I hadn’t seen before that made me address items that I thought were holding us back. We got the chassis sorted out. I think we are going to have the motor sorted out pretty soon, and we are working on some things with the transmission that I think are going to be fruitful.

What do you have planned for 2009?

Basically building on what happened in 2008 as far as the structural integrity of the block with the addition of a billet block. We are going to do a converter with Marty Chance. Jason has developed a new input shaft and pump stator to replace what we were breaking. We broke six of them at the end of 2008. We hadn’t broken that particular part in over two years. We broke six in four races.

We are kind of evolving the whole program. We are getting to the point in the program where whatever part we need to evolve, we now make it ourselves. This is a big help. ATF can manufacture anything now. We can draw it and make it out of plastic. We can look at it and measure it. Like for gear tooth and pitch, stuff like that for input shafts, we can make it and actually examine it, install it, look at the clearances with the spacing and everything and see if we need more or less.

We are at a point where we are evolving into areas where we are manufacturing parts, where before, we could only buy off the shelf. We are using the car as a test mule to not just build the part for ourselves, but if we don’t break them, and market them, then nobody else should break them either…I am sure.

What’s been the highlight of your racing career?

Probably the first SS Outlaw Championship. That would probably be the time I felt I accomplished something I set out to do. At certain points along the way I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do it. It really gave me a sense of accomplishing a very difficult task.


Always a respected competitor, Jim has become an important fixture in the Heads Up racing community.

What was the low point?

I have thought about that. There really isn’t one. To be able to do what I do, you know, have a car and be competitive in this venue and this world is an accomplishment in itself. Like I have said before, for every car you see on the track there are ten cars that got started and never finished. So just that alone is saying something.

So yeah, as a racer, I can’t really say I’ve had….I have had momentary low points. I’ve had disappointments from problems I solved that I really didn’t, but overall I don’t have any great disappointments.

You stuck with the small block supercharged combo while other combinations seemed better. Why?

Well, like I have said, I don’t think we have exhausted the possibilities. I think that the origin of the sport was with a small block. I think that with all the technology and advancements that are available to the racers today, until you have completely exhausted all possibilities and all tuning issues and questions, chassis issues and questions…I don’t think the small block has reached the point yet of not being competitive. I believe it needs certain advantages, i.e. weight breaks, etc. etc..

But I still believe that the small block in the right hands will always be competitive.

Do you like the small block blown combination’s weight advantages?

When available. I honestly feel like if you haven’t given your combination at least five years of R & D then you haven’t really worked your combo to the 9th degree, to its infinite possibilities. That’s my opinion. What I have learned and how long I have worked the combination and what I feel is still possible is a minimum of five years of tweaking, checking all the mechanical possibilities and improvements, tuning issues, and chassis issues.

I think a lot of people don’t look at the whole combination either. I think that sometimes there are literally tenths of seconds left in chassis and transmissions that don’t ever get looked at and evaluated because it’s easy to put in a big block with twin turbos and basically run the track backwards. Leaving soft and letting the turbos pull the car through the back half of the track instead of the front half of the track.

My theory of drag racing is that you need to run hard in the beginning of the track because that makes the combination of tune, chassis, and race track conditions more equal across the board. I see that turbo big blocks by their mph and by their incrementals run the second half of the track much harder than the first half of the track. That kind of eliminates the need for excellent chassis balance, ability to read a racetrack…especially at the starting line it is not as critical.

It basically allows people to not have to address tuning issues, chassis issues, tranny issues. There’s no doubt they are making horrific power, it just seems like they should be capable of more. If they were having to leave hard like if they were a nitrous car or a blower car, then they would have to pay more attention to the chassis.


Jim’s Mustang is powered by a Small Block Ford 9.5 deck Windsor engine with a hair over 400 inches of displacement. It features Blue Thunder heads, a Wilson Manifolds sheet metal intake, Procharged big boost, and a ATF transmission.

What do you think about the recent trend of 1/8 mile racing? Does it even things out more?

Absolutely. It’s a great equalizer, especially if they are not addressing the front half of the track there is no time to make it up. Cars that can leave hard are going to run the eighth mile in relatively close proximity to the turbo cars or the nitrous cars.

What has been your best 1/8 mile time?

The best we have ever gone is a forty flat. We have done it a couple of times, and I think that with some transmission tweaks we are incorporating right now, the car is capable of mid to low thirties.

Where does that put you against your competition?

As far as a small block combination it puts me right at the front. As far as an alcohol screw blower, it puts me in the back. It all depends on the application. For a small block blower car to run mid to low thirties in the eighth, I personally will consider that an achievement….a large achievement.

What weight was your car for those types of times?

The eighth mile races around here I am basically required to run 2800lbs. I can get my car much lighter.

Did you run the forty flat at 2800 pounds?

Actually, I was at 2850.

If you were the guy making rules for W tire racing, what would you change? Would you go to 1/8 mile to make things better?

Don’t give me that power. That’s a tough question because no matter what you say there is going to be somebody not happy with the answer.

1/8 mile racing is safer for the drivers, less hard on the parts. It equalizes the advantages turbos have over most combinations, but I don’t know how it looks to the fan. I wonder if the fan enjoys a four second race or not.

It seems to me that everything appears to be pretty close but there’s no pulling around them on the big end like quarter mile racing offers. From a driver’s perspective I enjoy quarter mile racing. From an owner’s perspective I enjoy eighth mile racing.

I think you have a lot of different biases and different perspectives depending on where you are: from the driver’s seat, from the stands, from the starting line, or in the tower. The racing would appear close to the untrained eye. But I personally enjoy quarter mile racing from a driver’s perspective.

As far as the rules, it’s hard to say because everything evolves so quickly that by the time the rules makers come around its too late, the cat’s out of the bag. I do see that all the sanctioning bodies are trying to get a handle on the new combinations out there.

ORSCA and other sanctioning bodies that used to not allow certain combination weight breaks are offering it because it’s a sport and a business but you have got to have something that has appeal to the fans, the person in the stands.

You have got to have something that is dramatic that has different combinations that people can root for so that it’s not all big block turbo all the time. It’s not all screw blowers on alcohol all the time. There’s a reason people like to watch racing. It’s because they can identify with a particular car, or a particular combination, or a particular motor, or a particular power adder and that’s what makes it interesting. That’s what people come to see and root for, whatever their emotional attachment is to a particular car or a particular combination.

If somebody runs away with it, it takes away from the entertainment value. In this economy, in this day and age, you have to have something that appeals to the people in the stand, which is wide varied.

I don’t envy the rule makers. I see where they have a real problem on their hands because you can’t cater to one particular combination or style or you’ll lose your appeal.


Jim and his crew have set the car up to run the front half of the track as hard as possible, netting him some astonishing 1/8 mile times for a small block combination.

With NASCAR and NHRA making rules so that cars are so similar, do you this type of racing is more appealing to the fans?

I think NASCAR and NHRA have a problem getting into a comfortable rut. While it seems to be working, they are losing their origins and where they came from. NASCAR came from southern boys and moonshiners with cars that people could identify with and relate to and drive home from the track in.

What you see now, there is no way to identify with the car on the track. There’s no way to identify with the drivers who all seem to have the same cookie cutter look and corporate speak routine whenever the camera is on them. It might be nice for mass marketing appeal, but who do you identify with? Who is your favorite driver? What is your favorite car?

And I think with NHRA, they kind of suffer from the same problem when they are afraid to bring in new ideas and new classes and give people something new to get interested in. It is kind of a rut, but it’s a comfortable rut and when you get so big it’s not easy to change.

That’s the beauty of heads up racing and grass roots racing. It has the ability to adapt and to change and it’s not caught up in the same vicious cycle of regurgitating the same things over and over again. Of course, the NHRA would point out that Sportsman racing was killed by cars going faster and faster, well-financed teams dominating, and that’s why they bracket race at the sportsman level.

But I think what we have today is a new dynamic. Heads Up racing is definitely what people want to see and we offer them something to identify with. We offer them something they can recognize, power adder combinations that they are familiar with. And the technology in heads up racing is actually far advanced from what’s in an NHRA pro stock car.

Last year you showed up with “Scorpion” on your car and trailer. How did that transpire?

Jason heard in the beginning of 2008 that Scorpion was looking for a car to sponsor and they were involved with NMCA in sponsorship of the PRO class. We had known the marketing director for a while. I was familiar with their products. We met Rob, the owner, and he stepped up and sponsored us and it has been a lovely experience.

For everybody out there who thinks sponsorship is such a wonderful thing, it carries some serious responsibilities and I don’t take them lightly. It’s like another job on top of the job you are doing there at the racetrack. You are representing a company. You have to be attentive to the needs of the company. You have to project yourself as a person that the company would want as a spokesman and a representative at the racetrack, and it’s a lot of work. It really is.

We handed out a lot of brochures, t-shirts, hats, talked to a lot of people and helped promote the Scorpion name in a fashion that I thought they would be happy with.

Did you choose to be with Scorpion because of their sponsorship of the NMCA Pro Street class?

I knew they were a local company that was looking to expose their products and services to our form of racing. I knew that they made a very, very high quality product. I knew that they would benefit by the exposure that they would receive.

Of course, no one would have dreamed that the Pro Street class would have been as big and popular as it was. They basically gambled going in not knowing what would happen, whether the Pro Street class would even show up in 2008. It was probably one of the best years that I can remember for Pro Street as far as car counts and ETs. I think the class was definitely the flagship class of the organization.

I thought that they were extremely fortunate to grab that sponsorship when they did. Nobody could have known going in what to expect to happen, especially with the demise of Pro 5.0. I saw a thread on the internet – “it was the end of big tire racing as we knew it”. Ironically, it was the rebirth. It was a re-emergence of the class and the people in the class.

Scorpion was there at the right time to be able to cash in on what was a great year for Pro Street.

Will we see Jim in Pro Street some day? Jim says it’s a definite maybe.

Speaking of Pro Street, do you have any plans to step up again?

I wouldn’t mind it. I have to admit, there is definitely an appeal to the big tire cars. There is something about those guys, the Mickes and the Budanos. There is definitely something there that appeals to me.

Whether at this point in my life I would be willing to make the financial commitment or not is hard to say. Probably not with the economy the way it is. Had I been in this position maybe three or four years ago, perhaps.

I wouldn’t close the door entirely that there wouldn’t be a possibility at some point in the future. I am definitely interested, but at this point in time I have my hands full with what we are doing right now. So that would be a maybe. (Laughs)

If some sponsor came along and said they were paying for the whole thing, you just had to pick a class to run, which class would you pick?

It would be Pro Street. No doubt. If I had a complete free ride I would build a Pro Street car. Definitely go that direction. It just appeals to me on so many levels. It really does. It is basically all out warfare. That appeals to me.

Along the way who were the people who have helped you get to where you are today in racing?

First and foremost would be Jason Gatlin, of Automatic Transmission Factory. We have kind of grown together in the sport. If you told us where we would be seven or eight years from then, I doubt either one of us would have conceived it. He is the number one reason that as a driver I am able to get in the car and be totally comfortable.

These cars are dangerous…eighth mile, quarter mile, whatever it is. And when you get behind that wheel you have to have a level of confidence, a level of comfort, to be able to drive them. Whether this part was tightened down or that part was tightened down, whether this part is going to fail or this bolt is going to break. You have to put that out of your mind. You have to be able to go up to the tree and rest assured that everything is going to work out, even though there are several hundred moving parts which any could fail at any given moment.

When he lines me up I only have one job to do and that’s drill the tree. That’s a very comfortable feeling to have. That gives the driver a comfort zone that he can concentrate on, just getting the car down the track, cutting a good light, doing his job, and I can rest assured that everything else in the car is taken care of.

I know people that try and do everything and it amazes me that a racer has that ability, to have the mechanical part of it, the tuning part of it, the chassis part of it, and just the regular service part of it and still be a good racer. They are few and far between, but there are people that can do it and my hat is off to them.

For me Jason is the reason I can pull into the tree comfortable 99.9 percent of the time. There have been times I didn’t know what was going to happen when I let go of the trans brake, but I would say 100% of those times everything was fine.

Also of course there are the crew guys. David, Danny and Patrick all from ATF. A great bunch of guys.

David is probably the best or the most willing to do whatever is necessary, as far as tearing out a transmission, tearing out a rear end, pulling out a motor, breaking down a motor and driving the rig. The boy will do it at the drop of a hat with a smile on his face and never complain. David is in charge of the tear downs, freshening up of the motors, and rebuilding of the motors.

Danny is new to the game. He is a recent Wyotech Graduate. He is learning quickly how to help with the car. He does some of the fabrication work and welding on the car and round to round maintenance.

Patrick is in charge of the starting line routine, also helps with the round to round maintenance, fuel and ice checks, video filming, in car camera, picture taking and driving the rig.

And then there is Procharger and Scorpion of course.

My wife Janet, daughter Jessica, and everybody at Able Car Rental that put up with me when I’m in race mode.

I saw a documentary one time about big wave surfers. They say that just before they are ready to go surfing they are insufferable to be around. It struck me. Drag racers are kind of the same way. Once we are out there in the car everything’s all calm and fine, but all the anxiety and the drama and the thrashing that leads up to it must make us pretty miserable people to be around.

So I thank my wife, daughter and all my employees for being able to put up with that.


Jim’s crew is an important part of his success and he is quick to credit Jason and ATF for their work. Scorpion and Procharger have also been a big help to his racing program.

Anything else we should know about your racing program?

Just that I think we will have something this year that should be the culmination of five years of R & D as far as motor, transmission and chassis.

Do you plan on running the whole NMCA season in 2009, going for the championship again? Or are you going to do something else?

That kind of remains to be seen. I think we are probably going to have to take it on a race-by-race basis. A lot of it is going to be determined by how well we do and how the recession rolls on, or doesn’t. It’s looking like my worst-case scenario is to stay around and race locally. I think that Bowling Green and Bradenton are definitely on the dance card. Probably ZMax, and possibly Chicago. But, unless we recapture some of our racing luck from ’07, it is hard to say at this point.

So if you end up winning a lot of races it might prompt you to go to more?

Yeah, exactly. It all depends on if all these issues that we think we have dealt with work out for us, then yeah. If we have some early success, we may be able to run the whole circuit. But, I am cautiously optimistic, as always.

About the author

Cody Norris

Cody has been around motorsports his whole life - from boating all the way to off-roading and everything in between. When he decided he wanted to turn his hobby into a career, he found himself helping out in the PowerTV shop. With a thirst for knowledge, Cody turned himself into a sponge to everyone on the PowerTV crew, in hopes to gain a little something from everyone. He soon drifted into the office as a writer in order to broaden his learning capabilities, and be able to talk face to face with the great people in this industry.
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