Justin Shearer was used to taking the scandalous chance that he might not live to see the sun rise over Oklahoma City, or worse yet, to be busted by the cops.

“Big Chief,” at the top of the totem pole of testosteracers vying for a stack of “dead presidents” and strutting rights at the expense of his partners in grime, definitely has had the energy, passion, and skills to make a street-car engine sing sweet and loud. But he plied his trade in the dark, on back roads, reckless and rebellious, thumbing his nose at rules, and joining other throttle-psychos and scofflaws in their best new-millennium adaptations of James Dean.

And then Big Chief ran into the buttoned-down, mainstream NHRA. And the startling reality, unlike his reality show “Street Outlaws” on cable-TV’s Discovery Channel, was that he wasn’t a big chief at all but rather one of 33 warriors – 31st out of 33, to be precise – at the recent Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals.

But the myth is far from destroyed. Even though Shearer failed to qualify at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis in his NHRA debut, in the NHRA J&A Service Pro Mod Drag Racing Series, he still was a winner. The throng of fawning, squealing fans five-deep at his pit signaled that Funny Car icon John Force might have met his entertainment match. Engine builders, manufacturers, golf-cart owners, and other racing-industry reps made sure to shake his hand and offer him a deal. Even a few media members shamelessly posed for pictures with him. So Shearer was no loser, for, most importantly, he learned just what it takes to be at the true pinnacle of drag racing.

It was humbling, expensive, and an absolute blast for Shearer, who reciprocated. He taught any NHRA drag racer who was paying attention how to mix passion and pocketbook with appreciation and a healthy dose of fun.

For the record, Shearer poured about $40,000 to upgrade his ’68 Firebird “Crow Mod” – a factory-based cast-iron Pontiac 455 with cast cylinder heads and block that several Super Stock racers marveled was more stock than their rides. And for his troubles, he cranked out a best clocking of 6.361 seconds in elapsed time at 226.47 mph that was nearly five-tenths of a second too slow to slide into the field of 16. (The bump spot was Steven Whiteley’s 5.892.) And in his defense, Sherarer was in excellent company. Also on the DNQ list were Steve Matusek, who lost out by three-thousandths of a second, as well as notable drivers Jay Payne, Todd Tutterow, Jonathan Gray, Gerry Capano, Dan Stevenson, Kevin Rivenbark, Shane Molinari, Mike Knowles, Robert Patrick, Jim Bell, Harold Martin, Clint Satterfield, and Sidnei Frigo.

Shearer said his car “works well for what I’ve done so far, but coming into this arena, I’m learning really quickly that I’m behind the eight-ball, as far as horsepower goes. I’m competing against guys who have billet Hemis and billet cylinder heads. You could fit two of my motors inside their motors. I walk around the pits and it’s like, ‘Man, I look really goofy with this little bitty motor.’ And I have to abide by the same rules. It’s not their fault I have a crappy motor. I can’t turn the boost up. I can’t pour nitromethane in it. I can’t get jiggy with it like I would normally. I’ve just got to get a better motor at some point.”

That’ll be another sizeable expenditure. But the amount of money he spent to make his car NHRA-legal is proportionate to the wisdom he gained by setting foot into The Establishment.

“To make it through for [the Pro Mod] class, I had to do things I never thought I’d be doing to a racecar, and to myself, really,” Shearer said. “There’s a lot of things I had to change on my car: things I thought were safe, things I thought were fine, things I thought were going to be okay. I thought my car was super-safe. I thought that I bought the safest car that I could with the money I had.

“Listening to the NHRA tell me what to change, I didn’t know all the ‘why’ … I didn’t know why they wanted it.” However, after working with NHRA Regional Technical Director Jeff Conley, he learned. “They said, ‘The reason you need this is this happened in 2013 to this guy, and he’s no longer here.’ Then all of a sudden you start thinking, ‘How do I ever go as fast as I did with what I had?’

“These people see it every day. They’ve seen every scenario up to this point of how this could fail or how this could break or why you can’t do this or can’t do that,” Shearer said. The more I understand it, the more I look at it and go, ‘I’ve been very, very lucky so far,’ and I don’t want to take those chances anymore.”

So his Firebird needed “to be changed for safer things,” he said. “The NHRA made me put carbon fiber brakes on the car. It was $16,000 I didn’t have, but that 16-grand was well-spent, because I’m here. That was worth every penny right now. I had to do all kinds of changes to the car. And no one has ever entered a 53-year-old factory engine in this class before, so there was a lot of rules that I had to adapt to. We’ve thrashed and thrashed and made it work.”

What works with the Shearer-NHRA relationship is that down deep, they’re not as far apart in substance as they might have appeared to be. Consider that Shearer, on “Street Outlaws,” races against renegades such as “Murder Nova” and “Kamikaze” and “Freakin Rican” and “Dominator” and “Farmtruck” and “AZN” (pronounced “Asian”). They sound rather like “The Snake” and “Jungle Jim” and “Big Daddy” and “Tricky Rickie” and “Boom Boom” and “Rodfather” and “Grumpy” of NHRA lore. Consider, too, how much Shearer talks like eight-time Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher. He said his biggest fear is being average, this speedy Peter Pan. Compare him to Schumacher, who said, “I don’t risk my life to be average” and “I don’t want to be pretty good. Everybody’s ‘pretty good.’ ”

He’s maybe 50 or 60 years behind his time, for he embodies the spirit of NHRA drag racing’s pioneers. And he’s not bashful about saying, in his droll manner, “I have some behavioral characteristics that don’t really match up with most sponsorship opportunities – from what I’ve been told. Being someone who can’t act right, I’ve got to make sure that anybody I work with or go racing with, we have the same ideas.”

He knew his improved car likely was not going to be a threat to any of the J&A Service Pro Mod Series regulars, even predicting that he probably would get his qualifying act together on the final chance and fall short of the mark. But, in true NHRA drag racer talk, Shearer said, “For now, we’re at the U.S. Nationals – with my motor, my car, my truck, my trailer. I tune it, I build it. I drive it. That’s so cool.” The quote could have come from Don Prudhomme or Bob Glidden or Warren Johnson – except they probably wouldn’t have allowed themselves the joy of exclaiming, “That’s so cool.”

Actually, Shearer has shown the utmost respect for the NHRA, which not long ago found itself in a froth about his “Street Outlaws” program, popularity, and principles but since has courted him.

“I don’t really flip the image switch. I still wear the same clothes. I still wear the goofy socks. I still carry a bandana around in my pocket. I’ve still got tattoos,” he said. “But I can be respectful, and I do understand when things mean something and I understand passion. That’s one thing I understand: passion. I’m very respectful of people who have passion for what we’re doing here. I can’t change the way I look, but I definitely changed the way I acted and how I talk.”

Long before he ever entered the U.S. Nationals, Shearer said he decided not to seek his NHRA competition license “until I was a racecar driver.” That’s how much he respected the NHRA process.” I didn’t want to keep a license up for 10 years on something I was dreaming [about] for later,” he said. “When I did it, I wanted to go for it.” He went for it, all right – after earning his NHRA license at the 11th hour.

And he can’t wait to experience the rush again and again.

The Indianapolis race was the seventh of 10 on the manageable tour. So far Shearer hasn’t entered any of the remaining three, but he said, “I’m going to hit every race I can afford to hit. That’s the sucky thing about it: I want to go full-bore, I want to stay committed, I want to be at every race, but to be honest, this last couple of weeks has cost me about 40-grand. While that’s not a lot to some of the pro teams, to a guy like me, it’s a long time [working to save that much]. I’m doing everything I can to come up with it. The ultimate goal would be to find somebody that wants to go racing or wants to figure out a way to help me stay in it – and next year to have a competitive motor and a competitive program and win a championship.”

Bombarded with offers, Shearer said, “I’m being very careful, because I have to choose a likeminded person. They know if I have their motor in my car and I go up against them in round one or two or the final, qualifying or anything, I’m going to push it as hard as I can, no matter who they are. I have to know that if I do make it run good that they’re not going to pull the motor out and put it in their car.

“So, I’m being very careful, because I want this to go the right way. If I jump on the wrong opportunity it’s going to be a black eye on me and them, as well. I want to make sure that anybody who’s racing with me, we win together, we lose together, we have a great time, and we do it respectfully and we make sure it happens the way it should.”

The Way It Should Happen is coming into sharper focus for him.

He competed the week before the NHRA’s marquee event in the Street Car Super Nationals at St. Louis, and he won a round. He was, perhaps uncharacteristically, modest about it, saying, “I got lucky. He made a mistake, and I jumped on it.” Nevertheless, he said that made him understand why the NHRA pro racers sometimes act giddy about one elimination round-win.

“That first round-win in a Pro Mod class, against another Pro Mod which is a lot more Pro Mod than my Pro Mod … it’s okay – now I get it. Man, I was punching my fist in the car. I was screaming. I was so happy. Every round is like a championship, like what we do on the street,” Shearer said.

Before then, he might have mocked those emotional displays for a mere round-win. He said it never had “done much for me to go a round or two or run good. It’s cool and it’s fun. But on the street, in the big grudge races and the no-prep stuff, you’ve got so much money on the line. You don’t get to test. You don’t get to qualify. You come right off the trailer and you race a guy for everything you’ve got in your pocket, right like that,” he added, snapping his fingers. That’s how I get nervous. That’s how I get excited. When I win, that’s how I get really excited.”

Ultimately, he didn’t win the race, didn’t even qualify. But he left his imprint in reminding racers why they participate.

All along, Shearer admittedly had trouble suppressing what he called his inner “fanboy.” And he burst into the open as soon as he got onto the Lucas Oil Raceway property.

“I couldn’t believe how many [people] are at this race. That just goes to show you how many people want to be here and how many people work their whole lives to come to this race. I see there’s a campground across the street. There’s more people in that campground than there is at a professional football game,” Shearer said with maybe a teeny bit of exaggeration but genuine awe, for sure. “This is the biggest, most prestigious drag race. It’s like hallowed ground.”

He said just being in the pits was a thrill and noticed that some racers had complaints.

“Everybody’s got their gripes: ‘Aww – I can’t believe we’re pitting on the grass’ … ‘I can’t believe we’re not pulling in this way’ … ‘I can’t believe they won’t let me put my awning out.’ ” By contrast, he said, “I’m [saying], ‘I’m here! I’m so here! I’m really here!’ We’re so excited. You can’t bust our bubble right now.” And that was his sentiment, despite his chagrin that he brought, in his words, “a 30-foot piece-of-crap trailer and a truck with 260,000 miles on it.”

He said, “Sometimes I feel I’m in the wrong place. Then I wake up and know I’m supposed to be here.”

And to the NHRA – which is trying to break from a stagnant period with a new, envigorated President, a new, self-directed TV package with powerhouse FOX Sports, and a general vibe that the sport is headed to new heights – Justin Shearer, with his legion of followers, definitely still is Big Chief.