There are three things you can’t avoid in life: death, taxes, and Ron Rhodes owning the small-block nitrous record in X275. After the record was taken from him for a short time, Rhodes uncorked a 4.32-second pass at over 162 mph at Capitol Raceway recently. Being pushed by tough competition helped Rhodes focus on his program more and that allowed him to find a way to unlock some performance in his Camaro.

If you ask Ron what motivates him don’t expect to get a long answer full of metaphors — he gets right to the point in a hurry. Hearing him say this makes it easier to understand how he can always be a threat to own the small-block record.

“I want to race the best every chance I get. Lining up against tough racers pushes me to be faster and find ways to get better. It’s no fun to race people that are easy to beat every time you go to the track. I want to face the best and that way I can prove I’m the very best.”

Rhodes has never been the type of racer to sit idle and hope for an advantage to come his way; he seeks out opportunities to improve his program. With the mind-numbing progression of X275 racing and how fast the class has become, Rhodes has continually found ways to keep up with those around him.

One of his projects has been to figure out how to maximize the amount of nitrous he can use and apply it more efficiently. Rhodes has been working with both AMS and ProTorque to make this happen and his diligence paid off.

“The big change this year was the AMS 2000 and Pro Torque U9 converter. I’m trying not to spray it any more than I have to because it’s hard on parts, so you start to look at other things to help optimize power. I reached out to AMS and Pro Torque to control the power and work with the nitrous, and it has really been key to stepping up the performance and setting the record again. The U9 torque converter has worked out better than expected. Working with AMS has provided us with even more control over the nitrous system,” Rhodes says.

Don’t think that Rhodes has left his Induction Solutions nitrous system alone; he has continued to work with Steve Johnson and his staff to improve the diet of giggle-juice his small-block Chevy built by BES receives.

“It’s a long-term relationship working with the same combination and it has its rewards. The consistency of everything is great and Induction Solutions is an outstanding partner. Being able to run this much nitrous through a small-block Chevy is just awesome. They have worked with us over the years to refine this combination to make it as perfect as possible for X275,” Rhodes explains.

With the work that Ron Rhodes continues to put in, there’s a possibility we could see the first small-block nitrous car in the 4.20s this year. You can bet that Ron is already working on a plan to go faster and win more rounds at the biggest races for the rest of 2019. Check out this footage from TheRacingVids showing Ron’s record run.