The season opening ADRL Carsafe Dragpalooza VII at the renamed Royal Purple Raceway in Houston, Texas is always a highly anticipated race, often providing fans and fellow racers their first opportunity to see new racers, new cars, new combinations, and – in the case of the 2011 season – a whole new championship points format for the first time. But perhaps the most anticipated unveiling that will take place as competitors converge on the Houston facility this weekend will be the brand new chariot of Pro Modified veteran Mike Janis.
Janis’ brand new 1970 Plymouth Duster was only recently announced to be under construction, and on Friday, the JanCen Motorsports crew rolled the shiny new machine out of the Andy McCoy Race Cars shop in Washington, Missouri, just in the nick of time for its expected debut at the ADRL opener.
As has become customary, McCoy and company incorporated several unique and state of the art features to the newest of Janis’ long line of bad to the bone race cars, and topped it all off with the application of a JanCen Racing Engines and the familiar “Widowmaker” theme wrap, designed by Justin Spencer at Competition Designs.
But it’s not the new chassis that has the attention of Mike’s fellow Pro Extreme competitors, but rather, it’s what sits between the framerails. In the offseason, Janis and team announced a new partnership with nitro tuner extraordinaire Alan Johnson and his Alan Johnson Performance Engineering to assist in the development of a brand new 5.300″ bore space supercharged HEMI engine combination, known officially as the AJPE 5300 HEMI, that could very well revolutionize the blown doorslammer world.
Janis plans to test the new car and engine combination prior to this weekend’s opener, and like many new innovations, while the new setup may not set the world on fire right out of the gate, there will certainly be some keen observers when the newest “Widowmaker” rolls out of the hauler on Friday morning.