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In many ways, esteemed chassis builder and decorated racer Larry Larson is a throwback to the earlier years of auto racing, when competitors were revered for their ability to dissect a rulebook and exploit the ‘grey areas’, bending the rules as far as they could without breaking them — or at least as far as possible short of detection.
Larson, armed with a lifetime of mechanical knowledge as a racecar craftsman and a brightly-burning competitive spirit, is likewise known for exposing opportunities to gain an edge over his challengers. In 2014, the five-time Drag Week champion revealed his now-familiar Chevrolet S-10 pickup that bordered right on the fringes of the Unlimited class rules, in some regards as a means to illustrate to event organizers and fellow racers what was possible. Then, in January of this year, he acted on a months-long promise to do so by crafting an extension onto the bed of the S-10, thereby transforming it into a pseudo-long-bed pickup and circumventing factory wheelbase rules that had previously barred him from competing in the Street Outlaws: No Prep King series. With that, Larson’s legend only grew.
Following the initial season of the No Prep Kings spinoff, the rulesmakers behind the program crafted a set of highly-detailed guidelines for the second go’round intended to create parity among the many different engine and power adder combinations.
The final ruleset was released just weeks prior to the season opener in Topeka, Kansas, and Larson quickly eyed an opportunity to run at a reduced weight from where he’d have been required to otherwise. But he had just three weeks to make it happen.
The first piece of the equation was the acquisition of a Stage IV 481X powerplant to replace the 620 cubic-inch, Brodix-Headed big-block from Pro Line Racing he’d run previously. Then, the twin Precision turbos were replaced by a single turbocharger of undisclosed size, all of which would permit him to run at 2,575-pounds versus 2,900.
With not just an engine swap and all that entails to complete, but the need to engineer and fabricate a new hot and cold side system for the new center-mount turbo, Larson and company had their work cut out for them. With the help of Bob Tynan, Kasey Smith, Brian Erb, and Greg Sanford, the project was wrapped up earlier this week, and initial spooling checks delivered plenty of promise that the unique combination would work to Larson’s devious plan.
“Because they screwed up the weight breaks so bad, the 405 guys got together and changed the rules for this season. Under those rules, Ryan [Martin] gets to weigh what he did last year, with the 88s, but I’d have to add 300-pounds and Birdman would have to add 500. It’s crazy. A screw blower car gets to weight 50-pounds less than a twin-turbo car, which I think is insane. For weeks they’d been telling us we were going to be at 2,950, and I was okay with that, and then they came out and said 3,100. So we looked at the rules and they offer a 325-pound weight break for a single turbo and decided we’d give a try,” he notes.
Larson said of the new combination the day before its first on-track test: “if this thing does what it should do, what I think it will do, they won’t be happy with us.”
A newly-enacted body rule, one that is left largely up to interpretation that adds 100-pounds to any vehicle that doesn’t appear factory or has been modified to meet wheelbase regulations, is likely to hit Larson with an additional penalty, but will still come in well shy of the 3,100-pound mark.
He and racing partner Jeff Stacy spent two days putting the combination through its paces and following successful hits at the racetrack, gave it the stamp of approval and loaded up for Heartland Motorsports Park, where the truck — now clad in duct tape both front and rear — is sure to get its are of attention, good and bad.
“It’s not pretty, because I’m going to use my old blown-up front end that we broke in Vegas a few years ago, it’s all duct-taped back together, so it’s going to have grey duct tape on both ends, and the exhaust coming straight out of the hood,” he shares. “They aren’t going to like it.”
