There was a time, not long ago, when the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series’ Competition Eliminator division served as the sport’s beacon for ingenuity, with unique, often one-off chassis and race cars, engine combinations and power-adders configurations not found elsewhere in drag racing. The proliferation of outlaw-style racing, Pro Modified, Factory X, and other avenues over the last two decades have, in many ways, supplanted the category’s distinction as the technological hotbed. But Idaho native Lonnie Kuenzli is hoping to do his part to turn that tide, with the 2024 debut of his gorgeous new 1951 Chevrolet pickup truck.

Kuenzli, who competed in Competition Eliminator in the mid to late 2000s before taking a hiatus to focus on his business, wanted to do something special when he returned to racing.

“When I set out to build this thing, I told everyone I wanted to build something that looks like a Pro Street truck that’s car-show-worthy. If it was sitting in the staging lanes, I wanted people to think, ‘where is the race car that it’s supposed to be towing?'” Kuenzli says with a laugh. “People already think this truck is never going to see the track, that it’s just a show truck. So I guess I nailed it.”

PRC Fabrication built the chassis and wrapped it in a fiberglass cab, fenders, and bed that Kuenzli sourced from a supplier. Kuenzli, dissatisfied with the weight of the fiberglass nose and factory grille combination, built his own mold and crafted a carbon-fiber front end that weighs just 12 pounds. A full carbon-fiber belly pan also spans the complete length and width of the underside of the truck.

Nick Ferri (a former Pro Stock champion crew chief, who will also be Kuenzli’s crew chief) at Westside Machine Racing Engines built a 472 cubic inch naturally-aspirated GM DRCE 2 big-block with CFE cylinder heads. In a departure from many of the carbureted combinations in Comp, Kuenzli’s pickup will be electronically fuel injected, with 16 FuelTech injectors, all controlled by a FuelTech FT600 ECU. Another unique trait in a sea of clutch-equipped cars, Kuenzli’s ’51 has a five-speed Liberty transmission mated to a Quick Drive torque converter drive with a Neal Chance torque converter.

There are also infrared sensors on the rear tire and track to read track and tire temperatures, ride height sensors, and shock travel sensors, to provide ample tuning data.

Kuenzli will run the truck in B/Altered, a popular category that’s long featured Pro Stock-style cars and combinations, with competitive elapsed times in the 6.90s to low 7-second range.

“It’s not going to be as competitive as a Camaro. Some guys from the Competition Eliminator association are poking around to see if we can find a better place to put it than B/Altered, but initially, that’s where it’s going to get run,” Kuenzli says.

“The truck thing is way, way out there,” he continues. “But I just thought maybe I should try things that other people aren’t trying, because if you’re doing the same thing they are, you’re still behind them, because they’ve had more time at it. The interface on the FuelTech is really easy, and there’s a lot of things you can do with it. Nick was one of the pioneers of the EFI transition in Pro Stock, and he really feels like the EFI and the FuelTech system, its ability to individually time cylinders and everything, will be a better option than a carburetor.”

Kuenzli will be taking the truck to a wind tunnel in Mooresville, North Carolina in the coming weeks to see how the aerodynamics stack up to other cars. “My goal is to get it to run half a second under the index, maybe .55 seconds under, so it’ll have to run a 7.00.” From there, he and Ferri hope to debut it at the NHRA Division 6 opener at Firebird Raceway in Idaho, May 17-19. He intends to run it in both Divisions 6 and 7 throughout the season.