Factory Stock Showdown Provides Perfect Vehicle For Pawuk’s Return

NBC-TV has a new drama series that will debut this fall about a relatively uneventful airline flight that lands – and the passengers learn the world has aged five years. Researchers in Poland this summer unearthed a time capsule filled with Nazi artifacts and propaganda from 1934, and a historical monument restorer in Vermont discovered a time capsule from the early 1900s. The 1985 movie “Back to the Future” and all of its coattail merchandise still are popular.

Everyone seems to be fascinated with time travel, time capsules, and time warp. So maybe longtime Pro Stock driver Mark Pawuk picked a perfect time to return to the drag-racing scene.

After slipping away for nearly a dozen years, “The Cowboy” is back in the saddle – in a second Mopar Dodge Challenger Drag Pak for Don Schumacher Racing, as a teammate to moonlighting Top Fuel ace Leah Pritchett in the SAM Tech NHRA Factory Stock Showdown Series.

Pawuk missed the cut in his first NHRA appearance since the 2006 Richmond, Va., race. But once crew chief Kevin Helms had his Empaco Equipment Mopar Dodge Challenger entry operating properly the following weekend, at Norwalk, Ohio, Pawuk looked like he hadn’t missed a beat.

I was really struggling. I wanted to finish my career on a high. I ran good for a lot of years, but I really struggled the last few years. I didn’t want to finish my career the way I did.

He qualified second and finished as runner-up to back-to-back winner Joe Welch … by the length of a yardstick (.0113-second). So Mark Pawuk sat on the sidelines for 271 NHRA national events races, then qualified No. 2 and advanced to the final in only his second race back on the tour. No one in recent memory has accomplished such a revival.

“You don’t know how bad that hurt. I thought I had it won. Would that have been a hell of a comeback or what?” Pawuk said of the narrow Norwalk loss, signaling his competitive spirit. “My home track, where I’ve raced from the ‘70s, and I came back there after almost a 12-year hiatus, go to finals, and almost win … it’s just awesome.”

Especially attractive is this Factory Stock Showdown class, which has awakened the memories of a Pro Stock class brimming with fierce rivalries and fan fervor.

“What’s really cool about Factory Stock is that you’ve got all three manufacturers involved again,” Pawuk said. “The fans are enjoying it. We do wheelies. My first run at Norwalk, the first full run I’ve made since 2006, the wheels were two feet up in the frickin’ air and I’m hanging on for dear life! I haven’t done that in years! It was like, ‘Holy moly!’ It got my attention. These cars weigh 1200 pounds more than my Pro Stock car did, and they’re running 8.0s at 170 miles an hour! The fans are lovin’ it!”

Teams in this class receive their supercharged cars from the factories. Then they are permitted to modify them within the rules. And these cagey crew chiefs – such as Pawuk’s and Pritchett’s four-time sportsman-level driving champion Helms – have these  3,550-pound-minimum-weight cars pumping out more than 1100 horsepower.

Pawuk, an Akron-Cleveland-area native, finally has the chance to race at Norwalk, Ohio’s Summit Motorsports Park, which was the IHRA’s crown-jewel track for all of his previous career. And now he will have the experience at competing on Bruton Smith’s “Bellagio of Dragways,” zMAX Dragway at Concord, N.C., which the NHRA added after Pawuk took to the sidelines. Like the E3/J&A Service Pro Mod Series racers, Pawuk said he appreciates only a handful of events each year. He still operates Empaco Equipment Corporation, a company that serves thepetroleum storage and dispensing industry. And he and wife Bonnie are active in the lives of 21-year-old son Kyle, a senior football letterman at the University of San Diego, and his younger sister Kassandra, a Hospitality Management student at the University of Central Florida and an intern with Don Schumacher Racing’s program.

“It’s really cool to be back. I like the abbreviated schedule. I like being able to race in Norwalk. Gainesville was one of my favorites. I always like Bristol,” Mark Pawuk said. “Having a [shorter] season where I can still spend time with my family, still be able to go to football games, still be able to work like I need to work, and seeing the excitement in this class right now and the competition and Don giving me the opportunity to be able to drive one of his cars and be a part of the Schumacher Racing organization – which, to me, is the finest organization in motorsports – it’s pretty awesome and its gives me the opportunity to kind of rejuvenate my career.”

This Cowboy isn’t riding off into the sunset. He jokes that he’s “a has-been,” but the six-time Pro Stock winner simply is getting recharged.

Pawuk said he had needed a break from a downward spiral that dealt him one heartbreaking qualifying blow after another in 2006. He stepped away from the Pro Stock grind following the 2006 Richmond race, where Erica Enders bumped him off the starting grid by three-thousandth of a second. His best elapsed time that weekend was 6.633 seconds, but in his final Pro Stock pass, he clocked a 6.658-second E.T. at 206.67 mph.

My first run at Norwalk, the first full run I’ve made since 2006, the wheels were two feet up in the frickin’ air and I’m hanging on for dear life! I haven’t done that in years! It was like, ‘Holy moly!’

“That was the eighth time I was 17^th that year. And I quit after that race. I had had enough,” Pawuk said.

(It didn’t matter that he had lovely company on the DNQ list: Max Naylor, Warren Johnson, Dave Northrop, Ron Krisher, Steve Schmidt, Rickie Smith, Barry Grant, and Jerry Haas, among others. In the starting field that weekend were Greg Stanfield, Kenny Koretsky, Tommy Lee, Tom Martino, Larry Morgan, and Jim Yates – regulars the class surely misses today.)

That nagged him. He said he had unfinished business. He didn’t want those Pro Stock DNQs to define or punctuate his racing career.

“I was really struggling. I wanted to finish my career on a high. I ran good for a lot of years, but I really struggled the last few years. I didn’t want to finish my career the way I did,” Pawuk said. “I never actually retired. I just stepped away. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever come back. But Don Schumacher and I became very good friends, and he’d been talking to me for a while about maybe trying this Factory Stock Showdown.

“My son was 10 when I stepped away, and he just loves cars. And my daughter is working for Don this summer and she’s loving racing, too. It was an opportunity,” he said, sharing that they nudged him into taking Schumacher up on his offer. But Pawuk was ready to say yes. “I love the craft. I love the cars. I just decided to try this year and see how it went,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the final again. But it was awesome, and I hope I get to.”

He hasn’t announced whether he’ll return in 2019. But he said, “I’d say right now there’s a pretty good chance.”

For Pawuk, his Factory Stock Showdown debut was a disappointment. He missed the cut but resisted slipping into a “Here we go again” mentality. He knew his Challenger wasn’t hitting on all cylinders, literally.

“The first time I ever drove that car was the first qualifying run at Bristol, but I told the crew guys there was something wrong with the engine,” he said. “After that run, we pulled it apart and we had a broken tip on a pushrod, so we pretty much ran on seven cylinders.”

Trying to pinpoint the problem, the team decided to test the day after the Bristol race concluded. But that Monday yielded little but frustration:  “We couldn’t fix the engine, so we went back to the shop and pulled it out and had it repaired. Then I flew to Martin [Mich.] to test before Norwalk, and it rained for half the day. I only made two runs and we ended up having transmission problems. I had to leave because I had to go home – I had stuff going on for work the next day. Leah drove the car for one run after they fixed the transmission. My first full run was at Norwalk, when I qualified No. 2.”

Pritchett, he said, has been a huge help. She stayed in Charlotte alongside him as he earned his Factory Stock license and helped him become familiar with his Challenger. And she was at the track the next day, ready with any advice. And when the motor was uncooperative and the car ended up back at the nearby DSR shop, Pawuk said, “Leah was there on top of the lift, thrashing on the upper side. Man, she was right with us – very supportive as a team member.

I love the craft. I love the cars. I just decided to try this year and see how it went.

“It’s just been a real pleasure for me to work with her and all of the Schumacher teams. A lot of the crew chiefs on the fuel teams are good friends of mine. I’ve known Rahn Tobler for years. I’ve known [Jack] Beckman, Guido [Dean Antonelli], [Ron] Capps, Tony [Schumacher], Mike Green, and Zippy [Mike Neff]. And they have all been so supportive of me. All the texts I got after Norwalk just made me feel so good. They just welcomed me into their team,” Pawuk said. “And the other thing that really meant so much to me when I announced I was coming back, after we made that announcement at Charlotte, was all of my old fans that came back. They sent me notes on how they were so excited to see me back racing again. It made me feel so good. It gave me the drive to want to go out there and do well again. It’s pretty awesome. I figured they’d forget. The day you go away, nobody knows who you are.”

No one forgot Mark Pawuk. But just in case somebody might have, he reminded them at Bristol. And he plans to use this weekend’s NMCA All-American Nationals at Norwalk as a warm-up for the NHRA’s showcase U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis. He and Pritchett will represent Don Schumacher Racing also at St. Louis and Dallas this October.

Pawuk isn’t experiencing time warp. He’s ready add to DSR’s trophy case, and he’s not wasting any time.