Angie Smith remembers early in her racing career when her only job consisted of simply showing up and racing the motorcycle.

Things look far different these days.

[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #143, the Hottest Issue, in April of 2019.]

Smith is now up at 4:30 a.m. every morning, grabbing a workout before she heads to the race shop for Smith and her husband, Matt Smith, the reigning and three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champion.

But it’s just Angie and Matt at the shop, which means Angie has much more on her plate. That means building motors, working on the bikes and offering detailed input and suggestions after runs. It’s been an immense workload, but the payoff has been more than worth it.

“I’ve learned a lot over the years,” Smith says. “Matt wanted me to learn the fundamentals and get my hands dirty, and I’m able to give him so much feedback now. That bond has helped us be successful and it’s made me a better rider. You have to be a sponge in this sport.”

Smith has soaked up a wealth of knowledge year after year, proving herself in the loaded Pro Stock Motorcycle class. She advanced to her second straight Countdown to the Championship, finishing a career-best eighth in 2018.

Smith, who won her first race in 2014, is goal-oriented, a planner – she jokes she already has the Sonoma race in July mapped out – and a stable force in the Smith marriage. But she also has more than proven herself on the dragstrip, in the pits and at the team’s race shop, allowing the husband and wife racing dynamic to click on and off the track.

“We work together and our bond is strong,” Smith says. “When you eat, sleep and drink racing and work with your spouse, both of our plates are full. The stress can go through the roof sometimes, but we balance each other really well.”

Angie might be the planner off the track, but she’s become lethal on it. In addition to putting in ample work to attract sponsors like Denso Spark Plugs, her ability is impossible to ignore. She led the class – one noted with killers on the tree – in reaction time average in 2018, posting an impressive .022 during the regular season and a .019 in the Countdown.

The end goal remains a world championship, and Smith is determined to improve in 2019 and build on what she was able to accomplish a year ago.

“I really strive to be the best at what I do,” Smith says. “I really like learning new things, but you just have to try to absorb everything and do all you can to try and gain an abundance of knowledge. Hopefully I can continue to improve and have a really good season.”

Garrett Mitchell is almost everything we should want the sport of drag racing to look like. He loves going fast, he loves the NHRA and he knows the history of the sport so much he uses Don Garlits’ Museum of Drag Racing as an example of a life goal. Mitchell is also just 23 years old, loves Mountain Dew, embraces storytelling and has 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube.

[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #141 in February of 2019.]

Mitchell and his persona, the wildly popular Cleetus McFarland, have made him one of the most popular figures in the sport today. From December through the end of January, more than a dozen videos Mitchell released reached a million-plus views, most of them hitting that number in just days. Some in that span have eclipsed two million, another is approaching three million views and one video – “The Jet Camino’s Roll Cage Is Incredible” – was one of YouTube’s – yes, the entire website – top trending videos, as it accumulated nearly 600,000 views in less than 24 hours.

Providing entertainment was always part of Mitchell’s plan and it turned out drag racing was the backdrop for him to thrive. “(Growing up), my dream was to have a talk show,” Mitchell says. “I always looked up to Jay Leno and I’ve always been really goofy and I love making people laugh. That’s my biggest thing, making people smile and laugh.”

To say a guy like Mitchell is important to the future of drag racing is an understatement. Not only do legions of fans flock to his YouTube page the moment their phone dings with a Cleetus McFarland notification, taking the Cleetus show on the road has created a rollicking scene at dragstrips across the country.

He has 20 events lined up for 2019, including his wild “Cleetus and Cars” show that is the complete opposite of whatever you envision is a typical drag race. This is more like drag racing and partying on steroids, combining every aspect of what you wish a race, car show, fair and trip to the circus would look like. It promises demolition drag racing, burnout contests at sunset that go to the extreme, grudge racing and a post-event highlight video on YouTube to relive the madness. It’s not nostalgic Americana or even classic drag racing, but that could be why it works.

Young fans show up in force, embracing the light-hearted, full-on fun ‘Murica culture that Mitchell has thrived on. Terms like “Who’s ready to go FREEDOMING!” and “Bardle Skeet” and “Do It For Dale” fully showcase the enjoyment-at-all-costs approach, and millions of fans are more than happy to help play the part of the longstanding joke, as long as there are fast cars, wild antics and plenty of horsepower involved.

Mitchell and his crew take the redneck persona to entertaining, tongue-in-cheek levels, but drag racing and great storytelling remains the centerpiece of all of it. Looking at his success, one thing remains clear as the sport delicately tries to wade the waters of its growth and future in this new, digital age: Drag racing and fast cars are not the problem.

Mitchell can attest to that, and one look at his subscriber page and fan interest backs it up. “The sport is evolving, but there’s so many people interested in so many different aspects of the sport,” Mitchell points out. “There’s a huge car culture fanbase and that shows in all the different types of things people are interested in, whether it’s drag racing or burnouts or drifting or whatever. But I definitely think there’s a growing fanbase. I think people just like things they can relate to and there’s a lot of great things going on right now.”

McFarland is at the forefront of that, mostly because he’s willing to do something decidedly different. That includes bringing a salvage-titled, stripped Corvette to life, purchasing another Corvette with a truck engine in it and his latest project, putting a jet engine in the back of an El Camino.

It’s drag racing to the extreme, but it’s also not. There’s not 10,000 horsepower involved or 330 mph runs, and everything McFarland uses to get to his end destination is available to his fans.

Instead, it’s perhaps recognizing what the drag racing crowd wants to see, and Mitchell took note of this as early as 16 years old when he met Kyle Loftis, the owner of 1320Video. It was right when Instagram was starting, and Mitchell, knowing the massive following 1320Video already had on Facebook and YouTube, offered to run the new social media platform.

Loftis gave him the Instagram reigns and Mitchell soon became an expert in the power of social media. Since then, we’ve seen YouTube stars come to life, with the platform exploding in popularity for every subject matter imaginable.

But drag racing is part of that, with millions flocking to the page to watch endless videos. As Mitchell worked with 1320Video, he figured out how to embrace that new revolution, honing his producing, editing and monetizing skills, recognizing an opportunity on social media far before most – especially in this sport – saw it.

It soon led to his first appearance in a video and Mitchell’s Cleetus McFarland persona was hatched in 2015 at Rocky Mountain Drag Week. The character – with ‘Murica oozing out of his pores – went viral overnight and Mitchell had found his path. He started “Cleetus’ Garage” on 1320Video and before long Mitchell had his own YouTube channel that catered to his growing fanbase. “That is the foundation of what built my channel today,” Mitchell says. “I learned skills, I was able to gain a following and Kyle basically threw me out of the tree and said, ‘fly.’”

Now, Mitchell produces multiple videos every week on the hijinx of his daily life in the sport and the off-the-wall cars involved in them. He took viewers on an emotional, thrilling ride last year as “Leroy”, the salvage-titled Corvette, finally became the first GM-powered stick shift car to make a 7-second ride when it went 7.824 at 176.57 mph in August. Around three million people have watched Mitchell buy his latest Corvette – one with a truck engine in it – and his burnouts in everything from “Project Neighbor” to his Dale Earnhardt truck have become massive hits on his channel.

With his popularity continuing to boom, Mitchell talked with DRAG ILLUSTRATED about how he built a massive following on the basis of storytelling, why interest in the sport may be higher than ever and what the future holds for the captivating YouTube star.

This story has such a fascinating, humble beginning and certainly something you never could have expected, especially as you compare it to the full-length videos you create now. What do you remember about how Cleetus came to be?

I did this video right in front of Tom Bailey’s 6-second Camaro that he brought to Rocky Mountain Race Week (in 2015). Basically I stood there and said, “I just want you guys to know my car is made in America and so am I,” and I did this goofy redneck accent and Kyle just blurts out this name, “We’re standing here with Cleetus McFarland,” so I do this whole goofy little skit. I thought it was pretty fun, but you’re like, whatever. So I go to sleep and Kyle edits up this video he took on his cellphone and he posts it on his Facebook page that had around 2 million followers at that time. I wake up at around 8 a.m. – five hours later – and my phone was just exploding. There were nearly a million views of the video already. It literally went the definition of viral and pretty much from that day on I was known as Cleetus. It’s been pretty amazing.

Throughout this process of building a following and creating this Cleetus persona, you’ve surely discovered a few methods to stand out and develop content. What have you found has worked for you in creating a connection with drag racing fans?

Probably the number one thing is positivity and remaining positive no matter what happens, because shit happens. We’re devoted to keeping a smile on our faces and moving forward. There’s just so many times on my channel where I’m leading people into something as epic as I can make it and a head gasket blows or a transmission breaks. You take that hard sometimes, like you let down the world, and it’s all about positivity. No matter what happens, at the end of the day, if one of my viewers sits down after a long day of work and wants to watch a Cleetus video, I’ve got to be there and be doing something fun and having a good time. Positivity and good vibes are at the core of our channel for sure. We try to never have a bad time.

What other aspects do you have to consider when putting out content as frequently as you do?

There’s so many aspects of it. We have to work really hard to make good content and you can tell if something is good or not. It’s so transparent when content was worked for. There’s a lot of YouTube channels – and I used to do it, too – where you think of the easiest possible video I could make at this time. Some of those did get good views, but people wouldn’t stick around for the next video. But I found the more work I put into them, making every video that much better, it’s a key ingredient into actually growing. You know, sometimes you can get lucky and get someone in the door with a good title and a good thumbnail, but if you don’t have what they’re looking for on the other side of that door, they’re never going to come through it again. That’s been an important thing for me to remember.

When it comes down to it, what constitutes something being a good video in your mind?

For me, we’re very real-time, so there’s not an exact formula to my videos. We’re not thinking like, “Intro, Climax, Outro.” It’s not on that level because it’s so real-time and so day-to-day. Some videos are like a movie, but a good daily video is welcoming everyone to the channel, setting the video off with a good tone, going to do something fun and interesting and have it pay off, whether it’s something funny or something that makes the car faster. And then we’ll outro the video and that’s a good daily video. My favorite videos, though, would be a series, like when we made the 7-second pass with Leroy. It took me almost a year to get there. So there’s probably 50-60 videos of us trying, breaking stuff, fixing things, figuring out how to not do that again and repeat a mistake and then trying to better ourselves to reach our goal. And then when we did make that 7-second run, it was basically like a 48-minute video and it was pretty incredible. That’s like a movie and it really paid off. There’s not a perfect formula, but it’s a matter of putting everything out there, no matter if it’s your best day or your worst day so our viewers can be right there with us.

You mentioned the 50-60 videos entailing your journey with Leroy and how people just latched onto that whole journey. It was pretty remarkable to watch and each part of the journey seemed relatable, like someone could take this path alongside of you in their own car. Why do you think people have felt so close to this?

A lot of people have asked me when they’re trying to start a channel, “You know, what car should I buy,” or something like that, and obviously a good project car is good for a channel. But, man, it’s always about the stories. Say tomorrow I went and bought a new McLaren or Ferrari or something crazy and tried to force it on the channel. People would say “cool” at first but that eventually wears off over time. A month ago, I bought this Corvette at the auction and it had a freaking truck motor in it that someone swapped in it and took it to the auction. Stupid me, I bought it online and never got to see it, and the video got a million views and everybody loved it. It was just a cool story.

People obviously want to see the cars, but it seems like personality and storytelling have really made the difference. How has that been apparent to you?

It’s not only about the car, it’s about the story. You can find the coolest cars in the world and bring them to the channel and people will like it, but man, when you get a good story behind it, that is priceless, man. The red Corvette and Leroy are two perfect examples of top-notch stories.

People want to see you go fast, but I think I could be going a lot slower than we are and still have a big following. Leroy is extremely fast, no doubt. Does he need to be that fast? No. Could we have set our goals a little lower and done well? Yeah, I think so. I think people are there for the journey, man, and the good stories that go along with that. I know that’s what we’re there for and that’s really important to us, finding good stories and showing everything about them, just totally real-life things that a drag racer goes through on a day-to-day basis.

It’s almost like you’re bringing fans to life, making them love something they didn’t even realize existed or they knew they wanted to be part of. In looking at that, do you feel like there’s a significant young fan base that wants to be part of this sport?

Yeah, I think there’s a huge fanbase from people who want to do what I do. I think there’s a big fanbase for the car culture in general. It’s a way to make a living now and it’s a way to do what you love and I think there’s a growing fanbase in that. In that same aspect, I think people who do what I do and are respectful and kind, and show the fun of drag racing while we’re at it, I think it helps grow the fanbase of drag racing.

One of the things I do on my channel, we try not to have any hard language so that dads and grandpas can watch with their kids. We let stuff slip here and there when you’re really pissed off or it’s getting really crazy, but when we keep it clean it allows the younger audience to get into the videos because their parents let them watch.

How much is being relatable a part of your success? It seems like someone could watch this and decide they want to build a car and take it to their local dragstrip.

That’s 100 percent the case and it is relatable because, really, all we’re doing is building a car and racing it. It started in a garage and I’m still using the same tools and I’m still going to the same dragstrip right by our house. They’re all parts you can get online and not a single part is proprietary to my car. These are all attainable things and there are no secrets. My car is what it is and my tuneup is out there and online for people to see. The tuning changes are all online. Every part of it is reachable. It would take time and money, but I definitely think it’s attainable.

It seems like there’s a segment of the drag racing community who continuously long for the “good ole’ days” or think the sport’s in trouble when that’s really not the case. That’s a mindset we’re really trying to change as well, but do you see a different perspective of the sport?

There’s definitely a crowd that frowns upon the way that I do things because we’re very headfirst even if we don’t know what we’re doing. We’re doing something different. You know, we don’t even have a body on our car (Leroy) and that pissed a lot of people off. But I gotta tell you, and the drag racing community has a lot of hate sometimes, but there’s so many good people in the sport. The competition is good, it’s fun, it’s respectful and it’s good for everybody. Even if you frown upon the way the next guy is doing something or faster than you, who are you to say something? The sport has to evolve and you just have to do your thing. The sport’s going to evolve no matter what and whatever path you take, so be it, man. The sport is going to evolve no matter what, so you just have to be able to adapt.

At the events you’re at, whether it’s Cleetus and Cars or the Street Car Takeover, there’s definitely a young fan component there. How is the sport evolving, based on what you see?

I think it’s evolving in a very positive way. There’s so many street cars that people bring out. You go to a Street Car Takeover and there’s 400 street cars there drag racing in 15 different classes. It’s so fun. You’re back in the pits and everyone is talking about what’s in their car, and vendors are there talking about their products. I think the street car market is incredible and it’s on fire right now.

Your videos get an instant reaction these days and it’s not uncommon for them to reach a million views overnight. That still has to be a massive thrill for you. What goes through your mind during this process, when you see a video take off instantly?

It’s so unbelievable, man. I’m just blessed to be in the position I am in. There’s so many people to thank for it and so many people have taught me so many things, including all my sponsors who dove in blindly with me with this. There’s so many good people in this sport and so many passionate fans who have helped me through the rough times when parts are flying and things are going crazy. It’s totally surreal, man, and I couldn’t be happier with my job.

With your position and popularity, you’re now a big part of bringing new people into the sport, almost like a beacon of hope for drag racing in a sense. Do you view that as pressure?

I don’t look at it as pressure because no matter what happens I’m going to do my same thing every day. I don’t think there’s pressure. I don’t have anyone who tells me what to do because we don’t have any corporate people above us and that’s the way we want it. We’re just doing what any other guy would do. I try to keep it as pure as possible and I don’t feel like there’s any pressure because it’s real life to me.

Looking into the future, do you have aspirations to drive competitively, whether it’s a Top Sportsman car or something else?

I’d be silly to give up what I have to go to work for a team that could control me. I would probably love driving a faster car. I live for adrenaline, but I would be silly to give up how much fun we have every day to work for a team.

What about your own team? Would you want to start your operation?

I don’t want to get to that point. I like my junkyard car and I like my ghetto Pro Mod Corvette and I like my jet car that I’m building. I don’t want to be the fastest car on the planet, I just want to entertain people.

When you look at the sport overall, is it something where you consider yourself a fan? Do you follow NHRA and are there drivers that really stand out to you there?

I think the NHRA cars are unbelievable and those teams work so hard. The NHRA, just like everyone else in the drag racing community, is going to have to adapt to the new movement of everything. As far as racers go, “Stevie Fast” (Jackson) is the man. I’m actually hoping to do a video with him soon.

A guy in your position with a tremendous fan following, is there advice you would give to a guy like “Stevie Fast” or another top driver to continue to try to reach a new segment of fans in the sport?

I think some of those cars can be unrelatable in certain aspects because of how gnarly they are, but those guys are so good. They know those cars in and out and I think they could still do exactly what I do. In his videos, “Stevie Fast” started explaining what they do in a way everybody could understand, so I think someone like him could be successful doing something like what I do, and I think he already is. It’s just a matter of making everything relatable. Even though we’re doing a jet on our El Camino, it seems crazy but it’s pretty basic in the grand scheme of things.

I’ve come up with so many ideas in the past and been excited about them. I’ll produce, post the video and it will get a quarter of my normal videos. It’s so hard to know what works and doesn’t work, and YouTube is super unpredictable, but until you try you’ll never know.

So where does this journey continue to go? Have you mapped out how want this all to look like, whether it’s more project cars, a different direction or something else entirely?

I hope I’m a YouTuber when I’m 80 years old. There’s a life cycle to every business and I understand that, but I’m going to do this as long as I possibly can. Like everyone else, I’m going to keep an eye out for that next thing and the next transition, and I’ll try to adapt to the best of my abilities. There’s a few ideas we’re working on right now just to better ourselves in any way possible, just like any business. It doesn’t look like a business, but it is a business, but at the same time you have to keep it like it’s not a business. That’s kind of how YouTube is. I just want my fans to see the cars, see us having fun and I want them to feel a part of it. But at the end of the day we need to keep the business aspect alive, too.

In your dream world, and you’re probably pretty much there already based on what we’ve see online, what does your future look like?

My real dream is to buy a restaurant, almost what a Quaker Steak would be, and have some of the cars we’re not running at the time around the restaurant, and then maybe a museum down the road like Don Garlits has. That’s all in the future, but I sure do dream about it a lot. I hope I can keep going with this and keep doing our thing.

I’ll say this, I don’t want to be a mainstream person. If Good Morning America or some other show called tomorrow, I don’t think I would even take the time to be on their show. As cool as mainstream is, man, I would rather spend my time making a cool video for my viewers than go be on some massive, mainstream news outlet. I love what we do and how we do it. We use GoPros to film everything and we have no plans to increase our production budget.

We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing, and hopefully more people catch on and tune in and smile with us everyday.

Photographs by Josiah Richwine and Kevin Cox

Social media can be challenging, especially when it comes to using one of the numerous available platforms to promote yourself, your race team or your business. Apps like Facebook and Instagram have evolved from simple platforms for sharing life updates to increasingly powerful media outlets where individuals go to read the news and where companies go to drive business. With the Pew Research Center reporting that 68 percent of U.S. adults use Facebook and an equal percentage rely on social media to deliver their news to them, now might be the time to establish or step up your race team’s or business’ social media presence.

[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #141 in February of 2019.]

DRAG ILLUSTRATED sat down with Corey Michalek, an NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster driver who specializes in personal and corporate branding, to get a few of his tips on using social media to build a brand, share news with fans and customers, and attract new sponsors and impress current supporters. Michalek designs and produces videos, sponsorship materials and social media content for Michalek Brothers Racing and motorsports clients through his React104 agency. Outside of racing, Michalek is the creative director at Wondersauce, an advertising agency that services clients like Google, Outback Steakhouse, Federal Mogul Motorparts, and Stella Artois.

CONSISTENCY IS KEY

When Michalek starts working with a new client, he first gets a background on the goals of the client. Then he creates content geared toward those goals, be it building a reputation or selling spark plugs.

“You want to be familiar every single time you pop up on someone’s feed, whether that’s aesthetically or with the way you’re framing the language in your posts,” Michalek says. “Things like that are really important because you can essentially create this continued narrative from post to post where people are familiar with the story you’re trying to tell. It helps the viewer understand what you’re trying to get them to do, whether that’s buying a product or something as simple as getting them to follow you.”

POST CAPTIVATING VISUALS

Audiences on social media often have short attention spans. Including a stunning, rare or interesting photo in your post can grab the viewer’s attention and keep them involved in your posts.

“Having a visual is always number one,” Michalek believes. “People who follow us are primarily racing fans, so we try to have the car in there or show something that people wouldn’t see on the Fox broadcast, like behind-the-scenes photos of the car when it’s torn apart at the shop. Whether it’s a still image or a video, posts that show our followers a unique look seem to do the best.”

INCORPORATE OCCASIONAL VIDEO POSTS

Online news outlets and social media platforms alike have put an emphasis on sharing video content over the last couple years. That trend is expected to continue at a rapid pace as audiences consume content in bite-sized pieces.

“Facebook recently compared the scale necessary for brands and influencers to adopt video to the same transition that they previously went through in order to accommodate for their users’ transition to mobile web,” Michalek reveals. “They said by 2020, 82 percent of consumer traffic on the web is going to be video based. The more you can begin to really harness the different technology, whether it’s standard video or 360 video or virtual reality, the better suited you’ll be to take advantage of that trend.”

KEEP AN EYE ON THE INSIGHTS

Business pages on Facebook and Instagram offer powerful analytical tools, allowing page admins to track statistics like how many people viewed a post, how many times the website link in a post was clicked, and how many times a post was shared with other people. Think of these insights like Racepak graphs for your social media posts.

“We use these tools to follow up on the content after it’s gone public,” Michalek says. “You can take the information and change up your social media strategy based on the content that your followers engage with the most.”

FIND A PARTNER

If you have great content but a small audience, reach out to sponsors and offer to send a post or two for them to post on their social media channels. Similarly, Michalek has had success with doing “takeovers”, where he posts photos, videos and stories on a sponsor’s profiles for a day during a race weekend.

“It doesn’t always have to be what you’re putting out there for yourself, but also being able to provide value and creating content for the brands you’re working with as well,” Michalek says. “Having that creative background, we’re able to come to the table with racing and non-racing-related posts that sponsors can harness on their channels. We do cross-posts on our channels as well, but primarily we do posts for their channels to get the most engagement because they have significant followings compared to ours.”

DIVERSIFY

All of the social media platforms have their own strengths and weaknesses. A post that might go viral on Facebook might not be received as well on Instagram. A series of time-sensitive posts on Twitter might get lost in Facebook’s complicated algorithms. Play off of the strengths of each platform depending on what you’re doing.

“On a race weekend, we’re most active on Twitter posting results and frequent updates throughout the weekend because it’s a quick-hit platform,” Michalek says. “We use Instagram stories a lot during the weekend as well, where we’re able to show the ebbs and flows of the day, then we can do a regular post at the end of the day as more of a recap. Facebook is where we have one of our larger followings, so we generally try to post on there just as much as we are on Twitter and Instagram, but it all comes down to the message we’re trying to communicate.”

Kevin Prior is a perfect example of how organized drag racing can turn a young man’s wayward life around, or at least his wayward driving habits. Prior, who grew up in the Warrenton, Missouri, area had a fascination with fast cars early on, and like so many before him, he used the highways as raceways until he found himself just one point away from losing his driver’s license. “My dad told me he wasn’t going to court with me again,” Prior recalls. It was then Prior and his buddies started visiting their local drag strips in eastern Missouri and realized that it made so much more sense than their previous habits.

[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #141 in February of 2019.]

Prior first began racing his street cars, followed by a 340 ci Plymouth Duster, which served as his first dedicated race car. “The Duster was actually a AHRA world record holder in 1977 in H-Production Automatic,” Prior says. He later raced a 1966 Chevelle, then a 1967 Camaro, followed by a wild, wheel-standing 1969 Nova, which clocked 10.70s in the quarter-mile in the early 1980s. “After that I actually quit racing for a while and had a family,” he says. He tried to go back to the track as a spectator, but it just didn’t hold the same mystique.

He was lured back to racing, however, in 1997 right after they completely refurbished his local Gateway Motorsports Park in St. Louis. “I went to the track and saw a bunch of my buddies that I hadn’t seen in 15 years and that’s all it took…I had a race car again shortly thereafter.”

It was his desire to go faster that lead him to the 1987 Oldsmobile Firenza that he currently owns. “First time I ever saw the car my first concern was whether or not I could even fit in the thing,” Prior laughs. He stands 6 foot 4 inches tall and the Firenza is something of a pint-sized race car in comparison to most of the others he’d owned. “I took a seat in the car and liked it a lot.”

This Oldsmobile was originally built by Tommy Mauney for the previous owner, Jerry Wilkerson, who raced the car in Comp Eliminator, before being sold to Jeff Taylor. By the time Prior first learned of the car, it had been parked for about 5-6 years before Prior bought it in 2013.

Immediately after buying it, Prior had the desire to transform the Firenza into a Warren Johnson tribute car. He’s always been a fan of WJ, although the two have yet to actually meet. They do, however, have a mutual friend through which “The Professor” gave Prior his blessings to make a tribute car, but with one stipulation: “Don’t make me look stupid!” Prior actually talked to Johnson on the phone for about a half hour, and that’s as close as they’ve ever come to meeting. “I’ve heard from other people that Warren really likes the car,” smiles Prior, who debuted the Olds at Missouri’s Sikeston Dragway shortly after it was finished.

The following year he competed at the World Series of Drag Racing in Cordova, Illinois, where a 16-car field of Nostalgia Pro Stocks were gathered. “I absolutely had a blast!” Prior says. He also towed the car to Wilkesboro, North Carolina, for the inaugural Don Carlton Memorial race several years ago. He’s also entered a handful of ADRL events with the car and won the meet in Martin, Michigan, this year.

“I didn’t necessarily put the car together to do the nostalgia circuit,” he says, “but the opportunity is certainly there to tour and be a part of gatherings with similar cars of this era, and it’s been a whole lot of fun thus far.”

Drag racing icon Carol “Bunny” Burkett passed away Saturday, April 4, unexpectedly but peacefully in her sleep, according to a post on her Facebook page. The 1986 IHRA Alcohol Funny Car world champion helped pave the way for women in drag racing, a role she cherished. 

“I know a lot of people do think of it and it is no secret that I have acquired the title of the Second Lady of Drag Racing and the First Lady of Funny Car, but Shirley [Muldowney] made the path and it was pretty narrow,” Burkett said in a 2016 Racer.com feature. “All I did was help widen it.”

Family, friends and fans started posting tributes to Burkett across social media after news of her passing spread online Saturday night. She was remembered as much for her warm, kind personality as she was for her drag racing milestones, smoky burnouts and thrilling match races. 

In the following feature from DI #96, veteran writer Van Abernethy profiled Burkett as she was gearing up for her 50th Anniversary tour. Then 70 years old, Burkett wasn’t even considering retiring.

Motivators in life come from all sorts of circumstances and for drag racing legend Carol “Bunny” Burkett, her biggest inspiration came from gritty determination to simply experience a better future than the life of poverty she was born into.

The dynamo drag racer most people now know simply as “Bunny” was born Carolyn Ruth Hartman on May 29, 1945, in Franklin, West Virginia. Her father upon returning home from World War II didn’t want the responsibility of raising a child, so when Bunny was just 18 months old he took off to Ohio and married another woman, leaving Bunny and her mother to fend for themselves in some of the poorest of circumstances the hills of West Virginia had to offer. Bunny’s mom eventually met and married another man who already had two girls of his own.

Bunny’s earliest childhood memories include a drafty wooden house in the middle of a remote field. Eventually, her family moved to town but even then it was hardly a life of ease. They lived in a poor section known as “Dirty Run,” where at least Bunny got to experience the luxuries of electricity and indoor plumbing for the first time in her young life.

About 13 years old then, Bunny recalls lying outside on the dirt bank, watching jetliners trace their paths across the sky. “One day I’m going to ride on one of those,” she told herself. The chance of achieving any other life seemed far-fetched on the surface, except within the confines of her vivid imagination.

The uncertain times were about to get even shakier for Bunny and her family, though. The mill where her stepfather worked abruptly closed down, leaving him jobless. Sick of living in poverty, tired of the hardships and struggles, Bunny’s family made the bold decision to leave and not look back. “My mother and step-father loaded me and my sisters onto a flat-bed truck and with what few possessions we had we left West Virginia, not even knowing where we were going to live,” she says.

They wound up in the northern Virginia town of Chantilly, where they felt extremely fortunate to be able to move into a boarding house adjacent to a rock quarry. Bunny’s stepfather even got hired on at the quarry, and though the new-found roof over their heads definitely provided shelter in a time of personal storm, peaceful and quiet it was not.

In addition to the earth-shattering sounds of busting rocks going on right outside their windows at the quarry, the boarding house also was home to roughly 15 men who were working on the construction of Washington’s Dulles International Airport about 10 miles away. Before school it was Bunny’s job to get up early and cook breakfast for the workers before they went off to their jobs at the airport, then prepare supper for them when she got back home.

It certainly wasn’t an easy life for a teenage girl, even after a dashing young man named Murium Oliver Burkett entered the picture. “My mother adored him and affectionately called him ‘Ollie;’ everyone else knew him as ‘Mo’,” she remembers with a smile. Mo Burkett was among the youngest airport construction workers who lived at the boarding house and he was also falling head over heels in love.

Mo struck a chord with Bunny’s mom and somehow talked her into letting Bunny go out with him on a date. It was, in fact, their first date that changed the course of history forever. “Mo took me to Old Dominion Dragway in Manassas, Virginia, and that’s how all this got started,” Bunny laughs. “Mo had a very fast ‘55 Mercury and he was going down those back roads at a hundred-and-twenty miles an hour—he scared me to death before we even got there!”

Arriving at Old Dominion, Mo backed the Merc up to the fence, where he and Bunny sat together on the trunk and watched one pair after another go down the track. “I told Mo I wanted to give this drag racing thing a try for myself,” she recalls. Puzzled at this proclamation, Mo laughingly replied, “Girls can’t drive!” Those words are now famously part of Bunny’s racing history, but at the time Mo did have a point, at least as far as it applied to his future world championship-winning wife to be. “I was 15 years old, straight out the hills of West Virginia, and, in fact, couldn’t drive, mainly because we walked every place we went.”

“Suppose you teach me,” she answered to Mo, who eagerly agreed. So, evening after evening the two kids would sneak off to Dulles—still under construction—where the runways made an excellent place for Bunny to drive an automobile for the first time.

When she turned 16 Mo asked Bunny to marry him. She considered the request as carefully as any 16-year-old girl could by flipping a coin just to be sure. True story; Bunny said “yes” and they were married within a few months. “He took me straight to the bank after we got married and borrowed the money to buy me a brand-new 1964.5 Ford Mustang that was sitting on the showroom floor,” she smiles. “Best I can remember it cost something like $2,495 and the payments were way less than $100 per month. We stuffed two big slicks into the trunk and carried them to the drag strip with us. It probably slowed the car down, but we had big tires,” she laughs.

The newlyweds’ first daughter was born the following year and their second daughter arrived when Bunny was still 18 years old. They were enjoying raising a family at the drag strip each weekend, but life would soon take an unexpected turn for Mo and Bunny. One day as Mo was pulling into the driveway of the boarding house after work, a drunk driver crashed into him and their beloved Mustang caught fire and burned to the ground while Bunny stood in the yard and watched in disbelief. Thankfully, Mo wasn’t injured, but the Mustang was a complete loss.

“In the latter part of 1966 I was very pregnant with our second daughter, so I couldn’t have driven anyway, but I missed having the Mustang a lot,” she says. Since she lacked down payment money to replace the Mustang, in 1967 she briefly took a hostess job at the Playboy Bunny Club in Baltimore, Maryland, to raise enough capital to replace the car. Though the hostess job was extremely short-lived, almost nobody called her “Carol” or “Carolyn” from that day forward. “That’s how the nickname ‘Bunny’ was born, and it’s what people have called me ever since.”

Bunny’s second Mustang was another showroom floor piece, a 1967 model that cost $3,700 and was quickly transformed into her first full-fledged race car. That’s when things got serious.

Bunny raced at Old Dominion on Friday nights, either Capital or Maryland International Raceway on Saturdays and 75-80 Dragway (also in Maryland) on Sundays. After tallying the cost, she realized she needed a part-time job to clear $85 per week in order to fund gas, a night in a motel, a couple hot dogs for her, Mo and the kids, and entry fee for all three events each weekend. She took a job at Southern Office Supply in 1968, a job she kept for the next 20 years. “I remember it very well,” she says. “I worked three days a week, very long hours, just so I could clear 85 bucks to go racing each weekend.”

Back in those days a very short list of female drag racers was on the East Coast, mainly comprised of Bunny Burkett and Carol Henson, but things would soon change. “Before long we had all these girls who were driving their husband’s cars and so we formed this all-girl racing circuit called the Miss America of Drag Racing. There were about six or eight of us and we wore tall boots, short shirts and had very long hair,” Bunny says.

The all-girl circuit traveled as far north as Maine and routinely held events in Maryland, Tennessee and Alabama. The series dissolved after a few years and was briefly reinvented under the moniker “Miss Universe of Drag Racing” before completely disbanding.

Unlike so many of her peers of the day, Bunny says she got along well with the boys and rarely encountered sexist or chauvinistic attitudes at the track. “I don’t know if it was because I had this atmosphere of being a married mother of two girls, or if it was because I established the reputation of having this attitude of being like, ‘Okay, fine, it’s a man’s world; I’m just happy to get to play in your playpen,’ but whatever the reason I didn’t experience a lot of bad attitudes, even back in the 1960s,” she says. In fact, Bunny ended up being something of a nurturing figure to a lot of people. “I used to give the guys Midol for their headaches; only they didn’t know they were taking Midol,” she laughs.

By the time the 1970s rolled around, Bunny had become a die-hard racer with six seasons behind the wheel of her ‘67 Mustang, racing the car in classes that ranged from B-Stock Automatic, Super Stock, Super Gas and eventually Modified. She sold the car in 1972 in order to have a brand-new 1973 Pro Stock Pinto built. “That was a cool little car, but it was the most ill-handling thing ever!” She once put the car on its lid at Roxboro Dragway in North Carolina when the parachute got wrapped around the wheelie bars. The car tumbled a few times and eventually came to a stop upside down in a ditch. “Did I win?” she asked, when they opened her door to see if she was alright. “Yeah, lady, you won!” they told her.

Her Pro Stock career was short-lived though, as the desire to go faster was constantly nagging at her. Besides that, there was this rivalry raging with Henson, who had already made the move to Alcohol Funny Car. “It wasn’t a bitter rivalry by any means, but let’s just say we weren’t really good friends,” Bunny admits. The dueling drag racing females actually had a lot in common though. Both were Virginia residents, both attractive blondes and both had emerged from the glamorous ranks of the Miss Universe of Drag Racing circuit. “We were always trying to outdo each other, sort of a ‘Big Carol’ versus ‘Little Carol’ kind of thing,” Bunny remembers with another laugh.

With Henson already making the move to Funny Car and doing quite well at it, all eyes were on Bunny when she took the same path. “Drake Viscome had this Ford dealership up north and he had this 1976 Mustang Funny Car that was absolutely immaculate,” she says. The Mustang was among the nicest cars ever built in the 1970s, but competitive and fun to drive it was not. “It represented his car dealership nicely, but it was more of a show piece that I don’t believe was ever intended to race competitively.” Besides that, the seat would swallow up Bunny each time she hit the throttle. “All I saw was my eye sockets down in my helmet and blue sky!”

Her crew made some adjustments so Bunny would stay in the seat, but the car refused to go straight despite any amount of coercing. Bunny says she would launch, let off and coast down the track. This went on for awhile and her team began growing impatient. Meanwhile, “the other Carol” was doing quite well in her Funny Car and rumors began swirling that Bunny couldn’t cut it behind the wheel of a flopper. “There was no doubt in my mind that I could drive a Funny Car, but I also knew there was something bad wrong with this one,” she remembers telling her crew.

It just so happened there was a racer in the area who’d been making some hits in a Nitro Funny Car and Bunny persuaded her team to let this guy make some passes in her car and then gauge his reaction of how it drove. Well, his initial reaction was that of loud swearing after they picked him up in the shutdown area after his first hit. “To put it nicely, he said, ‘Ain’t nobody can drive that blankity-blank car!'” laughs Bunny. He did point out some things that helped, though, and Bunny ended up having the car front halved, but at the end of the day it was still quite heavy and not terribly competitive.

“The man who tested my car probably saved me because I don’t know that I would have went much further in my career, because at some point I would have been filled with self-doubt and asking myself if it really was me that was the problem,” she admits. Even though the car wasn’t winning races, it did put Bunny in front of a lot of people and her fame continued to spread. “I did a lot of shows and appearances with that car, and that’s the second part of being a race car driver.”

Shortly after the dawn of the 1980s, Bunny sold the Mustang-bodied car and debuted a beautiful new ‘82 Corvette Funny Car. The Vette was compact and light and fit Bunny perfectly. Few people realized it at the time, but between the ill-handling Pinto Pro Stocker and the show-quality (yet equally ill-conceived ’76 Mustang flopper) Bunny had become a very good driver. The swoopy new Vette showed well, as did all her cars, but this one went straight and was instantly competitive. “I was thinking to myself, ‘Man, has it been this easy all along?'”

Shortly thereafter, Bunny’s match-race stardom exploded and she was now a sensation not only in the states, but also in Canada. In outlaw-like fashion she routinely smuggled souvenirs across the border inside her hauler and would sell out every time. “We once even sold the shirts off the crew’s backs!” she laughs.

After a few seasons Bunny replaced the ‘82 Vette with a brand-new car that featured the next-generation 1984 Corvette body style. “I only ran that ‘84 Corvette for a single season, but in those days I was doing around 50 events per year, so that’s like five-years worth of racing these days!”

In 1985 Bunny teamed up with Bill Matheis and they contracted Dave Uyehara to build a state-of-the-art 1986 Chrysler Laser Funny Car for the upcoming season. During the winter, Mo and Bunny made several flights to Uyehara’s California-based race car shop. “We actually stuffed race car parts into suitcases and flew them to California on commercial jetliners. This was before they weighed your suitcases!”

After taking delivery of her brand-new Uyehara-built ride, Bunny towed it to Darlington, South Carolina, for the season-opening IHRA Winter Nationals. Her intention was mainly to unveil the car at a press conference and bring some exposure to the newly formed team. When she rolled into Darlington the new car had exactly two runs on it. When she left it was after hoisting the trophy in the winner’s circle!

Bunny continued to follow the IHRA circuit that year, won a bunch of rounds and ending up clinching the 1986 IHRA Alcohol Funny Car world championship. That same year she finished fourth in points in NHRA competition, highlighted by a win at the Keystone Nationals at Pennsylvania’s Maple Grove Raceway. Strangely enough, the Chinese zodiac sign for 1986 was the rabbit. “It really was the Year of the Bunny!” she declares.

Media outlets used the zodiac irony to headline stories while Bunny Burkett’s fame and fan base exploded. The team of Burkett and Matheis ended after just a single, highly successful season, however, after Bunny’s crew chief, Bill Barrett, suffered health problems and wasn’t able to travel to the extent he once did.

The seasons that followed were largely self-funded and Bunny returned to her match-racing roots. She had become a celebrity of the sport without even realizing it. By 1991 she was ready for a new look, so she reinvented her Funny Car operation with a slick, new ‘91 Dodge Daytona body to attach to her still sturdy and competitive Uyehara chassis. Reminiscent of her Darlington victory in 1986, Bunny debuted the car at the 1991 IHRA Winter Nationals and again found the winner’s circle!

In 1995 Bunny was ready to change her car’s appearance yet again, so she switched to the brand-new Dodge Avenger. Then disaster struck. While racing at Beaver Springs Dragway in Pennsylvania, Bunny’s career and life nearly ended after a high-speed crash while match racing Carl Ruth. The two cars touched at around the 1,000-foot mark when Ruth’s Crown Victoria hooked Bunny’s wheelie bars and immediately turned her Avenger sideways. Her car exited the track, hitting rocks, plowing through a field and eventually going through the woods where it cut down every tree it came in contact with. Longtime crew chief Gary “Bear” Pritchett was among the first of her crew to arrive. “He asked me if I was okay,” Bunny says. “I just opened my eyes and blood came gushing out of my helmet.”

It took 25 minutes for rescuers to get Bunny free from the wreckage. She suffered head trauma, broken legs and arms and a broken back. “I died three times that day; once on the stretcher and twice more in the helicopter on the way to the trauma center, but they were able to bring me back each time,” she says.

Bunny lay in a comma for three weeks. News of her crash leaked out and soon the hospital’s switchboard was jammed. And then came the flowers. The trauma center simply couldn’t contain them all, so they started sending the overflow to area hospitals and nursing homes.

“When I finally woke up and saw all the flowers I somehow thought I was at my own funeral,” she remembers. Her recovery wasn’t pretty and after nearly a year she still wasn’t walking. That’s when Mo had an idea. “He came to me one day and said, ‘I guess the only thing that’s gonna’ get you out of that wheelchair is another Funny Car, so let’s build you one!'”

“That was all I needed to hear,” Bunny says. Almost in miraculous fashion, Bunny summoned the inner strength to finish her recovery. Many onlookers were surprised she still had the will to race, but for Bunny the desire never waned. She even made her one-and-only-run in 1996 behind the wheel of a little girl’s Junior Dragster. “I wanted to be able to say that I’ve gone down the track every year since 1965!”

With her recovery complete (or at least as good as it was going to get), Bunny debuted a brand new Dodge Avenger at Virginia Motorsports Park during the 1997 NHRA Pennzoil Nationals. On her very first pass in the new car she clicked off a 6.43 ET and upon exiting the car she dropped to her knees and said a prayer. “Strangest thing happened at that very moment, it started to rain, just a little shower directly over me. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but suddenly there was this sprinkle of rain directly on me. That crash did something to me and I’m sure it’s not uncommon when something like that happens to someone. For me, I don’t put one foot in front of the other without saying, ‘Good morning, God, thank you for letting me be here.'”

Since returning in 1997, Bunny has been burning up the match racing circuit, still enters the occasional national event and has attended every Funny Car Nationals event at Eastside Speedway in Waynesboro, Virginia, for the last 42 years. She’s developed an otherworldly following as a result. “I’ve had three generations of fans come see me and tell me their parents brought them to see me race many years ago, and now they’re bringing their son or daughter. It’s just overwhelming.”

For Bunny, it’s been an amazing journey. At a time when a 50-year career should be winding down, all Bunny wants to do is add more cars. She’s now got a pair of Dodge Avengers as well as a nostalgia Corvette flopper and a 1975 Mustang Funny Car.

Amazingly, Bunny Burkett will turn 70 years old this year. She’s ready to race and the tracks are completely geared up for her 50th anniversary tour. “Retiring is just not in my vocabulary,” she laughs. And regardless of what the Chinese zodiac dials up in the way of a trend, to her legions of fans it will always be the “Year of the Bunny.”

This story appeared in DRAG ILLUSTRATED Issue No. 96. in February of 2015.

Drag Illustrated’s annual women’s issue has a new name, as the “Women of Power 2020” issue was released digitally this weekend and will be mailed out this week.

Kallee Mills appears on the cover of the eighth annual issue dedicated to the women in drag racing – and 155th issue overall – focusing on the job done by incredible females in the sport who continue to break barriers, set trends and inspire others.

With unprecedented times and a public health crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing the issue was faced with additional challenges. But a determined staff and heady leadership made it possible, as the issue has already drawn rave reviews throughout the industry.

“While the purpose of the ‘Hottest’ Issue has always been to highlight the women in drag racing who are breaking barriers, setting trends and inspiring others, the name hasn’t really reflected that. We felt it was time to come up with a name that better suited the idea behind this issue,” Drag Illustrated Editor-In-Chief Nate Van Wagnen said.

“Between putting on the World Doorslammer Nationals in early March and the COVID-19 pandemic that’s impacted the country since then, it’s been a crazy month for the DI team. But everyone banded together to put out what we believe is one of our best issues yet. It’s packed with the kind of stories and photography that readers have come to expect from DI. We didn’t cut any corners or make any compromises. Despite the challenges facing our team and our industry, we put our best foot forward with this issue.”

Along with the cover story on Mills, the “Women of Power” issue also focuses on star females in every aspect of the sport, including Top Fuel standout and record-holder Brittany Force, Alexis DeJoria, who returned to Funny Car in 2020, Melanie Salemi, Lizzy Musi, Allison Doll, Nycole Schele, Megan Lotts and Kaylynn Simmons.

The issue also looks at females looking to make their mark in the sport, such as Brooke Miller, and established names like Mia Tedesco, Kay Torrence, Randi Lyn Shipp and Valerie Clements.

It’s a thorough celebration of the females making a difference in difference in all areas of drag racing, adding another reason why it was important for the issue to be released.

“I couldn’t be more proud of this issue and send it out in the racing world during a time when everybody needs a distraction,” Drag Illustrated Founder and Editorial Director Wes Buck said. “Our female-focused issue is far and away the most sought after issue every year.

“Our digital downloads and web traffic is always through the roof and we can barely keep up with the amount of people who want copies. We’re super proud to send out this issue. An issue like this showcases the incredible women and diversity in this sport. It’s so cool to be sending that out right now.”

Forging ahead was a noteworthy matter for Buck, who also noted the significance of renaming the women’s edition “Women of Power.” Capturing a number of inspiring stories added a degree of importance as well, especially in the midst of the trying times.

“It sends a positive message during a really trying time for our country,” Buck said. “I don’t know anyone claiming business as usual, but we are continuing to push forward and this issue is proof positive of that.”

The COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent shutting down of the racing industry have sent racers across motorsports searching for virtual alternatives to on-track competition. While NASCAR, IndyCar and World of Outlaws drivers have iRacing to turn to, drag racers have had to get a little more creative.

One of the best outcomes of that search was the Pros vs. Joes Practice Tree Challenge, an online practice tree race pitting NHRA nitro and Pro Stock drivers against some of the best wheelmen in sportsman racing. Kyle Seipel, co-promoter of the Spring Fling big-money bracket races, came up with the idea and enlisted the help of some friends to put on the race and raise money for RFC and DRAW. It’s already raised over $5,000 before the event aired on YouTube on Wednesday, April 1.

Announced by touring NHRA announcer Nate Hirschi and bracket race announcer “Big Jed” Pennington, the Pros vs. Joes Practice Tree Challenge is a first-of-its-kind event. No where else would you see matchups like Antron Brown vs. Luke Bogacki, Erica Enders vs. Johnny Ezell, or Jeg Coughlin Jr. vs. Jeff Verdi. OK, you actually might see that last matchup at pretty much any big-money bracket race.

The full video is just over an hour long, and it’s well worth the time.

Pat Musi Racing Engines continues to involve new companies in its drag racing world, announcing today a new partnership with ACL Bearing Company. ACL has been involved in drag racing for a number of years but this deal marks their first major American drag racing sponsorship. ACL RACE Series Performance Engine Bearings will be named the Official Engine Bearing of Pat Musi Racing Engines.

Pat Musi worked with ACL to help design and engineer a custom engine bearing for all of his applications, which he used with great success during the 2019 racing season. That relationship will continue on a larger scale in 2020, as Pat Musi Racing Engines will continue using the custom engine bearing set, as well as display the ACL logo on the PDRA Pro Nitrous Dodge Dart and the Street Outlaws: No Prep Kings “Aftershock” Camaro, both driven by Lizzy Musi.

“ACL is a great company with a great product and we’re really pleased to be working with them,” Pat Musi said.  “I believe in their engine bearings and they are our bearing of choice. They were very receptive to the input we had, and it’s been exciting for both of us to work together and come up with a great bearing.”

Recognized as a premier brand in motorsports, ACL RACE Series Performance Engine Bearings have been a key component for championship-winning race engines across a number of racing series. The company, whose engine bearing factory is located in Australia, looked for a partner in drag racing and found a perfect fit working with Musi.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with Pat to add to the drag racing side of our business,” said Dennis Fox, Director of Sales and Marketing at ACL. “This deal takes us to another level in drag racing, and working with Pat will give ACL great exposure in the drag racing industry in the USA. We are pleased to be associated with him and his engine program. ACL RACE Series Performance Engine Bearings have always been known for their durability, quality and fit, and to be the engine bearing of choice for Pat’s engine program is a great endorsement.”

Durability is one of the main things Musi noticed when using their engine bearings, which is an important factor in building high quality, record-breaking engines. Not only are Musi engines universally known for their incredible performance across a range of different classes and series, Musi has also consistently delivered durability and reliability. He believes that designing the custom engine bearing set with ACL only enhances that reputation.

“You’ll see a lot of durability using this engine bearing and durability is one of the things we’re known for,” Musi said.  “ACL provides a consistent part; the accuracy of the wall thickness of their engine bearings is outstanding, and they are the most consistent engine bearing on the market. Their engine bearings have worked great for us and our customers. When we started using them, everyone saw the great results and they wanted these engine bearings as well. It’s our engine bearing of choice and we are going to get that message out there.”

It’s an ideal opportunity for ACL, which has always looked to move forward with innovations in its area of expertise. Musi hatched the idea of a partnership at the PRI show in Indianapolis in December last year, bringing together two industry powerhouses.

“ACL has a long and rich history in motorsport with its range of RACE Series Performance Engine Bearings being the first choice for discerning engine builders, and this partnership is the perfect opportunity to continue that tradition and build on our drag racing experience in the USA,” Fox said. “It’s very exciting. Working with Pat on the custom engine bearing set has been rewarding, and we are looking forward to where this partnership will take us.”

Mike Thermos knows a thing or two about helping to stimulate the growth of a drag racing class. When the now-popular Pro Mod category was in its infancy, Thermos —then heading up nitrous oxide pioneer NOS—became Pro Mod’s biggest cheerleader and helped make racers like Bill Kuhlman, Scotty Cannon, Robbie Vandergriff, “Animal Jim” Feurer, Charles Carpenter and others household names. From those early days, the Pro Mod class has grown beyond everyone’s wildest expectations.

And now, some 30 years later, many stars from Pro Mod’s halcyon days will be on hand at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio, to take part in a special “Pro Mod Legends” program as part of the Nitrous Supply NMRA/NMCA All-American Nationals.

Nitrous Supply founder Mike Thermos

Nitrous Supply, located in Huntington Beach, California, is a manufacturer of nitrous oxide systems and components, and was founded by Thermos in 2006 after his contractual obligations to his former company had ended.

After signing to take title rights sponsorship to the event Thermos said, “This will be drag racing’s premiere showcase for nitrous oxide racers. With no less than five NMCA/NMRA categories permitting nitrous, plus a gathering of Pro Mod greats, it promises to be an event like no other.”

Scheduled for August 27-30, 2020, the vast pit area at Summit Motorsports Park will contain nitrous-boosted cars running in Xtreme Pro Mod, Xtreme Street, Nitrous Pro Street, Street Outlaw and Renegade classes.

“Sponsoring the Nitrous Supply All-American Nationals is something that was a natural,” Thermos said. “Nitrous Supply has essentially been ‘under the radar’ for years, quietly developing new components and providing essential items to other nitrous kit manufacturers. But now we’re ready to step on the gas and have some fun.”

The company has developed advanced components for effectively distributing nitrous oxide, like the exclusive “Fang II” nozzle and high-capacity, lightning-fast solenoids, but also manufactures economical kits for carbureted and EFI applications that retail for under $400.

For additional information visit www.NitrousSupply.com or call Mike and his team at 714-373-1986. Nitrous Supply is located at 15552 Producer Lane, Huntington Beach, CA 92649 and offers N2O refills on site.

Everyone likes to think that they’re invincible and that it “won’t happen” to them… until it does. On Saturday, March 31, 2012, Pro Mod driver Dan Parker took to the track to make a hit like he had done countless other times. A seasoned professional with a Dixie Pro Stock title and the ’05 ADRL Pro Nitrous championship to his name, Parker knew the ropes, knew the routine, and knew the risks – but he didn’t know that his day would ultimately come to a life-shattering end.

Driving for owner Bill George since 1999, Parker was testing a new Fulton 864 ci engine in their Pro Modified ’63 Chevy Corvette at Alabama International Dragway in Steele, Alabama. With a soft 1.01-second 60-foot time on the first pass, the Columbus, Georgia-based racer knew he had more room in the tune up and his next run produced a new personal best short time of 0.947-seconds.

“We decided to try to qualify for the race that day, so we got in the lanes to make my first pass to the 660-mark,” recalled Parker, who crossed through the traps in 4.07-seconds at 175 mph. “I was in serious trouble as I went through the beams sideway and heading straight for the right wall.” By all accounts, Parker should not have survived – but he surprised everyone around him with his perseverance, a trait which still serves him well today.

With his girlfriend-now-fiancée, Jennifer Stegall, by his side, Parker regained consciousness two weeks later, after having been put into a medically induced coma as a result of the horrific accident that ensued. “I could only hear her voice,” he explained, still unaware that he had completely lost his sight and had been deemed 100% blind. “I always accepted the fact that, as a racer, there was a chance I could come home beaten up or in a box… I never imagined that I would come home blind for life.”

Of course, Parker went through quite a major struggle coming to terms with his new reality and doesn’t hide the fact that his severe depression was crippling. Struggling with suicidal ideations, Parker simply couldn’t give up on his lifelong passion of racing. Instead of giving up, he decided that “you can make excuses, or you can make it happen,” and devised a plan to get back to the sport he loved – blind.

Incredibly, Parker built a three-wheeled, 70 cc motorcycle that he could drive while sightless. Using his experience as a racer and an auditory guidance system, Parker and his Tragedy to Triumph Racing team made history in August of 2013 as the first blind man to compete at the Bonneville Salt Flats. He went on to set an FIM-recognized world record for his class, with no special exemption for visual impairment, in 2014.

Having unquestionably shown that it was possible to race while blind, Parker upped the ante and decided to try for the title of the World’s Fastest Blind Man, a feat that would require him to go 210 mph with no human assistance.

In 2017, Parker acquired a salvage title 2008 C6 Chevy Corvette – a fitting comeback candidate, considering his catastrophic accident had also been in a ‘Vette. With no engine and no transmission in the cadaver car, Parker knew he had quite a journey ahead of him, but he was inspired by the challenge and had a vision that no amount of naysaying could dim.

However, Parker knew that he would need tremendous support to see his dream come to fruition. A machinist by trade, Parker was still teaching shop at his local high school – even while blind – and decided to put his skills to work. To help raise money for his project, Parker began machining and selling custom-made pens (available for purchase at TheBlindMachinist.com) and also reached out to multiple manufacturers to invite them to be involved.

Although the car itself was Parker’s design, he knew he couldn’t be hands-on for every step of the process. Even though Parker did fabricate much of it himself, he also relied on the help and generosity of others. Inspired by Parker’s incredibly journey, the build of his ’08 Corvette would not have been possible without the generous support from sponsors and supporters. His unique mission was welcomed by many, and the vast majority of his car was completed by way of donations.

“Safety was critical to me, considering what I had been through,” noted Parker, who was gifted a C6 Corvette roll cage from Stormin’ Normand’s Custom Rollcages. “Art Gravatt from Little Arts Race Cars donated several weekends to come up to thrash, fit the cage, add more bars, and weld it all up.”

Additionally, SPA Technique and Jason Digby of Mag’s Fab Worx donated the 20-pound liquid fire suppression system – the same kit that fellow racer and inferno survivor Lyle Barnett runs. Delaware Chassis Works donated a complete set of Stroud Safety equipment, and ISP Safety donated the driver and passenger head containment assemblies.

For the Corvette’s powerplant, assembled by Fulton Competition Race Engines, Dart Machinery donated the engine block while Wiseco donated the pistons and K1 Technologies donated both the crankshaft and connecting rods. John Bewley at FullProof Performance sent the custom cam, and Frankenstein Engine Dynamics sent the custom-ported Brodix BR3 LS-series cylinder heads. Jesel rocker arms, Trend pushrods, and valve covers from Jared Thompson at Thompson Motorsports completed the bullet.

Additional donations included a torque converter from Performance Torque Converters (PTC), a complete fuel system from Aeromotive, brakes from Baer, coilovers and suspension components from RideTech, 15-gallon water tank from Chiseled Performance, stainless headers and billet driveshaft couplers from Hinson Motorsports, stainless exhaust system fabricated by Jimmy Boykin at Columbus Custom Exhaust, GT2 rear diffuser from Breathless Performance, and a set of Nitto Tire-wrapped Weld RT-S wheels from JEGS. Last but certainly not least, ARP Fasteners supplied the requisite engine and chassis hardware.

It truly was a group effort to get Parker going again, as Diversified Painting in Poulan, Georgia sprayed the Corvette with its eye-catching red hue and Matt Inscho took the time to build the rear sheet metal divider in the car.

Parker used his experience as a former-chassis builder to cut out the hood for a perfect fit, calculated how to block off the wheels, and more. He also designed the ram air system, and punched over 100 louvers in the belly pan (to allow any trapped air to escape) using a louver press donated by Mittler Bros. Machine & Tool. “Even though I’m blind, I still have my skillset and can share my knowledge,” added Parker of how he was happy to direct and teach when his input was needed.

Parker sent the C6 down to Joey Martin Race Cars in Florida for assembly. There, Mark Dalquist from Throttle’s Performance flew all the way from North Dakota on his own dime and time to wire the car using a custom wiring harness kit donated by PSI Conversion, and a custom switch panel provided by Speedwire Systems. Joey Martin also fabricated the belly pan and handled the sheet metal work for the Corvette, then plumbed the car with hoses and fittings from Race Part Solutions.

Next, Chris Brewer at Brewer Speed and Racing offered up his dyno for Parker to use and also changed out the torque converter as needed. James Short from ShorTuning flew in to tune the Corvette with its nitrous oxide system courtesy of Steve Johnson’s Induction Solutions, and, finally, Parker was ready.

“So many people have donated their time, in addition to parts, and I am so incredibly blessed. I sincerely appreciate every person that has believed in me, supported me, and has helped me in the past eight years,” said Parker, immeasurably grateful for the outpouring of assistance he’s received from his peers and from the racing community. “A huge thank you goes out to my financial sponsors including Strutmasters, Harbin’s Mechanical Services, PROMAXX Performance Products, Team 7 Racing, Wanda and Shelby Amos, and Marty Flournoy from Flournoy and Calhoun Realty.”

Of course, all of the hard work would have been for naught if it weren’t for the custom auditory guidance system designed and developed by longtime friend Patrick Johnson who also happens to be an electronic engineer at Boeing Phantom Works.

Using advanced-grade GPS, Johnson is able to plot the centerline of Parker’s course and determine where the car is supposed to be throughout the run. The system then provides auditory feedback to direct Parker where to go – left, right, or straight – as well as give him direction on where the finish line is and when/where he needs to pull the ‘chutes and finally, to stop, all through the use of multiple sensors and gyroscopes.

So much of Parker’s Corvette is unique, as traditional systems needed to be adapted and configured to accommodate his blindness. To safely utilize the auditory guidance system, Parker knew he would need to be smooth in his steering corrections and designed an ingenious system to do so. “I added a Howe Racing steering quickener box that I turned around backwards to make the steering ratios slower,” explained the resourceful man of his clever solution. “I also designed it so that the car has dual steering wheels with a chain between the two columns.”

It took two and a half years from start to finish, but it was well worth the wait for Parker to be able to chase his goal.

The last five months leading up to his big debut was actually a bit of a surprisingly surreal whirlwind, though, as Parker received a call from the Emmy-winning series, Jay Leno’s Garage, inviting him to be a part of an upcoming episode. “It was a mad thrash to get everything finished in time for the ECTA event,” laughed Parker whose friends and family practically moved mountains to ensure he could make the deadline.

Together with his Tragedy to Triumph Racing crew, including crew chief Jimmy Boykin, Corvette specialist Jason White of RecMech Motorsports, Boeing mechanic and engineer Jeff Pope, wiring specialist Mark Dalquist, Scott Clark from RealTuners.com working remotely with James Short, and team photographer Rick Head who is also a multi-time 200 mph club member at Bonneville, Parker headed west for the ECTA 1.5-mile Spaceport America Invitational event at Spaceport America in Sierra County, New Mexico in February of 2020. And, in addition to her unwavering support and understanding throughout the entire build process, Parker’s fiancée, Jennifer Stegall, organized the team’s logistics, hospitality, and branding for the adventure.

On the way, though, with a list of final checks and adjustments still left to do on the racecar, the team was invited to spend a day working in the ultra-clean facilities at Western Tech in El Paso, Texas. There, Parker was able to speak with groups of students about his inspirational story, as well as his goals in life and in racing. The crew was able to knock out the remaining task list with the help of Western Tech’s students and instructors and continued on to New Mexico.

Having finally arrived at his destination, and while riding an adrenaline high unlike any other he’d ever experienced, Parker made his first pass – but it wasn’t what he had expected. “The guidance system needed a little refinement, so Patrick [Johnson] spent four hours reprogramming it and we were on the runway at 2:30AM practicing,” shared Parker. Fortunately, the guys were able to get the issues resolved and got down to work the next day.

On his first full pass, Parker set a record with Steve Strupp, owner of the ECTA, along for the ride in the passenger seat. Going 153.8 mph, Parker became the fastest blind man in America, and the fastest blind man in the world to race without human assistance. Due to the unforgiving desert winds, additional runs were not possible as conditions had been deemed unsafe to do so.

“Over a mile and a half, and even with a 22-mph crosswind, I did not veer even a total of five feet off the centerline – and there’s still so much more left in it!” Parker said, rightfully proud of what he and his group had accomplished. “It was an absolute blessing to have my team get everything finished, get everything there, and get a record. On behalf of my Tragedy to Triumph Racing team, thanks to ECTA for hosting, and to Chris Lopez and the entire Spaceport America staff for their hospitality and support throughout the weekend.”

Now, Parker wants to become the world’s fastest blind man – a title currently held by Englishman Mike Newman, six-time Guinness World Record holder.

Based on what he’s done so far, going 210 mph is certainly possible for Parker. He’ll have to wait, though, as the Covid-19 pandemic has forced the unexpected shut down of all racing programs and Parker’s momentum has come to a screeching halt. To finally get everything going only to be crushed by the coronavirus has been tough for Parker, but he hasn’t let the delay dampen his spirits.

“It might be possible to try again at the end of April, if I can raise the money, but realistically it will probably to wait until the fall,” noted Parker, who will have to rent a facility in order to achieve the two-way average (with runs within one hour of each other) as required by the Guinness record. “I’m still selling pens to raise money, and am working to get sponsors to take donations to help with the facility rental so we can make the record a reality. The car is also available if someone wants it at PRI or SEMA this year… hint hint!”

However, despite his tremendous success, Parker still has plenty of bad days. “I try to keep to myself, as I feel I did this to myself having chosen to be a racer. I tell people not to feel sorry for me – feel sorry for the kids with cancer that lose their eyesight, the ones born without eyes, or the kids that never get to drive,” said Parker, as humble as the day is long. “I want my projects to inspire parents of blind children to let their kids explore the world. They can have dreams just like sighted kids and overcome challenges. I want our returning soldiers to know they can still enjoy their passions, even if they come home without arms, without legs, or without sight. I want society to know we are not helpless. With a little support and some thinking outside the box, we can fulfill our dreams. And, most importantly, for everyone to live by my motto that ‘you can make excuses, or you can make it happen.’”

Just eight years after what could have easily been a fatal accident, Parker has found a new purpose in life. A backyard build with a backyard budget has produced a world-class car and an absolutely legendary message of grit, determination, and true triumph. Having worked so hard, and so relentlessly, to achieve a goal that many said was impossible is truly inspiring; Parker’s is, perhaps, one of the greatest untold comeback stories in all of auto racing history.

For more information about Parker and his story, please like “Tragedy to Triumph Racing”and “The Blind Machinist”on Facebook, or visit TheBlindMachinist.com to purchase a pen and support Parker’s goal of becoming the World’s Fastest Blind Man.

On the side of Tim Slavens’ trailer, there’s a small sign that everyone on the crew passes frequently. The sign is actually a game called the “Blame Game,” and the rules are actually quite simply. You screw up, you get a checkmark.

There’s a spot for Slavens, as well as Mark “Tydo” Werdehausen, who has raced with his longtime friend for more than 25 years. Tuner Joe Oplawski isn’t safe from the “Blame Game,” either, and they’ve also got a spot reserved for Mark Menscer, who has played a pivotal part in Slavens’ recent success.

[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #154, the Outlaw Issue, in March of 2020.]

Lastly, there’s a spot for a crew member and if it’s a brand-new addition to the team, well, they already have an uphill climb. “If it’s a new guy, he starts with a check,” Werdehausen says with a laugh.

It’s also a list that helps keep the mood light. Most importantly, the light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek game serves as a reminder of how the team operates.

Slavens is the driver of the famed steel-bodied Radial vs. the World Camaro owned by Matt and Anita Zimmerman, and Mark Michael, while Oplawski and Werdehausen share tuning duties on one of the last remaining stock-body cars racing in the ultra-quick radial class.

But in the time they’ve all worked together, nothing has ever been in disarray. Sure, the team has struggled from time to time – including a stretch this season that included a rough outing at Lights Out 11 – but egos have never gotten in the way.

The “Blame Game” has worked because, simply put, there’s never been any blame to go around.

“Everybody in our camp puts their ego aside,” Slavens says. “It’s OK to make mistakes. Mark and Joe play off each other very, very well and the reality of it is, I typically just let go of the button and break the thing. If we tear something up, one, ‘Why did we tear it up?’ We need to know why so we don’t make that mistake again. But two, if we tear it up, we have the ability to learn and move forward and advance the program from it.”

Adds Oplawski: “I think it’s ultimately a lack of ego on everyone’s part. We just want to make everybody happy and that’s what has helped with these guys. It’s the common goal of going fast and doing well, and it’s a team effort. It’s absolutely a family type of feel. It’s been pretty bitchin’ and there’s no two ways about it.”

Before Slavens-Mania took over the radial world a year ago – a stretch that briefly included the Wal-Mart manager holding the RvW world record with a monumental blast of 3.621 seconds at 217.74 mph – the Marshfield, Missouri, native was content destroying opponents at his home track, Ozark Raceway Park.

He had success with an Outlaw 10.5 nitrous car, but sold all his stuff when turbocharged cars started to take over the class.

That’s when he met with Michael and the Zimmermans, who offered Slavens the opportunity to race the Camaro. At that time, he raced Pro Street around his hometown and then Outlaw 10.5 with a twin-turbo combination, and Slavens had made a name for himself locally.

He won back-to-back championships, a variety of other local events and Slavens still holds the track records at Ozark in Pro Street (182.11 mph, set in 2014) and Outlaw 10.5 (4.228 at 189.55, set in 2015). It was a pretty good life, but Slavens – and the team owners – were ready to step up the program and go RvW racing.

Mark “Tydo” Werdehausen

“It was kind of a collective agreement that to be able to compete at a level that we wanted to compete at, we were going to have to step up the program obviously,” Slavens says. “We had some decent success but that was back when, this sounds funny, when a solid 10.5 car was running 4.50s.”

The 4.20s soon became the 4.10s with the twin-turbo combination and then the conversation soon moved to, “Think we can make a 3-second run?” It seemed unfathomable just a season or two before, but the pieces started to come together.

Slavens was initially skeptical about putting on radials because, quite frankly, it didn’t work at first. “We had tried it with my car, my old Outlaw 10.5 car, with zero success,” Slavens admits. “We just didn’t have a support mechanism to be able to go from a slick to a radial and be smart enough to run it.”

The support mechanism turned into better resources thanks to the car owners, and more resources soon turned into a guy like Oplawski coming on board. The team also started working with Menscer and his Menscer Motorsports shocks and struts, a move Slavens called pivotal for the team’s success.

It was the latest in a series of turning points, one that led to the team’s first 3-second run. By 2017, he was into the 3.80s, enjoying some mild success in the RvW ranks.

“For us, it was just huge to get into the 3s and start trying to chip away at it,” says Oplawski, who started working with the team at the start of the 2017 season. “That was pretty remarkable at the time.”

It’s only gotten more incredible since then, with the final straw being the Neal Chance Racing Converter they put into the car before the 2019 season. From there, it was like the car was running with a rocket launcher.

After going to the semifinals at Lights Out 9 – along with some wins at smaller races – Slavens was after a big 2019, but not one where he was expecting to become a folk hero of sorts for the class. In just a few runs, he was set to become the lifeline of the soul of Radial vs. the World racing.

“It’s the ‘No Mod.’ It’s very cool, very humbling,” Oplawski says.

Says Slavens: “It’s really unbelievable.”

The test run in Bradenton sent the first shockwave through the radial racing community. Making a test hit before the U.S. Street Nationals in January of 2019, Slavens obliterated his career-best, launching all the way into the 3.60s with a massive 3.643 at 214.79. Just like that – about as quickly as Slavens went from start to finish in emphatic fashion – cult hero status had arrived.

Fans now show up with pictures of their ’69 Camaro sitting in the garage or a different car from that era, explaining what that means to see Slavens rocketing down the eighth-mile in a steel-bodied Camaro.

That he’s one of the last remaining in that style adds to the lore, creating a mystique that is slowing fading with the immersion of Pro Mod-style cars in RvW. It’s a natural progression in a class and a sport hell-bent on technology and always going quicker, but Slavens – at least as recently as a year ago – was surviving with old school.

He’s not doing it to make a point, but Slavens will admit it is inspiring to see how much the fans have rallied around his team.

“It’s pretty humbling to be honest with you, and it’s probably not unlike many of us,” Slavens says. “We go to the racetrack and we see a Fox-body Mustang, or a fourth-gen Camaro, or our ‘69 Camaro going down the racetrack. All of us, almost, have owned some of those in our lifetime. So it’s easier for people to relate to those kinds of cars and be able to support that than it is the Pro Mod cars. So the people, the support is phenomenal. It’s unbelievable all the people that like the factory-style car. They can relate to it and I get where they’re coming from. ‘I grew up that way,’ that kind of thing.”

“There’s just what, three or four of us left with a stock-style car,” Slavens continues. “So I know (Mark Woodruff) and I have had that conversation about we’re carrying the torch. So we’re still going out there every time with the intent to let them know we’re still around.”

Which leads into one of the greatest runs of all time in RvW racing and it just so happens it came on the biggest stage, Lights Out 10.

With conditions nearly perfect, Slavens uncorked a run that will be played and replayed for years, going 3.621 at 217.74 in front of a huge Thursday night crowd in Valdosta. It eclipsed Mark Micke’s previous record, and though the record didn’t last the weekend – with drivers dipping into the 3.50s by the end of it – it was unquestionably the run that had everyone talking.

Mention Lights Out 10 and Slavens’ run is usually the first thing – and second, at worst – that is mentioned. “I’ll be perfectly honest. I never dreamed or had an idea that I could possibly compete at this level,” Slavens says.

It’s that humble approach that has made this all so enjoyable. For Werdehausen, it’s a throwback to when he and Slavens first started racing together. When the adulation comes and the fans are showering them with praise, it instantly sends Werdehausen back to the first days of racing with Slavens’ nitrous Camaro in Outlaw 10.5.

“Whenthey come to our pits or come over and talk to us, they like the fact that it’s a real car, they can relate to it. We’ve been those same people. We’d go to a track and, this is way back, they were real cars and this and that,” Werdehausen says.

“Just being able to connect with those kinds of people kind of brings us back down from the clouds to a more humbled level of this is where we came from, those kinds of people in the cars and this and that,” Werdehausen adds. “It’s just crazy to think about what we used to race and what we have the ability to race with now.”

What Slavens and his team race with now is comprised of everything they can think of to keep up with the high-tech, lightweight Pro Mods in the class. If the Pro Mod cars are Ivan Drago, taking full advantage of the body styles and technological advances, Slavens is Rocky, training in the snow and hopeful that old school equals an underdog victory.

But it’s not solely the little-guy status. The car owners provide him the necessary resources to get the most out of the Camaro, and the trio of main players work extremely well together.

Adding the Chance Racing Converter has paid major dividends, while the Emtron EFI system has been just as beneficial.

“Menscer gave us not just a good shock package, but Menscer is extremely sharp on a chassis setup itself,” Slavens says. “And it’s one of those deals I feel like these cars, especially the stock-wheelbase-type cars, they’re pretty fickle and pretty finicky. He came in and gave us some minor suggestions for chassis and then obviously shock settings, and made a whole different animal out of it.

“But the torque converter itself, also, it gave us a bigger tuning window to where we didn’t have to be just spot on every time we let go of the button. It had enough forgiveness to it that it will go down even a marginal setup kind of thing, versus where we just had to hit it right on the head before. We still firmly believe that the torque converter was the missing link, so to speak. Once it was in there, the numbers started coming together kind of thing.

“And then when Joe came on board, we converted over to the Emtron and from that point forward, we’ve been able and been fortunate enough to be able to keep him on board.”

There’s always the thought that too many intelligent minds working together can cause chaos. If one mind is the driver, three brains may be one too much for success and, depending on who you ask, it could be two too many. But three has always been the perfect number for this group.

Following the record-setting performance in Valdosta, Slavens went to the semifinals at Lights Out for the second straight year in 2019, following that up with a runner-up showing to Stevie “Fast” Jackson at No Mercy later in the season.

It firmly established Slavens as a major, consistent player in undoubtedly one of the most competitive classes in the entire sport. It was also clear what was making it work.

“Mark and Joe, it’s fun to watch them on the laptop, in the trailer, bouncing ideas off each other,” Slavens says. “You got two sets of eyes looking at the data. They play off each other very, very well, and it’s been a huge strength to the program to have both of them on board.”

Slavens says it with the idea that he’s very much interested in getting the full viewpoint from each of them. The more ideas, the more information, the better off everyone will be.

Slavens claimed runner-up honors at No Mercy last fall.

But it’s all meaningless if Oplawski and Werdehausen don’t mesh. Werdehausen has worked on Slavens’ cars for decades, establishing a trust and a friendship that has been there for ages. Oplawski jumping into that mix with both feet just a few years ago could have easily disrupted that flow.

Instead, it was like he was meant to be there. He’s been the final link to help get Slavens from 4.00s and high 3.90s to a record-breaking showstopper in a steel-bodied car. Combined, it’s been a pleasure, no matter the hardships they’ve suffered – and that’s very much been the case in 2020.

“Nobody’s pointing any fingers like, ‘Why can’t you figure this out?’ It’s, ‘Let’s get this figured out.’ We always try to keep that whole team thing going on,” Werdehausen says. “We win as a team, we struggle as a team, and we lose as a team. I’ve made mistakes before, Joe’s made mistakes before, Tim’s made mistakes before, but we don’t hang on to those, we just kind of learn from those mistakes. We leave our egos at the door and, when we do screw up, it’s like, ‘OK, we don’t want to do this again.’ We don’t hate anybody for a week or not talk to anybody for a week.

“Plus, me and Joe tend to think a lot alike, and then that helps a lot. I’ll go back, look at the data and go, ‘I think we need to do this,’ or, ‘I think we need to do that.’ And then he’ll come and look at it and go, ‘Well, I think we need to do this and we need to do that,’ and nine times out of 10, we’re thinking the exact same. It makes it easy when we’re not bumping heads.”

It’s also much easier to maintain good vibes within a team when things are going well, much like they had been for the last couple season. The team made constant improvements, became a bonafide contender in RvW and broke records. Things were good and Slavens was closing in on his first victory at a marquee RvW event.

But drag racing isn’t a continual ascent sport. They’ve taken 10 steps forward, which means Slavens and his team may have to take a few back to move forward again. And right now, there’s no denying they’re in a valley.

Slavens traces the struggles back to crashing into the wall in Orlando late last year. Since then, the team has been confounded, running into one problem after another. It culminated at Lights Out 11 – the site of so much glory just a year ago. This time, it was just massive disappointment, as Slavens couldn’t make one full run, qualifying 32nd before easily being dispatched by Jackson, who cruised to the victory.

They were far too deep into it to make radical changes on-site, but Werdehausen and Oplawski are confident they’ve got a remedy.

“It’s been very trying,” Oplawski says. “Ultimately, you have to know it’s not any one person’s doing. You can’t point the finger. Obviously something has happened, but it worked before and it will work again. It’s just a piece of the puzzle we’re missing. We’re fortunate to have owners that understand that as well. They know there’s highs and lows and they know we’ll get through it – hopefully sooner than later.”

Adds Werdehausen: “We’re at the point now where we both agree that we need to slow down to be able to go faster. But nobody’s pointing fingers. We know we have the car, and we know we have the people to do it.”

Ultimately, it comes down to Slavens. If he isn’t buying in, none of it works. That, however, has never been in question.

“Our relationship has been strong for way beyond this car and then I’m constantly learning,” Slavens says. “I still make plenty of mistakes, but it’s kind of one of those things, if Joe and Mark see something in the data that I have done that’s not optimizing the program, we talk about it. I can take criticism. It’s not going to be the first time I was told I was doing something wrong. Everybody’s got that open mind and if one of us is missing the mark, then tell us we’re missing the mark. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t know why or how we would want to change that part of the program in any shape, manner, or form.”

The only problem – and everyone involved knows it – is that things don’t slow down in RvW. Jackson seemingly made 100 runs in the 3.50s in Valdosta and he’s talking as though things are going to be even quicker at Sweet 16 3.0. That could mean even lower 3.50s or even 3.40s, and that’s somewhere Slavens knows he can’t get to.

Oplawski joked if they reach the 3.50s, it “might be a 3.59 with a 9” and even then it would have to be the perfect conditions. That’s just the nature of running a stock-body car in a class where that’s nowhere near the norm anymore.

It also begs the question: Can old-school still be successful in the undoubtedly new-school RvW?

“It’s a continual thing we have to look at,” Slavens says. “As far as going deep in the rounds, it will be a struggle to hang with them from that perspective. But we don’t want to lose focus on what we’re doing now. We still have goals that we want to achieve.”

That might include a run in the 3.50s, but it’s not the priority. The main objective is winning a Lights Out, a No Mercy, a Sweet 16 or a Shakedown race – a major event stocked with the best in Radial vs. the World.

Werdehausen admitted it will take consistency and luck, but that’s not much different than the recipe for success for any driver at any level of racing. Minus the moonshot at Lights Out last year, Slavens has built his program on consistency and making it down the track. The recent problems have plagued that approach, but everyone involved is confident – or at least optimistic – they can return to that level.

The trio will test before Sweet 16, having taken a step back and narrowed down what they believe is the problem.

“I’m going to be optimistic and tell you that I think that the wizards, as I call them, will figure it out again and that we’ll at least be competitive comes Sweet 16,” says Slavens, referring to Oplawski and Werdehausen. “So I think we feel fairly good about our findings and we’re anxious to go test and see if we can actually put it on rubber again.”

Is there a chance to put together another magical weekend and grab a victory? They all remain unrelenting, even as their car becomes a rarity in the class. Of course, this team wouldn’t have it any other way. “I think there’s still a place for the car and we’re up for the challenge, regardless,” Oplawski says.

There may be a time and place – and it may be in the not-too-distant future – where Slavens will have to weigh the options with Michael and the Zimmerman family. Maybe it makes more sense to jump to Pro 275, run in the 3.70s and 3.80s and try to win something major in a class that is gaining steam at an impressive rate.

But Slavens is not at that point yet and he’s thankful for the constant dedicated support from the team owners. He’ll look at that option when and if the time comes, but Slavens is steadfast in the belief it doesn’t have to be right now.

All three are driven by the hope of winning with the steel-bodied Camaro in RvW, knowing the celebration that would follow. With that in mind, the journey still remains very much worth it.

“I’ve imagined a lot of stuff and I don’t know that I can put into words what it would mean. I mean, it would be huge,” Werdehausen says. “We’ve had some success, we went to Milan last summer to a race and we won that deal, but it wasn’t like what winning one of the big races would be. To win against 50 or 60 other cars, that would be really meaningful.”

Photographs by John Fore III, James Sisk and Chris Sears

When Jeg Coughlin Jr. clinched his fourth Pro Stock championship with a victory in the fall of 2008 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, his most memorable reward was a thrilling flight with the United States Air Force Thunderbirds Air Demonstration Squadron.

“That was maybe the wildest thing I’ve ever done,” said Coughlin, who took the flight just two days after locking up the Pro Stock title. “Certainly, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and something most people can only dream of, but I must admit it was more than a little intimidating.

“When you see a fighter jet zoom by overhead, which happens every few minutes at the Vegas track with Nellis Air Force Base just across the way, it always makes you wonder what it would be like to be in the plane itself. It’s like, ‘Man I’d do anything to take that ride.’ But when the situation actually presents itself, it’s a different story.”

Coughlin’s special day was orchestrated by Lt. Col. Brian “Bear” Lihani (USAF, Ret.), a longtime drag racing friend who for more than 20 years handled Air Defense Operations at NORAD.

“Our buddy Bear presented us with the opportunity earlier in the year and my initial reaction was, ‘Heck yeah, I’ll do that.'” Coughlin said. “About two months later I received a host of paperwork where you are basically signing your life away. That’s when reality sets in that this isn’t going to be without risk. It’s not the same as an amusement park ride where 99.999% of the people get off without any issues.

“I put a lot of thought into it at that point. I mean, you know you’ll be flying with one of the best pilots in the world on a perfectly maintained airplane, but at the same time it’s a tad more risky than say a ride at Universal Studios. Ultimately, I couldn’t pass it up and I signed all the releases.”

With the stress of the championship occupying most of his thoughts, Coughlin didn’t spend much time worrying about the ‘what-if’s’ until the Vegas race was over and the championship was in hand.

“We celebrated a little bit Sunday night but knowing my flight was early Tuesday morning I had to quickly shift into the recommended preflight ritual they had suggested,” Coughlin said. “They want you to eat the right things, sufficiently hydrate and get a good night’s rest, as best as that can happen when you know you’re going for a ride with the Thunderbirds.

“We needed to be at Nellis at 0600 Tuesday morning and I can tell you the nerves hit me pretty hard when we pulled in the gates. There was no backing out at that point.”

Like other celebrities and select dignitaries who have flown with the world-renowned squadron, Coughlin had lots of preflight meetings and briefings to prepare him for the experience ahead.

Jeg Coughlin and Major Tony “Split” Mulhare of the USAF Thunderbirds

“The first stop was with an Air Force doctor who checked me out physically and had me sign my life away a few more times,” Coughlin said. “I then met with the incredible pilot I was paired with, Major Tony ‘Split’ Mulhare, who took me through the flight plan and what we were going to attempt. As you might expect, he was a great guy, very professional and confident. He eased my concerns.

“You are then outfitted with a flight suit/G-suit and you practice the breathing techniques you need when the jet is pulling Gs. That gets you worried again. I didn’t want to be the guy that passed out or got sick but you just don’t know how you’ll handle it. There’s no way to prepare for those kind of G-forces.”

After a last-minute bathroom break and some more fluid intake, it was time to roll and the full military precision of the entire Thunderbirds flight crew was soon on full display.

“Everything they do is perfect,” Coughlin said. “Every movement is choreographed to the inch and you feel really special walking out to the taxiway with all those professionals doing their jobs so precisely. Of course, Tony just had this little stick ladder to climb into the cockpit and I had this big ol’ ladder but we were quickly strapped in and given a thumbs-up to go.

“The first thing I noticed as I was getting situated was how small the jet seemed. I mean, you could barely see the wingtips. You’re used to being in commercial planes where there’s lots of space but those fighter jets are built differently, for sure.”

In a flash, the plane was revved up and Major Mulhare pointed it to the runway.

“You get that final thumbs-up from the ground crew and you’re off,” Coughlin said. “Brandon Bernstein had flown with the Thunderbirds and he told me the pilot was likely to go straight up as soon as we were airborne. He said remember to look over my shoulder and watch the city of Las Vegas shrinking to the size where it could fit into a glass. He was right. It happened very quickly.

“We reached 10,000 feet in just a few seconds then leveled off and headed to the training grounds out in the desert. We did a full series of acrobatic maneuvers, smooth rollovers, eight-point rollovers, backflips, you name it. Then we got down on the deck, just a few feet off the ground, and buzzed this staged old pickup truck they had placed out there at 400-plus mph, blowing up dust the whole way.

“At one point we did the big G-pull where you just know they’re trying to get you to pass out or lose your lunch but the pressurized G-suit and the breathing exercises I’d learned kept me alert and conscious. We maxed out at 9.3 Gs. It was quite a deal.”

Burning up fuel, the duo were soon headed back to Nellis.

“On the way in ‘Split’ took me right over The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway upside down and made note of our championship, congratulating the team,” Coughlin said. “It was a very cool moment. In hindsight, I probably got myself too worked up ahead of time and didn’t enjoy everything as much as I could have. Even so, it was a very special day, something I’ll never forget.

“When we landed we taxied right into a hanger and they had set up our JEGS.com racecar right next to the lead Thunderbird jet and I think that might have been the most patriotic moment of my lifetime. It was incredible. The whole thing was incredible.”

America’s Grand Reopening is just around the corner. That means we’ll be drag racing again! The list below provides the status of many of drag racing’s leading companies. Most are open for business and shipping NOW. Make sure your car is ready to hit the track and place an order with one of these fine companies today. Tell them DI sent you!

Last updated: 4/11/20
List your business or revise your listing HERE

A-1 speed and Custom
Fully open – business as usual
10 percent off to first responders/medical workers
www.a1speedandcustom.com | 540-371-9926

Advanced Fuel Dynamics
Fully open – business as usual
15% off sitewide Stay at Home and Work on Your Car event
Ship times 1-2 business days to ship, 2-3 days in transit (US Orders)
www.advancedfueldynamics.com

AEM Performance Electronics
Fully open – business as usual
We are open and manufacturing and shipping products. All non-essential workers are working remotely, so please be patient if you contact technical support by phone (310) 484-2322. For faster support email: gentech@aemelectronics.com and emstech@aemelectronics.com for programmable engine management system support.
www.aemelectronics.com

Beck Racing Engines
Fully open – business as usual
Coronavirus Special – FREE Shipping & 6 Pack of Toilet Paper
www.beckracingengines.com | Best to call (602) 477-1700

Bell Signs
Fully open – business as usual
www.bellsignsnj.com | 732.738.0010

C&J Auto Accessories LLC
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
Brava Racing Oil 10W40 or 20W50 1qt $8.00
(407) 255-4931

Chassis Engineering
Fully open – business as usual – Open 9am – 5pm EST
April Sale on most C/E product line. Starts April 11, 2020
www.chassisengineering.com | 800-327-9402

The Chassis Shop
Fully open – business as usual
Sign up for our E-newsletters for special offers and announcements
www.chassisshop.com | 800-530-9494

Contender Performance Products / Shifnoid
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
Phones 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM – Shipping schedule normal
www.contenderperformance.com | 800-279-3724

Dart Machinery
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
Mon-Fri 8:00am-6:00pm – Reduced prepaid freight
www.dartheads.com | (248) 362-1188

Diamond Pistons
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
Mon- Fri 8:00am-5:00pm – Free Shipping
Www.diamondracing.net

Fall Advertising
Fully open – business as usual
619 742 9977

Fastfish Motorsports
Fully open – business as usual
www.fastfishmotorsports.com | (352) 799-4527

Frankenstein Engine Dynamics
Fully open – business as usual
817-556-2434

FTI Performance
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
FTI Tax Time Sale: 25%-35% off triple clutch converters; 10% off ANY lock up converters. Hurry! The Sale ends 4/17. FTI is ready to provide quality customer service and superb products!
866-726-8358

FuelTech USA
Fully open – business as usual
17th Anniversary Sale! Up to $450 OFF + FREE SHIPPING
www.fueltech.net

Gear Vendors Overdrive’s
Fully open – business as usual
www.gearvendors.com | 800-999-9555

Holeshot Wheels
Not open to the public but in full production
5% discount-mention DI
www.holeshotwheels.com | 1-800-372-4533 (Monday-Friday 8-4:30pm)

Hussey Performance, LLC
Fully open – business as usual
(724) 318-8292

JE Pistons
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
Mon-Fri 6:00am- 5:00pm PST closed Fridays
www.JEPistons.com | (714)-898-9763

Jerry Bickel Race Cars
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
www.jerrybickel.com | 636 356-4727

Jesel, Inc.
Open, taking orders, but utilizing split shifts in manufacturing (Sales and tech lines available 730a to 430p)
732-901-1800

Ken’s Kustom Chassis
Fully open – business as usual
Free Shipping on all Nitrous Express kits
www.kenskustomchassis.com

Kinsler Fuel Injection
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
20% off discount code at kinsler.com e-commerce store for complete line of Monster Mesh fuel filters to the Drag Illustrated racing family till April 30th Use the code ‘wes’ at check out
We ship most orders the same day.
www.kinlser.com | 248-362-1145

Line2Line Coatings
Fully open but changing conditions may affect processing and turn-around time
www.line2linecoatings.com

Littlefield Blowers
Fully open – business as usual
1/2 off “basic labor” charges with any service/repair. $200 off all new blower orders.
www.LittlefieldBlowers.com | 714-992-9292

M&M Transmission
Fully open – business as usual
We are offering 10% off on shifters and pit coolers and 12% off on all converter dump valves
573-636-4136 or www.mandmtransmission.com

MAVTV Motorsports Company
Fully open – business as usual
Super deals on national tv ads! Extended payment terms through MAVTV.
serwin@mavtv.com

Maxima Racing Oils
Fully open – business as usual
www.maximausa.com | 619-449-5000

McLeod Racing
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
Head over to Summit Racing for a discount on all things McLeod. Hurry! The sale ends 4/11
714-630-2764 – Open 7 am to 4 pm PST

Menscer Motorsports LLC
Open and building product. Visitors by appt. Only (We are not accepting unscheduled walk ins. All set up and on-site work is by appointment only. )
Sale starting Tuesday 4/14 free shipping on all orders over $100 and various items discounted. Check our Facebook page for details and updates
www.menscermotorsports.com | (910) 491-2798

Mothers Polishes-Waxes-Cleaners
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
25% off, plus free shipping on orders over $49. Offer valid only to the contiguous 48 States.
www.mothers.com

Nitrous Outlet
Not allowing walk-ins. Other than that Business as usual. (Our showroom is closed to walk-in traffic. Our sales team and marketing team are working from the comforts of home. Warehouse, fabrication, and R&D are still operating as usual. Currently 1 to 2 day ship time.)
The Nitrous Outlet Stimulus Plan… 10% off using Discount code STIM10
For all you racers waiting for the tracks to open up… Now is the perfect time to take advantage of the Nitrous Outlet Bottle trade-in program. Send your old bottles in for a $100 credit towards a new one. (Bottle for Bottle). It’s also a great time to send your intakes in to be plumbed with a new direct port!
www.nitrousoutlet.com | 254-848-4300

NW RADIO
Fully open – business as usual
We are stocked and ready to ship orders
NWRADIO.US | 281-880-4724

OMF Performance Products, Inc.
Fully open – business as usual. We ask that our customers make an appointment before coming in, and call when they arrive so a representative can meet them outside.
www.OMFperformance.com | 951-354-8272

Philadelphia Racing Products
Closed and not taking orders (We are open and close to business as usual, however, customers are not allowed in the building at this time and we are working in shifts to lessen the number of people together at one time.)
we are having a spring sale for 10% off and free shipping with Promo code Spring2020
PRPracingproducts.com

Portatree Timing Systems
Fully open – business as usual
www.portatree.com

Pro Systems Racing Carburetors
Fully open – business as usual
www.prosystemsracing.com

Pro-werks
Fully open – business as usual. Fully operational, with normal business hours.
Sign up for our E-newsletter for special promotions and announcements
www.pro-werks.com | (231) 873-9252

Race Part Solutions
Fully open – business as usual
Save 10% on your online order by typing “Corona” in the promotion box at checkout! Stay safe and strong America!!!
Racepartsolutions.com | (561) 375-6277

RaceQuip
Fully open but following government guidelines with most working from home
Racequip.com

RET Racing Engine Technologies
Fully open – business as usual (We are also open Saturday 9:00 am to 4:00 pm EST)
(231) 740-5862

S&W Race Cars / S&W Performance Group
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
10% Off Motor Plate Combo Kits
www.swracecars.com

Screamingchicken.com
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
We recommend going with ground shipping currently since UPS isn’t guaranteeing express shipping
www.screamingchicken.com (817) 751-9030

Specialty Fasteners
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
Specialty-fasteners.com

Steve’s Fast Fuel
Fully open – business as usual
(973) 454-0663

Total Seal
Fully open – business as usual
20% off through the end of April
(800) 847-2753

Transmission Specialties
Open Tuesday and Thursdays 7:30 am – 4:00 pm
www.tsirace.com

Trend Performance
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
www.trendperform.com | ‭(586) 447-0400‬ Mon-Fri 8:00am-5:00pm

Turbos Direct
Fully open – business as usual
(623) 376 2562

Wiseco Pistons
Physical location/store closed but taking orders by phone or online
Mon-Fri 8:00am-5:00pm
www.wiseco.com

Adjustments to the NHRA drag racing schedule yielded a big present for Super Comp dragster pilot Paige Coughlin, who earned the right to represent Division 3 at the next JEGS Allstars event, scheduled July 9-11 at Route 66 Dragway near Chicago.

Coughlin, the daughter of three-time Pro Mod champion Troy Coughlin and granddaughter of Hall of Fame member Jeg Coughlin Sr., turned in an impressive streak of late-round finishes last season to earn the most points in her class in the North Central Division. With the Covid-19 pandemic erasing any early-season chances for anyone to make gains on her comfortable 21-point lead, Paige secured her place.

“It’s an amazing opportunity for me to represent Division 3 at this year’s JEGS Allstars,” Paige said. “Having our family business as the title sponsor of the event and knowing the history my dad, uncles and brother have had in the past makes it really special for me to be involved. I’m going to do everything I can to help our division win the event.

“I had a very consistent racecar last year and we were able to go deep at just about every race. It’s a real credit to my crew chief Justin Beaver, as well as Tony Collier, Greg Cody and everyone else from Team JEGS, who helped put this car together every weekend.”

Paige will certainly be in elite company at the JEGS Allstars event, which takes place during the annual Route 66 NHRA Nationals. To be invited, participants must lead the points in one of 10 different Sportsman categories in each of the NHRA’s seven geographic regions. In all, close to 100 racers will be involved.

She will compete for a portion of the $124,000 purse both as an individual racer and as part of the Division 3 squad. If she wins the Super Comp trophy in the JEGS Allstar race, Paige would pocket $4,500. A runner-up result would be worth $2,000. If her team outscores all the others, she’d share part of a $20,000 prize. If she wins both the JEGS Allstars race and the Route 66 NHRA Nationals, she’d be awarded a double-up bonus from JEGS High Performance.

“You know you’re racing the absolute best of the best so every round will be intense,” Paige said. “I’m really excited. It’s just so cool to be involved, especially this early in my racing career. The support and love I get from my family made it happen, for sure.

“I just can’t wait to go racing again. I go and look at my poor racecar sitting in the shop and it just doesn’t feel right. It’s like ‘Why aren’t we out there winning rounds,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know.’ It’s going to feel so good to get back in the seat when all this is over. We were running so well before and I had such a blast last season. We’re more ready than we’ve ever been to start up again.”

After learning the ropes in the Junior Dragster class, Paige started racing Super Comp in 2017 when she was still in high school. Now a sophomore at Miami University of Ohio, Paige schedules her races around a busy college schedule as she studies public relations and communications.

Judy Franklin just wants to go the racetrack. It’s a place that’s increasingly become a second home for her over the last two decades. First, it was to cheer on her husband, two-time PDRA Pro Nitrous world champion Tommy Franklin, then their young daughters, Amber and Ashley, started racing. The Franklins then took over sole ownership of the PDRA, a move that was followed by purchasing Virginia Motorsports Park, just down I-95 from their home and offices in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #155, the Women of Power Issue, in April of 2020.]

But like nearly every other drag racer in America, Franklin won’t be going to the racetrack this weekend. Virginia’s governor specifically called out racetracks in his closure of nonessential businesses to fight the spread of COVID-19.

“I’m really upset because my maps thing says, ‘an hour and 34 minutes to Virginia Motorsports Park,’ but I’m sitting here knowing that I’m not going to be able to go to Virginia Motorsports Park this weekend,” Franklin says.

The global pandemic has also forced PDRA officials to postpone the season-opening East Coast Nationals presented by FuelTech at GALOT Motorsports Park, originally scheduled for April 2-4. The series will instead try to kick things off at the Mid-Atlantic Showdown presented by Modern Racing, May 7-9, at Virginia Motorsports Park.

Even though the coronavirus situation has drastically impacted several of the events the Franklins and their teams have worked so hard to plan and prepare for, Franklin remains optimistic.

“We’re very grateful to be a part of the racing world,” Franklin says. “We’re very thankful that God has put us where he has put us, obviously for a reason. We love drag racing, we love our drag racing family, and we’re super excited for what the 2020 season holds.”

One Friday afternoon in late March, DRAG ILLUSTRATED caught up with Franklin to talk about racing as a family, PDRA Jr. Dragster racing, improving the PDRA, and getting back in the driver’s seat.

You wear a lot of hats and fill several roles, between helping Tommy, Amber and Ashley with their racing and working with Tommy to run PDRA, VMP and two businesses outside of racing. Out of everything you do in racing, what is most rewarding for you?

The most rewarding part is being able to watch the girls race and accomplish what they’re setting out to accomplish. Amber just stepped into a big car. Watching her do her thing has been rewarding. She’s very into drag racing. Just watching her and Tommy communicate back and forth, it’s just awesome to watch your family do things well together. And it’s not always perfect. We’re not a perfect family by any means. There’s days at the track when somebody doesn’t qualify and emotions run high.

Ashley just stepped in Pro Jr. Dragster. We took her out testing a couple weeks ago for her birthday. Watching her get in the car and be excited and be ready and focused is also rewarding. It’s a whole new ballgame when you’re going from Top Jr. to Pro Jr. with the Pro tree. People don’t think that one second makes much difference, but the way the car reacts is a lot different and a second is a lot in drag racing.

Being able to be there and watch my kids love the sport so much and do well and listen and adapt to new things is just awesome as a parent.

The PDRA’s Jr. Dragster program is very competitive. How important do you think that is that Amber and Ashley are growing up racing in this series and learning the lessons that come with that?

In my personal opinion, our PDRA Jr. Dragsters are so competitive. They’re like the best of the best. I’m not taking away from any other Jrs. in the country, but our PDRA Jrs. are pretty awesome drag racers, and they have to be because it’s a very competitive class. It’s one of our most competitive classes in the PDRA.

There were times last year that Ashley didn’t qualify. Yes, it’s upsetting when they don’t qualify, but it’s also rewarding to watch them be up there cheering on their fellow competitors and getting excited for their friends when they’re winning.

You and Tommy and the PDRA team have taken various steps over the last few years to improve the PDRA program. What would you say is the biggest success to come out of the PDRA over the last few years?

We’re very grateful for everybody who’s worked for the PDRA in the past. We made some changes in 2019 and had Tyler Crossnoe come on with us full-time. Everybody knows Tyler is a young, energetic person who is going to go above and beyond, sometimes a little bit too much above and beyond. He never stops.

I think one of the biggest changes was the way we do testing on Thursday. We now have scheduled testing on Thursday, as opposed to everybody coming up whenever. That seemed to work out really well last year.

I think the change in the qualifying format, giving the pros two rounds of qualifying Friday night, was a success. Most people work on Fridays, so they don’t have time to be taking off work and getting to the racetrack at 12 o’clock. With us pushing two pro qualifiers on Friday night, I think that was a big hit.

Last year, we had a couple people go out and be our “street team” towards the end of the season, going out to the different areas where we were going to be racing and passing out flyers and just making sure everybody knew about the event that was coming up. I think that helped with attendance, and we plan to step that up even more this season.

You recently made your first pass down the track in quite some time. Is that a sign of what’s to come?

It’s been probably 17 years since I’ve been down the track racing myself, so I made a pass the other day. I’m thinking that once we start racing again, I might actually start racing Street E.T. nights at Virginia Motorsports Park. Not only will I be a cheerleader for Tommy, Amber and Ashley this year, I’m thinking about getting back into racing myself. We’ll see.

It started with a simple offer on social media.

It’s turned into a digital autograph overload for Ron Capps, who has been inundated with requests for autographs over social media.

He’s only taken the interactions further since then, making hundreds of calls to NAPA customers during the coronavirus public health crisis.

Fans haven’t been able to see him in more than a month, but Capps has done his best to continue to connect with fans almost any way he can.

“If you can send a note to someone and make them smile, or get to call people and hear their excitement, it’s pretty cool,” Capps said. “I’ve had fans send some different pictures, some older pictures throughout the years and that part’s been fun. You’re just trying to think of ways to help all these fans out.”

Capps has been among the most visible drag racers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, starting almost immediately after the NHRA Gatornationals were postponed a month ago.

With no race until at least June, Capps has managed to stay in the spotlight through a variety of platforms, including iRacing. He’s been one of the most visible drag racers on there, racing a little bit of everything and doing it as often as he can.

But Capps also hasn’t hesitated to pick up the phone, reaching out to NAPA customers and employees who likely would have already seen him by this point in the season.

It’s not in the pits with the expectation of watching Capps rocket down the track in an 11,000-horsepower nitro Funny Car, but it’s a touch that goes a long way in unprecedented times.

“I’ll call them – and it could be store owners or garage owners or whatever – and it’s been good to spend some time with them,” Capps said. “I had someone almost hang up on me because they thought it was a joke, but I’ve stayed busy with it. Everything is tough right now, but it’s neat to be part of a company like that.”

Capps has done his share as well, with acts like these demonstrating why the former Funny Car world champ has been so valuable to NAPA for more than a decade.

He praised the front line workers still helping people during this time, hoping a phone call or an autographed picture – digitally and socially distanced, of course – can provide an uplifting moment.

It’s carved out an impressive chunk of Capps’ free time, with the rest going into an uptick in virtual racing.

He’s been a proponent of it since he first started iRacing in 2008 and Capps has done almost every type during this down time. While there’s not a drag racing version – something Capps hopes will change – it’s been a benefit for him, and at the very least kept him sharp during this prolonged break.

“It’s definitely helped me,” Capps said. “I looked back at Richmond (in 2019, a race Capps won) and that pedal-fest I had with Robert (Hight), and it definitely helps in situations like that. You get out of the game and you’re worn out. It feels like you’re driving from the seat of your pants.

“I had no idea it would get to where it is today, but it’s been a great way for fans to interact.”

Capps, though, is ready to return to his Funny Car, which he hopes happens in June at the Gatornationals. After his hauler caught fire en route to preseason testing, the team was behind to open the year.

The break has given Capps’ team time to catch up, which has them revitalized for Gainesville part two. The veteran and 64-time event winner applauded NHRA for making the quick decision last month at the Gatornationals, but Capps is eager for in-person autographs, interactions and racing to resume.

“We’ll be ready to go,” Capps said. “We’re refreshed, caught up on everything after the fire put us so far behind, so we’re ready.”

When it comes to cars that make a lasting impression, few have ever impacted Gary Varney the way his 1985 Ford Thunderbird did, and to this day he’ll never forget the first time he ever laid eyes on the car. It all started back in 1996 when he and a buddy were at a race car auction in Indianapolis.

[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #155, the Women of Power Issue, in April of 2020.]

An older gentleman named Paul Brown, better known as “Racer Brown” noticed that Varney was buying a lot of Cleveland parts, so he approached Gary and told him that he had Cleveland stuff in great abundance. “He says to us, ‘I’ve got a garage full of Cleveland parts…stuff you wouldn’t believe, and I’ll make you guys a package deal,'” Varney remembers Brown saying.

Intrigued, Varney and his friend struck out to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to take a peek inside Racer Brown’s garage, arriving at roughly 3 o’clock in the morning. Mr. Brown greeted them warmly despite the obscene hour upon which they arrived. “He came walking out with a cane to meet us, a real nice fellow,” recalls Varney.

Varney was busy marveling at Brown’s Cleveland parts collection, when suddenly, in true barn-find fashion, he got a glimpse of a Bob Glidden-tribute Thunderbird sitting on jack stands, with a Ford Probe parked beside it. The Thunderbird was an identical replica of Glidden’s 1985 car, which featured the Chief Auto Parts/7-Eleven paint scheme with Motorcraft decals on the quarter panels.

Varney got goosebumps at the very sight of the car and immediately began asking questions. Turns out, the car was built by Tennessee’s Richard Boling Race Cars as a promotional piece for a Ford dealership located near Atlanta, where the car was actually on display in their showroom for several years throughout the mid-1980s, back when Glidden was setting the world on fire within the ranks of NHRA Pro Stock.

Varney wanted to buy the car so bad he couldn’t stand it, but to his dismay, Racer Brown told him the Thunderbird wasn’t for sale. Regardless, Varney continued gathering up armloads of Cleveland parts from Brown’s garage, and left him his number in case he was ever willing to part with the Glidden-clone T-bird.

Eventually, the phone indeed rang and it was the call Varney hoped he’d someday receive. Racer Brown told him he’d be willing to sell the Thunderbird, so Varney left his native Ohio and once again traveled to Missouri to pick up the car.

While the classy Thunderbird was a true showpiece at one time, especially during its years while parked on the showroom floor of the Ford dealership, time hadn’t been kind to the car, as the paint and Lexan had yellowed while sitting for so long. “I was tempted to race the car just like it was, but it really needed a new paint job,” Varney says. It was then he commissioned his friend, Terry Duris, who applied the beautiful design it currently has. The paint has held up beautifully, especially considering this was done 22 years ago.

For power, Varney relies on a highly modified 557ci Ford engine with Blue Thunder heads. It features a sheet metal tunnel ram intake with a pair of Dominator carbs. “It doesn’t have a real big cam in it, so it’s not a ‘spring killer,” Varney says. “We can put 300 runs on the engine and it’s real easy on parts.” The drivetrain is anchored by a 2-speed Powerglide transmission. The car also features a 9” Ford rear end, Strange axles and Goodyear tires mounted on Monocoque wheels.

He’s raced the car at many area tracks in Ohio, especially National Trail Raceway in Columbus, where he competed in the Super 32 series for quite a few years. He’s towed the car to many Ford events within a three-state area, and had collected probably 17 trophies alone from winning NMRA’s bracket category over the years.

Bryan Epps photo

Eventually, Varney became hooked on index racing, where his T-bird is deadly consistent in the 5.50 range. In fact, Varney kicked off 2020 with a victory in Bradenton, Florida, after winning the 5.50 index category during the popular U.S. Street Nationals. All total, he’s put the Thunderbird in the winner’s circle no less than 30 times.

Amazingly, among the biggest thrills ever for Varney didn’t even happen at the racetrack, but rather at his good friend Larry Morgan’s race shop. “I live and operate Geddex out of Etna, Ohio, which is probably 15 miles from Larry Morgan, whom I’ve known for many years,” Varney says. “Larry used to change tires on his Pro Stock every seven runs, and I’d get his old tires and probably make another 100 passes on them!”

“Well, one day I pulled up at Larry’s and I stepped out of my truck and bumped into someone. I said, ‘Oh, excuse me,’ and this guy turns around and it was none other than Bob Glidden in the flesh, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth!” laughs Varney, who was darn near speechless for a few seconds.

Morgan formally introduced the two and they had a good laugh and spent some time together. “He was an amazing man,” Varney says. “I said to him, ‘Bob, you wouldn’t believe how much money you’ve caused me to spend!'”

Gary proceeded to tell him about walking into Racer Brown’s garage, seeing the Thunderbird on jack stands, and eventually buying it. “Glidden laughed and says to me, ‘It happens to the best of us!'”

Varney readily admits he was a huge Glidden fan beginning in the 1970s when he was coming up through the ranks. “I never would have even dreamed that I would be able to look at the man, much less meet him and spend a little time with him,” he says.

It should come as no surprise that Varney has been a lifelong Ford guy, dating back to his teenage years. “My dad loved Fords, my first car was a Ford, so that’s where it came from.”

Varney’s introduction to drag racing was also the result of some quality father-son time, when his dad took him to the first NHRA Spring Nationals ever held at National Trail Raceway in 1972. “I was 13 years old and after that first race in Columbus, it was over for me!” laughs Varney.

Immediately following the race, he came home, climbed on his dirt bike and began attempting burnouts. “I was 18 before my parents would let me take my Mustang to National Trail to race it.”

Over the years, Varney has bought, built and raced a variety of Ford drag cars. His most memorable weekend came in 1998 at a Fun Ford event in Norwalk, where he took his 1970 Mustang and won the Saturday night race, then came back on Sunday and won the shootout. “It was about a 10k weekend for me,” he says. The timing couldn’t have been scripted any better, because shortly after that win, Racer Brown called and said the Thunderbird was for sale, so the winnings from Norwalk came in handy.

About the only thing that could make this story any better is if Varney decided to return the Thunderbird to its Bob Glidden clone design – which could actually happen any day. “I’m almost sure I’m gonna do it,” Varney says. “We were actually wanting to do it before we brought the car to Bradenton for the U.S. Street Nationals, but we ran out of time.” Considering how Varney won the 5.50 index class at Bradenton, how cool would a Chief Auto Parts/7-Eleven Thunderbird have looked sitting in the winner’s circle?

Pondering the possibilities, Varney is very tempted to enter the car in various Nostalgia Pro Stock races, should he indeed return the car to the Glidden theme. “Regardless, we have fun every time we take the car out, which is about 10-12 times per year now,” Varney says. “I’ve got thank my friends Rob and Rick Stilwell, who are kind enough to let me keep my motorhome and trailer on their farm in Bradenton, Florida.”

For Varney, he’s made some great friendships along the way, and his racing passion is also a family affair. “I’ve also got to thank my daughter, Ashley, my son, Jamie, my girlfriend, Laura, and my grandson, Max, for all their help,” Varney adds. “I must also thank Larry Morgan, as he does so much for me and so many other local racers…more than anybody could imagine.”

After his season-opening win at Bradenton, Varney participated in the inaugural Drag Illustrated World Doorslammer Nationals, before returning home to Ohio for a short while. His racing plans for the remainder of the season include stops at his local National Trail Raceway, Pacemakers Dragway and select NMRA events with plans to also compete in the Fast Fords event at Dragway 42 in West Salem, Ohio, scheduled in June.

The motorsports world lost an icon on March 26, 2020. Mark J. Adelizzi, founder of Flatout Gaskets and all around racing exponent, passed away after a courageous battle with cancer.

In 1999, Adelizzi took a leap of faith, striking out on his own to form Flatout Group. The company started small with graphics, but soon became an industry leader. Flatout Gaskets are the choice for countless champions across the highest performing classes in drag racing. Adelizzi worked closely with top engine builders and manufacturers to provide solutions and innovation. Even before his brilliance was noticed through his own brainchild, Adelizzi was a fixture in the industry, working at Felpro for 20 years.

“We strive for a high quality product,” Adelizzi said of Flatout in a 2018 interview. “I only use the highest quality products available on the market. I don’t wanna take a chance with a guy’s $80,000 engine just because something in the material failed or leaked. I won’t have it. So I’m always on overkill when it comes to materials. I’m always seeking the best coatings and materials to help improve the products. Quality is numero uno here. We push it pretty hard.”

It’s that commitment and Adelizzi’s drive and innovation that made Flatout Gaskets an industry leader with a wide range of offerings, covering everything from design to production in all types of metals.

Adelizzi was born September 26, 1956 in Waukegan, Ill. to Joseph and Elaine and is survived by his brother, sister, nephews and beloved hunting dogs. He treasured his family and lived with a loyalty and generosity that can be attested by many through the racing community. Even before his own diagnosis, Adelizzi was a board member for Lemons of Love, further evidence of his magnanimity.

In addition to his clear passion for racing, Mark enjoyed jewelry making, hunting, motorcycle riding, photography, playing the drums, and Facebook. Adelizzi made a timely Facebook post less than a month before his passing:

The lake calls me everyday. Sometimes I can’t stay away. Other times it’s just out of reach. The longer I go the more I want it. It is the unwavering constant, warm or cold, stormy or calm. It is peace.

The sound, the smell, the sun, the surf, the breeze, I can see why the sailor knows no love other than the sea..

The shore is always different due to many variables, but never disappoints in its collection of things to harvest. Sticks and stones will break the bones but never stop me from satisfying my need for pocket full of beach glass.

I will always return here, even in the end. Eternal peace will find me here if you ever need a friend. Until then, we will fight to avoid becoming the dust in the sea.

MJA

3/1/20

A memorial service for Mark is planned for a later date on Lake Michigan, where he found peace. An obituary and memorials are available here. Godspeed, Mark. Thank you for the legacy you left on racing and on this world.

Albany, Georgia, is a small town that’s famous for several things, not the least of which is being the birthplace of famed musician Ray Charles. Perhaps a lesser known fact is that Albany is also home to over 600,000 pecan trees, easily making it the pecan capital of the United States.

[Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared in DI #155, the Women of Power Issue, in April of 2020.]

A good dose of drag racing history is also attached to this southwest Georgia town positioned on the banks of the Flint River, as it’s also home to U.S. 19 Dragway, the oldest still-active drag strip within the Peach State. To be clear, what would eventually become the racing surface was already in place years earlier, only it was originally a vintage airstrip.

By the late 1950s, rumblings about transitioning the airstrip into a drag strip were being heard, and on Labor Day weekend in 1960, Albany, Georgia, held its first drag race on the former airstrip. To this day, a piece of the airstrip’s history can be experienced by walking into the drag strip’s large concessions building, which once served as an airplane hangar in the 1950s.

When I first visited U.S. 19 Dragway in the summer of 2012, Bobby Childs had just taken over as track manager. He then took an ownership role in the facility shortly thereafter. Bobby was 56 years of age when he first decided to give track managing a try after many years of being a successful race promoter and avid bracket racer.

I was eager to catch up with Bobby and hear how the last eight years had been treating him. “Drag racing will keep you young, but it will also make an old man out of you!” he declares. “Regardless, it keeps me going and gives me something to do.”

He has a silent partner with whom he co-owns the track, although his partner takes the silent part pretty serious. “I actually haven’t seen my partner in about three years!” Bobby laughs.

Bobby Childs

When I dropped by most recently this past February, I couldn’t help but marvel at how involved Bobby is in practically every aspect of the track. While certain classes are running, he enjoys standing on the starting line ready to activate the tree, all while also serving as the announcer via a wireless mic! Clipped to his shirt collar is a walkie-talkie, and if someone wants to buy nitrous or fuel, he might take a quick break and run to the fuel shed, after which, he’ll return to the starting line to resume announcing and flipping switches!

I was also eager to learn if Bobby still taught the adult Sunday School class at his church. “Of course!” he replies. Bobby Childs can multitask like few others.

The track can be a real challenge, too, especially when you consider that southwest Georgia has a warm climate, ideal for almost year-round racing. “We don’t have much of an offseason…maybe 4 weeks in some cases,” Childs says.

The track offers all the popular categories in bracket racing, index and small-tire/small-block classes, but Bobby really hit a home run a few years ago when he introduced a factory EFI class. “These are your Camaros, Mustangs, Challengers, Cadillacs, etc., with factory EFI on them,” Bobby says. “What’s not allowed is taking an older car and outfitting it with an EFI motor. It must come with it from the factory.”

After all the participants arrive at the track, they must then go on a 20-mile cruise, after which, they report directly to the staging lanes for the race without so much as raising the hoods. “This class is where the real excitement is!” Bobby says.

He’s also introduced popular classes called Hot Street and Daily Driver, which can have carbureted engines, but still must accomplish the 20-mile cruise. There’s plenty of test and tune, and grudge action that goes down at U.S. 19 Dragway, as this month’s column photo features the sleek Malibu of Cope Butler, who was finding some good bite on U.S. 19’s racing surface in early February. Bobby himself is even building a 2012 Camaro that he plans to outfit with a 900-plus cubic-inch motor for some grudge racing in Albany.

While Childs has found success with the newest classes he’s introduced, nothing compares to the gold he struck when he decided to allow street cars to race each other in the shutdown area of U.S 19 Dragway.

He named the shutdown area “Da Hole” and he’s packed as many as 2,500 people down there to watch street cars square off. “Racing down in ‘Da Hole’ is all heads-up, no glue on the track, no electronics, with arm drop starts,” explains Childs.

He first introduced this attraction three years ago, now holding about three or four big meets a year. It may have started as a novelty, but Childs is now investing money to repave the shutdown and expand it, so that he may accommodate larger crowds. “It’s a mad house down there!” here insists.

Even while the track thrives, Bobby contemplates retirement from his current gig as owner/operator. He already retired from his day job at UPS in 2017 after a 42-year career. “I’m 64 years old now,” he says, “and I recently became interested in riding Harley Davidson motorcycles again, which is something I did as a younger man, then took a 30-year break from it.” On a recent trip to Florida with his wife, he stumbled upon a beautiful Electra Glide, and it wound up going home with him.

These days he dreams of finishing the grudge car and seeing more of the world from his Harley. Meanwhile, the drag strip is actually for sale, although it’s not being aggressively advertised. “I’ve put the word out on social media, but that’s about it,” he says.

So, if someone wanted to be the proud new owner of the oldest drag strip in Georgia, complete with “Da Hole,” Childs says, “Let’s talk!”

Drag racing is back – albeit in a highly controlled, single-car manner – but just having that possibility brings a smile to Russell Miller’s face.

The Darlington Dragway owner worked with the local police department and then received official permission from the South Carolina Department of Commerce on Monday to begin holding test sessions at the track under strict guidelines.

Social distancing, temperature-taking, no spectators on the premises and sheriff deputies on hand to make sure all guidelines are being followed is part of the process, but Miller was proactive in setting those standards. By providing a highly-stringent plan to officials last weekend, Russell and company were granted approval within 48 hours.

The first private test session takes place Thursday through Saturday at the track, and Miller is expecting in the range of 30-40 cars. He’ll have his core staff on hand, plus at least one sheriff deputy, and only one car on the track at a time. Each pit space will also be marked off to put plenty of space between teams, with Miller trying to take every precaution to make this a success.

“We’re going to try it and evaluate it,” Miller said. “We put a good plan together, but it’s not going to be perfect. We may find we have to restrict how many cars we can have and we may have to make adjustments.

“But we have to make this work. When these three days are done, I can promise you there’s going to be a report card.”

DRAG ILLUSTRATED spoke with Miller about the process, the strict guidelines in place and the reaction he’s received from racers.

DRAG ILLUSTRATED: What led you on this path to get these conversations started?

RUSSELL MILLER: What I was noticing was you had so many drag strips where this is their only income. In the neighborhood I live in, there’s a golf course a few blocks away. I went down there and looked and, sure enough, the place was packed with golfers and I thought that didn’t seem fair. You feel this way for selfish reasons, first and foremost. I understand that we can’t have events.

We don’t want to people in harm’s way, but under the guidelines, I feel like test sessions would give tracks an opportunity to run and generate revenue, along with giving racers the opportunity to have some needed testing for their race programs. We went over our governor’s guidelines and we said if we could build guidelines that could pass inside a building, surely being an open-air, outdoor venue we would be able to have these test sessions, getting the racers out doing what they needed to do and having the tracks generate some kind of income.

DI: Can you take us through the guidelines that will be in place for these test sessions?

MILLER: We will check temperatures when everyone comes in so nobody goes through the gates with a fever, and each team will be limited to five people (one driver, four crew members). You can have five people in a 1,000 square-foot area, and we’ll can mark that off. So we can still have multiple teams testing, so long as we mandate that they keep a six-foot distance between the people.

Then, we’re only going to let one car to the starting line at a time to prevent that grouping. We’re going to have so many feet per car in the staging lanes – keep at least 10 feet between cars. We came up with those guidelines and I was able to go onto the South Carolina Department of Commerce and they had a form you can fill out to see if you’re essential or non-essential.

We know we’re not an essential business. We’re not trying to fool anybody, and we’re not saying we are. But what we are saying is we can follow these guidelines and maintain the safety aspect of it, and we could be open for business – which is essential, at least to us.

I put in all those guidelines and my request was to have a very restricted test session with zero spectators. I added that I can and will use the local deputies to enforce it. I’ll have a deputy on-site and make sure people are following the rules.

DI: The approval process was pretty quick, which obviously had to be a good feeling. What was your next move from there?

MILLER: When I found that out, I immediately got in touch with Carolina Dragway because I knew they wanted to test. Then, I contacted Union Dragway and ran them through it, and they got (approval), too, as well as Pageland (Dragway) and they were approved. We were able to take a bad situation as drag strips and at least do something. At least for right now, we can test, which is something.

DI: The test session is Thursday through Saturday and you said you’re expecting 30-40 cars. Do you feel good about that kind of number being manageable as far as the guidelines in place?

MILLER: I think the 30-40 car deal is a good number, yes. When they hit the gate, it’s going to be official from the word go. They’re going to be as far away as they need to be from the next pit. The deputy is going to be hands-on and it’s going to be, ‘this is your parking area.’ We have a memorandum that basically says, ‘You agree to follow these rules. Don’t screw this up for everybody.’ We are taking very seriously.

DI: You’ve surely had a great reaction from racers. How excited are you to have a chance to provide an opportunity for racers, however limited it may be?

MILLER: First of all, I’m a racer. I’m a racer before I’m a track owner and I’m a fan before I’m a track owner. Just being able to get back involved is a huge deal. Then you take the owner aspect of it, the fact that you’ve got a huge investment sitting over there that can’t do anything, so there’s a level of excitement there to get back to some kind of normal.

DI: Do you expect any blowback or criticism?

MILLER: What I would hope to see happen is these tracks continue to get open in a safe manner and be able to serve customers that need testing and also generate some revenue to keep the doors open. We needs tracks open, we need racers racing.

DI: What was the reaction you’ve heard from the racers coming to the track this weekend?

MILLER: They’re loading up and coming and they’re happy because they get to race in some form. I’ve had people call me and say, ‘Listen, can I pay $350 just to come watch?’ But they can’t. There’s zero spectators. But it makes you feel good that people miss drag racing. They want to be at the track.