STEVE WILEY
“They gotta throw these little things in there to
make it interesting. I guess they don’t want (the
track) past the starting line to get real good.”
A drag racing veteran, Wiley really had no idea
what to expect racing this format as it was his
first time do ing so. A true “run what you brung”
race, there is no qualifying. Drivers unload their
cars and head to the lines. Needless to say, it’s a
race the track, creating challenges a driver/tuner
won’t see at a “normal” strip.
“Yeah, it was quite a bit different, actually,” he
said. “We obviously didn’t spin the blower as hard
as we normally
do, so the boost
was down about
ten pounds on
average, even
more so on the
unique experience.
“We didn’t know what it was going to do,” he
said. “Usually, there isn’t any time trials; you just
unload it and go to the staging lanes and go by the
number. At that point, we didn’t know what we
were going to do. We coulda went up in smoke in
the first round. As luck would have it, or having
a really good car, it made it down through there
and kept going all night long.”
With a lack of track prep, there’s the need for
all-new setups. Changing the timing and making
adjustments to the fuel system were necessary to
starting line. And of course, when you take air
away, you gotta take fuel away. We had the motor
down on power, backed down quite a bit and then
more timing out of the motor, that’s the other
angle that you take.
“After you get a run or so underneath you, you
get an idea of where you need to be adjusting,
whether you need to pull timing or put timing.”
The overall feel of the track, according to Wiley,
was one of being on the edge, especially the further down the eighth-mile he raced. The starting
line got better over the course of the evening, but
with no rubber and no spray, it created hazards
drivers like Wiley have to get used to.
For many, the immediate thought when hearing
a description of no-prep racing is safety, especially
in the aftermath of
the Ronnie Davis
tragedy in Rockingham. Wiley,
while always aware
of what could happen behind the
wheel, said his car
was running on
a rail all night in
San Antonio and
the wide track provided room to correct mistakes.
Racers will race
anywhere whether
there’s a crowd or
not, but most, if
not all, promoters would like to
see packed grandstands and the noprep format has
done that. With
small-tire grassroots racing becoming more and
more popular, this
type of show has both old-school drag racing
fans coming to the track as well as younger enthusiasts lured to the strip thanks to shows like
“Street Outlaws.”
“It’s the hype that comes along with it, the
grudge factor,” Wiley said. “The guys out there
are saying they’re better than this guy and so
forth. A lot of fans come to see that. Unfortunately,
a lot of them come out to see the wrecks and
(stuff ) like that. I don’t think that’s the majority of them, but there’s going to be some of that.
Just the simple fact that you’re basically on the
edge entices people. I think that’s a big part of it.
“And then people like me bring the car that I’ve
got and people say ‘Wow, there’s no way this guy’s
going to make it down the track,’ and then I go
six rounds and end up winning the race. I think
you’re going to see a lot of people showing up at
DI DI DI
these races to see if they can do what I did.”
DI DI DI DI
DI DI DI
44 | D r a g
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
Issue 109
PHOTOS: CHRIS GRAVES, JAMES ADAMS JR.
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