Frank
Hawley
86 | D r a g
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
Performance
& Reliability
Ask any drag racer
worth his salt as to the
importance of being
confident in one’s race
car when it comes to
being successful on
the track and they’ll
tell you it’s absolutely
paramount. To provide
his students with the
utmost in performance
and reliability, Frank
Hawley has long since
partnered with Chev-
rolet Performance -
specifically their 572ci
crate engines.
much more likely. “We think about positive things
to program the unconscious mind. But we also
rehearse for when things go wrong, because when
they do, you won’t know how to react otherwise.
It’s actually a positive step, because it’s not the
things going wrong, it’s correcting the problems,”
he articulated.
Once a driver has got their routine solidified,
though, Hawley believes that being able to reduce
the amount of thought put into racing is actually
quite helpful. “Concentration is fine when you’re
learning, but once you get really good, I don’t
want you thinking at all,” stated Hawley, who feels
that racing should be intuitive and instinctual.
“Driving a racecar is an art form. Jeff Gordon’s
ability to drive his car at 99.9-percent of adhesion
in traffic and know where he, and everyone else,
is, in the brain, is way closer to a pianist’s ability
to play the piano than an engineer’s ability to
design his car. It’s touch and sound and sensory
perceptions, not mechanical.”
Although he prefers his drivers’ movements not
to be mechanical, there’s no avoiding the fact that
mechanical equipment itself plays a key role in
Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School. Without the
cars and equipment, students would never leave
the classroom or experience the thrill of blast-
ing down the drag strip. As such, Hawley needs
reliable and dependable gear with which to run
his business, while the students need consistent,
trustworthy cars to test out their new skills.
Over the past two decades, Hawley has de-
veloped a working relationship with Chevrolet
Performance. “If you run some kind of brack-
et car, Super Comp dragster, or Super Gas car,
you’ll likely end up with a big block Chevy,” noted
Hawley of why he decided to run Chevrolet Per-
formance power in his cars, too.
Around a decade ago, Chevrolet Performance
approached Hawley about developing a line of
crate engines for the school to try. “For me, a
crate engine was something you bought for your
crew cab truck when you blew it up,” said Hawley
sarcastically. “So, we tried one, and we fell in
love and we’ve been running crate Chevy 572 ci
engines for many years in all our cars ever since.”
Armed with the Chevy bullets, the gas drag-
sters at Hawley’s school regularly run 7.9-second
quarter-mile elapsed times. “The idea of buying
an engine from a big manufacturer, dropping it
in your car, and running that fast, is really cool,”
added Hawley, who relies on Chevrolet’s products
Issue 124
watch it and think ‘wow, that looks simple – push
this, hold that, look here, and go brap down the
middle of the track’ so blowing it off is one of the
biggest things people do,” Hawley explained of
the unexpected complexities that rookie racers
generally experience when they first start driving.
“They underestimate how much energy, effort,
concentration, and attention it takes to do this
properly.”
Contrastingly, professional drivers or seasoned
racers who come to Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing
School generally have a similar issue. “This is
generalizing, of course, but a lot of people get too
worked up about failure and get really anxious,
so we have to teach them to back off just a tiny
bit,” noted Hawley, who subscribes to the old
autocross philosophy of “you have to go slow to
go fast”. It’s a great lesson not only for racing, but
also for life. Sometimes the easiest way to make
quick progress is to calm down, settle in, and put
things in perspective to avoid any unconscious
self-sabotage.
There’s no question that drag racing is an
inherently complex sport. From mastering the
simple logistics o f doing a burnout, staging a car,
and launching, to understanding how an engine
works, conceptualizing suspension geometry and
how physics can make or break a car’s perfor-
mance, why weather is so critical in laying a tune,
and more, there’s nothing easy about drag racing
– especially for a new racer. “For most people, if
we tell ‘em the class starts at 7:30am, they show
up on time… that’s pretty much the easiest thing
when it comes to racing and most people can
do it!” joked Hawley, who is all business when
it comes to imparting his wisdom on the next
generation but still knows how to have fun and
keep the mood light and entertaining.
Ultimately, it’s simply developing a consistent
routine, staying on track, and not being too ag-
gressive that Hawley says is the key to success.
The control of one’s mind, coupled with consistent
performance, is most challenging for many more
so than the physical aspects of racing.
Hawley is a big advocate for visualization ex-
ercises as a performance enhancer. For new or
inexperienced racers, practicing in a chair can
help to dial in a routine and hone muscle memory.
“Sit in the chair, pretend you’re driving, tighten
your belts, pull on your gloves, and make little
engine sounds. People say it’s silly, but I know
people making $10 million a year who do similar
things. We have gold-medal-winning athletes
doing it, too. Over the years, the physiology be-
comes pretty much equal and the only thing that’s
left is your mental preparation,” asserted Hawley,
who encourages everyone – not just students of
his school – to sit in their cars in their garages
with the air conditioning off, sweating, to ac-
climate and adapt to the environment, routine,
and procedures.
It’s not just visualizing correct procedures that
Hawley feels is important, but also what to do
when things go wrong. Having “rehearsed” the
worst-case scenarios at home, in a safe, controlled
environment, makes minimizing catastrophe that