Drag Illustrated Issue 125, September 2017 | Page 28

Dirt
Feel the Burn
Ed Burnley records quickest
quarter-mile pass by a nitrous car
By Van Abernethy
35 years, racing everything
from brackets to Pro Mod
to even NHRA Pro Stock
in the late 1980s to early
1990s. Bill owns a body
shop and I have a refrigeration business and we
completely fund our racing operation from that
without any sponsorship.”
Burnley also owns a chassis shop that he says
he launched out of necessity more than anything.
“We didn’t have the money to go out and buy
stuff, so that was the motivation to launch Ed
Burnley Race Cars. Back in the heyday, probably
10 years ago, we used to build probably four cars
a year, but these days I have time to build just
one car a year. My refrigeration business is very
good right now, and I can barely get off work long
enough to go racing,” Burnley adds.
For 2017, Burnley and crew – Smith, Bobby
Holtzner, George Shriver, Ken Willey, Thomas
Johnson and Tim Simmons – had planned to
follow the entire PDRA circuit, as well as select
Northeast Outlaw Pro Mod events, but the Ca-
maro was plagued with suspension problems
mid-season, which resulted in a brief period of
revaluation.
“We parked the car and went through it from
front to back and fixed some stuff in the rear of
the car. We then took it to MIR (Maryland Inter-
national Raceway) and ran a 5.80 while letting
off the throttle early. We knew it would run in
the 5.70s, but we were shocked at the .74 it ran at
Capitol last week,” smiles Burnley, who is anxious
to return to the track and shoot for the 5.60s.
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V
eteran racer Ed Burnley made
headlines at Crofton, Maryland’s Capi-
tol Raceway in early September when
he uncorked the quickest quarter-mile
elapsed time ever recorded by a nitrous-oxide-
assisted Pro Mod car. Driving a ’68 Camaro