Drag Illustrated Issue 136, September 2018 | Page 87

Brad Personett Pro Mod
B
r a d P e r s o n e t t wa s o n e
of the top DIY guys in Pro Mod
at one time, tuning his car and
then driving it to great suc-
cess for a number of years. But those
days are far removed for him. His days
of driving are done and now he’s the
hired gun, making the tuning calls for
top racers, including Pro Mod standout
Shane Molinari. He trusts Personett to
make the proper calls in key situations
and more often than not, he delivers. It’s
a far different role, but in Personett’s
mind, doing it all is no longer feasible.
“It’s what the sport has become. There’s
not enough time in the day to keep up with
it. That’s the deal in Pro Mod. If you can’t put
together the budget to do it, you might as well
not even go.
If you can’t go out and make runs and elim-
inate problems, you’re just wasting your time
and money. You’re just not magically going to
go down the track. I have customers overseas
September 2018
“Things are just
evolving and there’s
a lot more variables
to juggle and stay on
top of. If you had a
competitive car back
in the day and show up
running that now, you’re
racing for spot 18-24
or worse, guaranteed.
That’s just the
way it is.”
and they see everybody go fast, and they think
they can just do it.
But everybody has experience now. You’re not
just going to show up on Friday and be successful.
There’s so many more variables other than just
seeing if the track is good. You have to make gut
calls of what you can and can’t get away with. The
people with the most experience and the most
runs, they have the upper hand.
It’s pretty much stayed on the same plane as
far as maintaining these things and putting parts
on them. But you can’t afford not to. The stuff
has to be stayed on top of and cars have to have a
full-time guy. You can’t come unprepared.
With the torque converter, you get smarter
with every run. It’s evolved so much, now you can
go up and go down the track every run a