Drag Illustrated Issue 152, January 2020 | Page 24

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McIlvain race cars brings world
championship back to Ohio
By Allyson Johnson
M
ike Sturgill didn’t let a -.001
red light define him as a racer in
2018 when he lost in the first
round at Pomona. He was there
in his dragster trying to bring home the Super Pro
national championship. Slightly different from
traditional NHRA class racing like Super Comp
and Super Gas, the top bracket racers from all
of NHRA’s divisions compete at the end of each
season in Pomona after winning their respec-
tive divisional titles in hopes to bring home the
national championship.
While he didn’t bring it home in 2018, he did
just that in 2019. Sturgill, representing Division
3 out of Medway, Ohio, won the Super Pro title
after Division 7’s Dave Meziere red-lighted in
the final round.
Richmond, Kentucky, native Jeremy Mason
had a standout season with a win at the Summit
Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk
and three runner-up finishes in the class. This
was enough for him and his ‘66 Chevy Nova to
lock in the 2019 LODRS Division 3 champion-
ship in Super Gas, his second career divisional
championship, as well as the 2019 NHRA Super
Gas world championship.
Louisville, Kentucky’s Gage Blevens, just 9
years old, brought home a Wally after winning the
2019 Eastern Conference Finals (age 6-9 group)
in Bristol, Tennessee, in 2019, after making a
dead-on-dial pass.
All three racers had great seasons, but what
do Sturgill, Mason and Blevens have in com-
mon? They’re all wheeling cars built by Dean
McIlvain. If you haven’t heard of the Ohio-based
chassis builder yet, and you probably have, there’s
no doubt you will. He’s one of the most up-and-
coming chassis builders in the country, but he is
moving at his own pace, not wanting to grow too
big, too fast. He says this helps him maintain the
relationship he has with his clients.
As far as clients, he has around 25 cars, both
door cars and dragsters, across the country, and
about 25 more Jr. Dragsters. McIlvain has seen
his biggest upsurge of requests come from the Jr.
Dragster ranks, building 10 cars alone in 2019,
and more to come in 2020. With the amount of
cars, from door cars and dragsters to Jr. Dragsters,
his win ratio for cars-on-track is pretty high.
“We have been really blessed,” McIlvain says.
“We have gotten some guys that are very talented
at what they do, and I’m excited that what we
do seems to compliment them well. This isn’t
something I ever dreamed I would be able to
do someday – to say we have world champions.”
While it’s just McIlvain’s seventh full year
building cars, he’s been a racer much longer. He
got his start in 1995 after building the first car
he ever raced, a 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass. After
that, he was hooked.
“When I built my first car, I fell in love with it,”
McIlvain says. “I realized I had a knack for it. I
started doing some side work on other cars, and
it grew to a point where I literally quit my day
job on a Friday and started working for myself
building race cars on the following Monday. I’ve
never looked back.”
In 2018 at the NHRA Division 3 race in Bowl-
ing Green, he had seven McIlvain cars out of
nearly 200 cars on the property. Of those racers,
the two finalists in Super Comp, Michael Shelton
and Joey Fuesting, were both wheeling McIlvain
racecars. And Jeremy Mason took home the Wally
that weekend in Super Gas.
There’s no doubt that McIlvain’s customers are
seeing success in his cars, and part of that likely
stems from the fact that he isn’t just a chassis build-
er, he’s still a competitor. You can often find him
at a Division 3 track driving one of his dragsters,
usually in Super Comp. He says this is his main
source of advertising. And when he isn’t racing,
he’s on the starting line watching his customers.
“One of the things we strongly believe in is if
we are at the racetrack, you will see me watching
my cars make runs,” he says. “I try to watch every
car go down the track. I try to offer insight and
make sure things are doing what we think they
should. Our customers are family – we hang until
the end. Being able to do some racing on my own
is just an added benefit.”
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Issue 152