a guy that joined this class years ago, that’s why you joined it, because it
had a lot of latitude. It had a lot of room to roam and a lot of room for
creativity and basically anything you could dream up, you could go and
build yourself and take to the racetrack the next week, but it’s not necessarily
the way it is anymore. It probably had to be reined in a little bit, but
it’s been a different way of racing for the last three or four years, for sure.
Charles Carpenter: It was always kind of a steady movement for a fast
door car. But I guess what things that stick out in my mind, of course, are
the big milestones, like [Bill] Kuhlmann’s 200 mph run, and the 7-second
[run], into the 6-second stuff. That’s such huge, monumental gains when
you’re getting into a different second, so to speak.
Those things always stick in my mind of where this stuff has gone.
Speed, aerodynamics, things of that nature, all the stuff that we’ve learned
through the years with this class, it really is mind-boggling to think now
that we’re going 200 mph in an eighth-mile. I was one of the first cars to go
200 in the quarter-mile, and it was a huge milestone to go 200 back then.
I think back to where it was a milestone to even go 100 mph in an
eighth-mile and just to think where this stuff is going now, it is just totally
mind-boggling. Technology, our parts, the things that we used back
then in the early days of it, we were still modifying a lot of stuff. I mean,
it was maybe performance-intended, but it certainly wasn’t intended to
do what we were doing.
They make a better part compared to where things used to be, but we’re
going to immediately find the limits to it. The equipment that we have
now, I mean, I have stuff that’s technically outdated, but we do pretty well
with it, and it’s the best stuff that I’ve ever had. To run what we run with
it and to make the number of passes that we make on it with practically
no damage is amazing; you can run these things at least a weekend and
maybe two and sometimes three without having the engine apart.
In our world, that’s a major thing, but it is all just evolved to a level
that I never dreamed of. The popularity of door car racing, I mean, I love
it. People love door cars.
Tommy Lee: In the mid-90s to late-90s, the record back then was in
the 6.70s and 206, 207 mph. I think at that time they made 1,350 horsepower
or something like that, and now they’re pushing 2,000 horsepower.
That’s even happened long before this. There’s guys with motors built in
2008 and 2009, they’re just as competitive as some of the new stuff. So
it all happened in probably in a 10-year span there.
I don’t think EFI has been a challenge for the Mountain Motor cars
because they’re able to run the same basic intake manifold with just the
throttle body setting on top of that, and they’re allowed to run 16 injectors
in. So it’s got eight injectors down in the runners, and then they got eight
injectors right under the throttle body, and I haven’t seen that the fuel
injection is really any faster or has an advantage.
I think with the way things have gone since 2008 or 2009, there’s not
as many people investing in Mountain Motor Pro Stock engine supplies.
So I guess the reason why the class is kind of a little bit stale right there, is
because there’s been no new money coming to the class to further advance
development on the engine.
The IHRA pretty much ran the Pro Stock cars off, and run everybody
off now, but it was so iffy to where you could run a Mountain Motor Pro
Stock car, and there’s a lot of guys, they don’t care for the eighth-mile
racing either.
PHOTOS: IAN TOCHER, JAMES SISK
THINGS LOOK FAR DIFFERENT IN THE
DRAG RADIAL WORLD, AND MARK
WOODRUFF, WHO’S BEEN INVOLVED
SINCE THE START, REMAINS AMAZED AT
THE RAPID ADVANCEMENT.
68 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated.com Issue 158