730 – FUEL FUNNY CAR –
Mission Accomplished! I first stood on the throttle of the No Mercy
Nitro Funny Car in April 2016 and made my final license pass in October
2017. This accomplishment is not only
representative of all the hard work and sacrifice that the entire team made to
make this a reality but it also proves that a bunch of guys with a common
dream, drive, and belief, can achieve something much bigger than
themselves. You see, we aren’t
rich. Nobody on this team has a ton of
cash and nobody mortgaged their house or went into debt to make this happen. We are just a bunch of regular working guys
that found a synergy and friendship that has helped us achieve a monumental
tasking.
Five test events, a dozen runs, too
many pistons that I care to count. Used
clutch discs, over 200 gallons of nitro, 60 gallons of oil, and over 200 spark
plugs. Thousands of dollars in hotel
rooms, diesel, late night meals at Dennys or Remedys, buckets of hand cleaner,
gallons of solvent, and trash canning over gapped piston rings. You can do the math and see that it would have
been better to have paid my fee to get my license in an already established
running funny car.
We didn’t oil the track once! Not once did the rods come out of it. No “major” fires, and our heads held high because
we did it! We set a goal and we achieved
it. It may have taken longer than we had
hoped and it may have cost more than we expected, but we did something that
most have not even attempted in the last decade. The landscape of NHRA Drag Racing has changed
dramatically and most that have the financial means don’t even attempt what we
accomplished.
Throw on your firesuit and hang out with me for the next few
blogs as I take you from the pits to the shutdown as I share my story of
achieving my NHRA professional funny car license along with a bit of background
to what led me to this point in my life.
Part 1: DREAMING IN THE PITS
I grew up in a home that always
encouraged me to dream big and believe in myself. I’ve always held on to that mantra and it has
carried me through as I took on some of my biggest challenges; U.S. Air Force
Basic Military Training, bachelor’s degree, graduating U.S. Air Force Undergraduate
Pilot Training, and building my first alcohol funny car are a few examples. The pinnacle of my dreams has always been
becoming a professional NHRA Nitro Funny Car driver. That dream has died and been resurrected too
many times to count throughout the years as I let negative thinking and
self-doubt control my drive. This was by
far the hardest thing I have ever done in my life and it wouldn’t cut me or my
team an inch of slack. I’m not going to
try to talk some guru “don’t give up crap” to any of you. It broke me!
I wanted to quit every single time adversity showed its ugly face but
thanks to a support network of family and friends I somehow picked myself up
and kept going. It made me, and my
entire team, work our very hardest to achieve it.
The preparation is done in the
shop, and the assembly is done in the pits.
The final product that shows up on the track is merely a summary of all
the work done previously behind the scenes.
Very often, things are forgotten, or mistakes are made, and the results
are disastrous on the track. Nobody is
perfect, and components fail, but investing in preparation, planning, and proper
assembly is key to success. Some of the
biggest teams still fall victim to the smallest parts, no matter their budget
or time spent in preparation. Some call
this karma, or the nitro gods. We
recently encountered two of these situations that really hurt our morale as a
new team.
During our 1st
qualifying attempt at the 2017 NHRA Toyota Nationals with guest driver Tim
Gibbons (I hadn’t completed my license upgrade yet), the throttle pedal hit the
clutch can go around after we installed a fireproof shield over the top of it. The result was the throttle would not open
for the burnout and as soon as the tree flashed yellow/green, Tim was unable to
apply any throttle and idled down the track.
With our heads hanging low we recovered the car at the end of the track in
front of a national event crowd. The
lesson learned was we should have checked the operation in the pits after
installing the new part to ensure no cascading issues.
We tested the Monday after the 2017
NHRA Toyota Nationals in order to complete my license upgrade. The plan was to complete two full passes as
quickly as possible so we could load up and get back to our jobs and
families. It was already a long weekend
in which we struggled through a lot of adversity. The team showed up early on Monday morning,
fresh, and ready to go. They were
excited to accomplish this goal and get the monkey off our back. Everything went perfect and we beat our planned
time of 10 a.m. in the staging lanes by 15 minutes.
The car sounded great as it fired
up and the guys had their starting line routine down to a science. I let off the brake and rolled forward. I felt the familiar dip as the car rolled
through the burnout box and looked for the signal to press the throttle down
for the burnout. As I pressed my leg
forward the pedal felt mushy and the engine RPM barely rose up. I quickly grabbed the brake and brought the
car to a stop. I immediately knew
something wasn’t right in the throttle so I didn’t even bother with putting it
in reverse or backing up in case something went wrong which would endanger
everyone behind the car. I reached down
and shutoff the fuel. Everyone was
defeated in that moment.
We towed back to the pits and
quickly discovered that the $2 clamp holding the cable to the chassis had
failed and pulled through not allowing the throttle to work correctly. We topped off the fuel, serviced a few things
and pulled back to the lanes with the expectation of limited fallout from this delay. Karma, or nitro gods, were not happy on this
Monday as we were now behind every pro team waiting to make a run and the track
just encountered a massive oil down.
We sat in the staging lanes for
almost three hours. I have never felt so
defeated in my life as I did in that moment.
All of our previous failures kept running through my head as I recounted
each time that we ran the car previously and how one thing or another prevented
us from obtaining the performance needed to upgrade my license. I told myself I was going to quit….I couldn’t
keep going. It was too hard, too much
money, too much sacrifice.
Just when it seems like you can’t
see through everything it sometimes suddenly becomes clear. That clarity came at the end of a 4.50 @ 274 MPH
pass down the track that was good enough to count as one of my full passes for
my license upgrade. It was far from
perfect, and well off the performance numbers the car should run. In fact, at the hit, the car made a hard move
toward the centerline as it had cylinders out, but I caught it early, and was
able to hold it with my hands crossed over on the wheel.
I’m just a normal guy like most of
you and I find it hard to work through all the troubles of life. They do seem overwhelming at times. When you are passionate about something and
serious to make it a reality any little delay or problem can sometimes spin us
out of control because it’s not going how we planned. I can share with you that the feeling that I
had after that full pass felt incredible; mostly because all of the failures before
it. Had I simply wrote a check, and
drove a proven car for someone else, I don’t know that I would have felt the sense
of accomplishment that I feel today.
Plus, I did it with my family and closest friends. Together, as a team, we overcame adversity
and accomplished our goal.
View Part 2: Staging Lanes at www.chrisbennettracing.com
