Scott
Palmer
time driver in the NHRA Top Fuel points
standings, holding down 12th place behind Terry McMillen.
Palmer has long been a fixture in the NHRA nitro ranks. He’s been driving ground-shaking Top
Fuel dragsters on a part-time basis since his debut
in 2002, but the Scott Palmer of 2016 is different
than the Scott Palmer of the past. Armed with
the latest go-fast parts and advice from a host of
friends in the Top Fuel pits, Palmer and his team
are intent on solidifying their place as a legitimate
threat on race day. Win lights and lower elapsed
times are the ultimate goals, but the Marck Industries-backed driver wants to accomplish his
goals while preserving a certain “cool factor” that
has slowly made its way out of professional nitro
racing. A fan-friendly pit area, mid-warm-up
throttle whacks and wheels-up launches are all
part of the program for Palmer and his team, led
by crew chief and fiancé Ashley Fye.
In between events on the NHRA Mello Yello
Series tour, the SPR team also fields a Top Fuel
Hydro in the Lucas Oil Drag Boat Racing Series
(LODBRS). Palmer and Fye
jumped into drag boat ownership at the urging of friend,
sponsor and series benefactor
Forrest Lucas after the couple
got hooked on the sport in 2014.
The venture into the liquid
quarter-mile racing scene has
even resulted in a new major
sponsorship for the dragster,
as drag boat legend Tommy
Thompson stepped up to support the SPR dragster and boat
after seeing the increased exposure for boat racing courtesy
of the massive LODBRS logos across the side
of Palmer’s dragster. The “Liquid Voodoo” Top
Fuel Hydro is probably the one thing on Earth
that Palmer won’t drive, so he picked one of the
boat crew members to handle the driving duties – one of the many decisions the Cassville,
Missouri-native has made simply because it feels
like the right thing to do.
As if burning nitro on land and sea weren’t
enough. Palmer also played the role of drag racing’s Dr. Frankenstein earlier this year, creating
a monster of a Pro Mod with a bona fide, raceready Top Fuel motor serving as the powerplant.
As one could imagine, the “Studezilla” became an
instant Internet sensation as soon as video of its
maiden voyage at Jeffers Motorsports Park surfaced on Facebook. The header flame-throwing
300-foot launch was everything that the project’s
supporters were hoping for and nothing like its
doubters predicted. The car might just seem like
another fun way to burn some nitromethane and
draw up a few match races, but Palmer has every
intention of seeing the car break the quarter-mile
speed traps at 300 mph.
For our annual Interview Issue, Drag Illustrated spoke with Palmer about his fleet of Top
Fuel machines and how he manages to do it all
with a skeleton crew.
How has the nitro racing landscape changed
since you started racing Top Fuel in 2002?
In 2002, there were 25 or 26 cars going to every
race it seemed like and, honestly, it seemed like it
was easier to qualify back then. It might not have
been easier exactly, but everybody had similar
parts and there weren’t all these latest-and-greatest cylinder heads and blowers. There are so many
trick parts on a fuel car now that weren’t on it
when we started. It makes it pretty hard to keep
up with the technology, you know?
That’s been a problem for us the last five years
or so. We ran good in probably 2007 or so when
it was quarter-mile. Right before it went to a
thousand-foot, we’d run a few 4.50s and, you
know, back then that would have been a 3.85
to a thousand-foot, but nobody was looking at
those times back then. We go back to that setup
now, and actually we’ve been trying to force that
setup down the car’s throat because it ran 3.80s.
But everything has changed on the car, and we
can try all we want to go back in time, but it just
doesn’t work. We just couldn’t get back to where
five years and then wanted to go back home, so
he’s back helping us now. Clint Brewer is our
clutch guy. He’s a construction guy and does dirt
work but he’s got his own business, too, so he
goes back and does that through the week. Jason
Farmer – he’s also pretty much full-time. He’s
a guitar tech and a road manager for big rock
bands – actually turned down a job with Sevendust this year because he was on the road with
us. It’s crazy. And he’d never been involved with
racing. We met him in San Angelo last year at a
boat race an d he’s been with us every race since.
So we got kind of a mixture of people. And then
of course Ashley [Fye] – we work together at the
shop every single day that we’re not on the road.
Our entire team consists of five people. Now,
we also have ‘Peaches’. We call him ‘Peaches’, but
his real name is Alex Stapleton. He’s a kid who’s
helped us before and he’s out here with us now.
He wants to get on a big team. He’s doing the
‘Western Swing’ with us and I think we have him
a job on Clay Millican’s car after the ‘Swing. He’s
good help, but he’s a floater – he’ll be gone on another team after this. There’s a
lot of crew guys that come from
our team. If they want a big job
and they come out here – you
can’t get a job if you’re sitting
at home sending in a resume
to Don Schumacher Racing
or somebody. You’ve got to be
out there. Anyway, that’s pretty
much our team. We won the
first round at Sonoma, serviced
the car, had it on the ground
and ready to roll out in 50-minutes. That’s pretty good for a
small team.
That seems like beyond impressive.
It is. And I told them, I said, ‘Hey, listen. Okay,
we won the first round. We’re going to go back up
here and try to run the same. So whether [Morgan] Lucas runs a 3.78 or smokes the tires, one
way or the other we’re going to be there.’ We
missed the tune-up because we didn’t compensate
enough for the heat and whatever – smoked the
tires early. Luckily, they ran a 3.78 or .79, so it
made losing better. But, like I told them, I said,
‘Part of winning – even in the second round – it’s
not really if we win, it’s if we can roll up there
and not be bolting shit on the car as we get in
the staging lanes.’ Part of the deal is being able to
service the car and get it up there, start it, have
it go into reverse and stage it – you know what
I’m talking about. If you get up there and you’re
clusterfucked whenever you get up there and you
look like you don’t belong, well, it’s hard to get
people to take you seriously.
You’re one of the few fuel guys who still do
the throttle whacks in the pits to seat the clutch.
Why do you continue to do that when so many
others have abandoned the tradition?
The only reason we do it is because it’s cool.
That’s the only reason. Torrence’s team helps
us and it’s one of the things that, honestly, they
would really rather we not do. We’ve talked about
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we were. So, basically, last year, we didn’t run
many races – just did some match races here
and there and ran the boat. We decided it was
time to regroup and start over. We took the car
to [Steve] Torrence and the Laganas helped us.
We did the whole car – new clutch management,
fuel management, new Darren Mayer badass
blower. He’s building another one for us right
now. It was just time to revamp and try to catch
up a little bit. There’s just so much that we got
behind on, though, and if you don’t run similar to
everybody’s combination…nobody can help you.
That’s hard to do for a small team. I never say
‘low budget’ team because nobody in the stands
feels sorry for you. They don’t think you’re low
budget if you’re racing a Top Fuel car. I hate it
when people say, ‘Hey, man, it’s tough for a low
budget team like you guys, isn’t it?’ It is, but
nobody thinks we’re ‘low budget’ except the big
budget teams.
Most of the teams you race against are made
up of 10 or 12 full-time crewmembers. How do
you compete with teams that are essentially
small armies?
Rick Ducusin – he’s pretty much full-time. He
works on a Pro Mod back home and we’ve been
buddies for 25 years. He moved away from Missouri for a while and worked on Kalitta’s car for
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“I never say ‘low budget’ team
because nobody in the stands
feels sorry for you. They don’t
think you’re low budget if you’re
racing a Top Fuel car. Nobody
thinks we’re ‘low budget’
except the big budget teams.”