After starting his Jeff Pierce Race Car Tuning business and working with his father , Dave , as well as Ron Muenks , Keith Haney , Jeff Cummings , Jon and Jim Salemi , Jeremy Ray , and Mike Stawicki , among others , Pierce became closely aligned with Pro Line , helping tune for their slew of turbo cars . This year he worked primarily on Sidnei Frigo ’ s turbo Corvette and will be Frigo ’ s full-time crew chief in 2017 .

Pierce says working with Frigo is “ definitely a neat experience . He ’ s a great guy . I mean , he ’ s one of the best customers I ’ ve ever had as far as just very easy-going . We had some struggles when we got the new car out . We fought it for two races until we finally found it , and he was really patient through the whole thing . He was just like us . He wasn ’ t getting mad . And so finally , we got that fixed and we did better in St . Louis and better at Vegas , and so we were pretty happy and we ’ re ready to go into next year full swing .

“ I enjoy the tuning , the puzzle part of it ,” continued Pierce , who earned his Pro Mod license at 18 , but never pursued a driving career . “ The challenge of figuring out how to make it as fast as you can and the fact that you can never say you ’ re done . You can never say ‘ Oh , this is the fastest it can go .’ There ’ s always going to be some other little loophole that you can figure out a way to make it a little bit faster . And so I enjoy that part of it . The driving is fun , but I ’ ve always liked tuning more . So that ’ s what I ’ ve always chosen .”

It ’ s a good choice for the young professional . He tuned in Brazil and Canada this year , and , of course , across the U . S . Even if Pierce ’ s customers have a weekend off , he can generally be found at the track with his dad ’ s nitrous car , driven by Ron Muenks . “ It ’ s been a great year . Everybody I ’ ve worked with has been really , really fun teams . It ’ s much more enjoyable when you ’ ve got good teams to work with and it ’ s been a good year like that .

“ Luckily when Dad stepped out of the seat , Ron came in and drove our nitrous car and he ’ s done an excellent job and it ’ s been a fun deal . We ran , I think six or seven PDRA races this year and the ‘ Throwdown ’ races in Tulsa . We won both of those , so that was pretty cool . I ’ ve gotten to do pretty much all the different kinds of cars and nitrous racing is still something I ’ m very passionate about . Luckily , Dad ’ s still interested in it and we do that deal together . It ’ s fun to do that with your dad and at the same time , it ’ s – to me – one of the

coolest kind of cars . I ’ m not saying that turbos and blowers aren ’ t cool , but to me , nitrous racing is where it ’ s at .”

There ’ s no doubt with the vast experience and success at his young age that Jeff Pierce will lead

the way for the next generation of tuners , pushing the envelope of what ’ s possible and continuing to be the brains behind winner ’ s circle photos for years to come . – LISA COLLIER DI

PHOTO : JOE McHUGH