PHOTOS: CHRIS SEARS, NHRA / NATIONAL DRAGSTER |
With a driving resume that includes shifter karts, Legends cars, and supercharged pulling trucks, Pro Stock driver Alex Laughlin is clearly an adrenaline-driven gearhead of the highest order. So it should have been no surprise to anyone when the Texan bolstered his 24-race Pro Stock schedule with a couple races in a nitro-injected A / Fuel dragster at the tail end of the 2016 season. Top Alcohol Dragster is the next step in Laughlin’ s evolution as a professional drag racer.“ It was definitely an eye-opening experience,” said Laughlin of his first time driving Anthony Dicero’ s 270-mph dragster.“ Even running my Top Dragster at 200 mph seems a lot faster than what 200 mph feels like in the Pro Stock car. In the door car you’ re looking out so far ahead of you that you don’ t realize how fast you’ re going. In the A / Fuel car, you definitely realize that you’ re flying. The speed and acceleration is incredible. My hand actually floated back and smacked me on the face when I went to reach for the parachute lever on my first full run.”
Laughlin’ s Gas Monkey Energy dragster suffered a DNQ at Dallas and a first-round loss at Las Vegas, but he’ s learned first-hand that success
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doesn’ t come immediately in drag racing. He has a new A / Fuel car being built at Morgan Lucas Racing’ s chassis shop, and he’ s enlisted Dicero and crew to help him field the car at all 16 of the 2017 national events where the Top Alcohol classes are contested – on top of the full Pro Stock schedule.
If Laughlin’ s first full season in Top Alcohol
Dragster is anything like his first full season in Pro Stock, he’ s in for a fruitful 2017 campaign. Driving his Gray Motorsports-powered Gas Monkey Energy Camaro, Laughlin qualified number one for the first time and won his first national event to finish 11th in the NHRA Mello Yello Series Pro
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Stock points, the highest non-Countdown driver.
“ We started off the season without a single round win from last year. One thing led to another. First I wanted to win a round, then I wanted to win another one. After going rounds at a majority of the races and winning an event, now I just absolutely hate losing. At the end of the day I’ m just super thankful to be in the position I’ m in.”
As he’ s stated in the past, Laughlin also has the desire to make the move up to Top Fuel, with A / Fuel serving as a stepping stone as it has for numerous current Top Fuel stars. However, Laughlin doesn’ t want to move up and out of Pro Stock – he wants to run both.
“ We don’ t have any direct plans for Top Fuel at the moment, but I think it would be cool to run a race or two in Top Fuel next year. My ultimate goal for 2017 is to reach out to NHRA and convince them to lift the rule that limits drivers to only compete in one pro class at an event. I’ d like to run Top Fuel and Pro Stock at one event. They wrote that rule when Pro Stock Truck was a class, and Pro Stock Car guys were jumping over and dominating the truck class. Now that we don’ t have a Pro Stock Truck class, it’ s a rule that doesn’ t really make sense, especially since car counts are down.” – NATE VAN WAGNEN DI
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November 2016 |
DragIllustrated. com | Drag Illustrated | 107 |