PHOTOS: GREG BURROW can go a little bit faster. It’ s cool because [ Asphalt Wars ] is a no-rules deal. So as creative as you can get or as hard as you want to work, you can see payoff for it.”
Hard work and creativity are two concepts that are certainly familiar to Hutter and his team, made up of crew chief and owner Ron Hutter, Rich Bertleff, Doc Holliday, and EFI technical advisor Trevor Hutter. With Asphalt Wars’ primary track, Thompson Raceway Park, just down the road from Hutter’ s shop, he estimates he made around five test passes nearly every week for the last few seasons. The elder Hutter would keep the R & D flowing away from the track, spending countless nights on the dyno to make the nitrous combination work, with little to no avail. Upon switching to a pair of 80-millimeter Comp Turbo oil-less turbochargers, the duo quickly found themselves reaping the rewards of their efforts.
“ All the nitpicking on making the car light and all the figuring out how to get the car to 60-foot and figuring this out and figuring that out, now that we’ ve got the motor combination pretty well nailed down where it should be, all of that other stuff is coming to the surface. It’ s kind of like all the results of that work are all showing up at once. It’ s almost like we came out of nowhere, but really we’ ve been working at it a long time.”
When all that performance made itself known in the form of a very promising debut weekend with the turbocharged combo, inevitably the naysayers chimed in.“ In the space of a week, we went from being those crazy guys that don’ t know you need a huge motor in a Pro Mod to being those cheating guys with the car that’ s too light,” Hutter chuckles.
With his first Asphalt Wars season championship sealed up, Hutter’ s focus is set firmly on defending his title, but also making the step up to the Professional Drag Racers Association’ s Pro Boost class. He’ s upgraded to 88-millimeter turbos to feed the 434-cubic-inch motor, built by Hutter Racing Engines out of a CFE block and cylinder heads. The ultra-light, potent Stratus will follow the full to-be-announced Asphalt Wars schedule, as well as a few of the closer PDRA races.
“ Asphalt Wars is just a good series for us,” Hutter confirms.“ Even the furthest race for us is Empire Dragway. You can get up early, go race and come home all in the same day. As far as PDRA, I don’ t know what to expect. We’ ve had the car running pretty good in Asphalt Wars. During testing in the fall, we went a 3.88 out at Thompson, and I think that puts us on the fringe of making a Pro Boost show. But I feel like if you put the car on a track that’ s prepped like those PDRA tracks are prepped and throw some more power to it, maybe it’ ll go faster. That’ s what you would hope, anyway. I don’ t have a lot of expectations other than to know that we’ ve run good in where we’ re at and feel like we’ ve run good enough to be ready to try the next thing.”- NATE VAN WAGNEN DI
Big Dog
Charles Richards Jr.
As with any series in the sport of drag racing, a new rules package for historic Piedmont Dragway’ s Big Dog series caused speculation that the 2016 season might not be as successful as past season. But no one envisioned that a great cross section of competitive cars would show up for the coveted porcelain dog at Piedmont. The track, in continuous operation since 1957, opened its doors on a new season with nitrous cars, blower cars, and naturally aspirated cars. Nineteen cars made the trip to the track during the season, with the top five finishers consisting of four nitrous cars and a blower car in fifth. Behind Charles Richards Jr. came Ronnie Gardner’ s nitrous-assisted Camaro in second, followed by John Lassiter’ s Pontiac, Larry Pearce’ s Cobalt, and Bubba Turner in fifth with Jimmy Green’ s blown 1968 Camaro.
Winners for the season were Larry Pearce, Ronnie Gardner, Tim Siler, and Bubba Turner. Points champion, Richards, was the only repeat winner. The summer brought Richards’ Tommy Mauney-built 1963 Corvette into his own, winning the annual Power Jam in July, as well as the August event. The split-window‘ Vette, powered by a 780-cubic-inch combination from PAR Racing Engines in Spartanburg, SC, always went straight down the track. Having won two previous Renegade Eliminator points titles, Piedmont’ s tricky eighth mile was familiar territory to Richards and his father, Charles Sr., as well as his brother, Jason, and TM Race Cars employee Dean Jonas.
Richards, a mechanic by trade in Gastonia, North Carolina, says his trusty nitrous motor has been sold and a blown combination likely will be forthcoming for the 2017 season, a season that will see no rules changes for the series’ 21st season.- GREG BURROW DI
NHRA SUPER COMP NICK FOLK // NHRA SUPER GAS MIA TEDESCO // NHRA STOCK JEFF STRICKLAND // NHRA SUPER STOCK JIMMY DEFRANK
January 2017 DragIllustrated. com | Drag Illustrated | 77