LIGHTS OUT VIII
PRESENTED BY
“Nova Joe” Albrecht’s
incredible rise to radial
racing’s top tier
By Ainsley Jacobs
W
inning one
of Donald
“Duck” Long’s
famous No
Mercy or
Lights Out races at South Georgia
Motorsports Park is an accom-
plishment that instantly catapults
the lucky driver to legendary
status within the small-tire drag
racing community. Many consider
it to be a career-defining achieve-
ment, but “Nova Joe” Albrecht of
Bellmore, New York, is hoping his
Radial vs. The World win this Feb-
ruary represents more than just a
once-in-a-lifetime thing.
At just 26 years old, Albrecht
already has done more with his
driving career than most can
even dream of and was honored
by being selected as one of Drag
Illustrated’s 2016 30 Under 30
inductees. Thanks to his father,
John Sr., the fourth-generation
gearhead has been around cars
since day one. The family-owned
shop, Thrift-Way Auto Body and
Chassis Works in Hempstead,
New York, served as a hands-on
classroom during Albrecht’s youth
to provide a strong wrenching
education.
“We used to go to car shows
and see guys with ’55 Chevys and
’41 Willys with blowers hanging
out of their hoods and I thought it
sucked that they’d just idle down
the road,” Albrecht remembers.
After begging his father to build
a race car, an ’85 Monte Carlo
bracket car evolved. As Albrecht
was too tall to run in a standard
issue Junior Dragster, he had to
wait until 2007 when he was 16
before he could race in a real car.
Dying to get his hands on whatev-
er he could, he started out bracket
racing his mom’s Suburban, then
eventually acquired a Chevy Nova
60 | D r a g
of his own and went on to win a
Wally at just 17 years old in the
NHRA Division 1 Bracket Finals.
Albrecht then traded his
bracket racing days for seat time
in an Ultra Street car by way of an
opportunity from car owner Eddie
Whalen. A customer of Thrift-
Way, Whalen had the shop finish
up his Al-Lee Motorsports ’67
Nova and Albrecht quickly cut his
teeth in the Induction Solutions
nitrous oxide-enhanced ride.
Running 4.80s in the eighth mile,
he went on to win Ultra Street in
December 2015, at the Snowbirds
Outlaw Nationals at Bradenton
Motorsports Park in Florida,
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
the Outlaw Street Car Shootout
in August 2016, at Cecil County
Dragway in Maryland, and various
other events.
“We had gone to Duck’s No
Mercy VI race in 2015,” Albrecht
recalls of the fateful event that
changed his trajectory as a driver.
“Eddie saw Radial vs. The World
and said, ‘I’m gonna’ have one of
those blower cars!’”
Quick to make good on his
word, Whalen found a 2006
Pontiac GTO online, so he and
Albrecht went to check it out. “I
had no clue what I was looking
at,” Albrecht admits. “I had never
raced anything like that and had
always worked on nitrous cars.
I didn’t know anything about
this screw-blown deal, but Eddie
bought the car.”
Originally built by Vanishing
Point Race Cars for Outlaw 10.5,
the SFI 25.2 GTO was purchased
as a turn-key car. Knowing that
radials were the route they wanted
to go, Thrift-Way did some up-
dates to suspension and wheels
to get the Goat to work with the
new set of stickies. Additionally,
a Ross Pistons-filled BAE 526 c.i.
Hemi topped with a screw blower,
QuickDrive transmission and Neal
Chance converter were installed
into what would soon be known as
one of the baddest GTOs ever. Fi-
nally, a fresh coat of red paint was
sprayed because, well, Whalen
simply loves the color red.
Through Jeremy Evrist at Brad
Anderson Enterprises, Whalen
and Albrecht got hooked up with
Jon Salemi of Resolution Racing.
Salemi met up with the car owner
and driver for the first time at
Cecil County in May 2016, intro-
ductions were made, and a plea
for help was professed. “We could
barely start the car before we met
Jon,” Albrecht laughs.
With Salemi’s expertise to rely
on, the car ran a 4.12-second
elapsed time on its first pass right
off the trailer. “It was a big jump
going from Ultra Street to this
type of car, but I can’t thank Eddie
enough for the awesome oppor-
tunity,” Albrecht says gratefully.
Ironically, his bracket racing
background has been a huge
help in his heads-up competition
career. “I try to do things method-
ically, and that’s helped tremen-
dously when we made the switch
to radials.”
Knowing they had a promising
Pontiac ready and waiting, Wha-
len and Albrecht headed down to
North Carolina in the late summer
of 2016 for a test session at Shady
Side Dragway. The car ran decent-
ly enough, but the guys knew they
still had a lot to figure out before
being competitive. “We original-
ly weren’t planning on going to
Issue 119
Hard Work Pays Off