Q
& A By
Todd Martin
Nate Van Wagnen
The plains of Tulsa, Oklahoma, will rumble with the sound of nitromethane-injected A / Fuel dragsters this August 25 th and 26 th when Osage Casino Tulsa Raceway Park hosts the inaugural Pro A / Fuel Challenge. It’ s a two-day, dragstersonly event headlined by a $ 20,000-to-win modern A / Fuel dragster race with a total purse of $ 50,000 – a first for A / Fuel racing. Also included in the line-up are a Quick 32 shootout, the Southwest Junior Fuel Association racers and Junior Dragster fields for two different age groups.
The man behind the event is veteran Pro Extreme driver and Tulsa coowner Todd Martin. Along with fellow racer and co-owner Keith Haney, Martin has worked to bring a variety of unique and entertaining events to the storied Oklahoma track. The Pro A / Fuel Challenge is Martin’ s latest brainchild, designed to bring attention to a class Martin feels has been long underpromoted. He even recently earned his A / Fuel dragster license with plans of putting together his own A / Fuel team in the future.
Martin took time out of his schedule during Tulsa’ s NHRA Lucas Oil Series divisional event to discuss the inspiration for the event, as well as his possible A / Fuel future.
A / Fuel dragsters are rarely“ the show” at races other than NHRA regional events, and they’ ve never raced for such a sizable purse. What was your inspiration to put on a race like this?
This track has a history of doing different types of races, thinking outside the box and promoting specific classes. We do a great job with Pro Mods. Tulsa held the Funny Car Challenge in 1972 when they went up against NHRA. They’ ve had the NHRA Nationals here. So I think part of the inspiration was to continue on the heritage of the track in finding the under-promoted classes of racers that deserve the attention.
The other part of the equation is a lot of your professional drivers come out of A / Fuel and go into Top Fuel. Look at Shawn Langdon, Morgan Lucas, Scott Palmer, the Force girls – the list just goes on and on. They all raced A / Fuel before they jumped into Top Fuel racing. I feel it’ s an underpromoted class that people need to see. These cars are going 5.20s at over 280 mph in the quarter mile. It wasn’ t too long ago that Top Fuel didn’ t even go that fast.
You recently earned your NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster license in Bob Everett’ s A / Fuel dragster. Why did you want to go through that process?
I got my A / Fuel license because I wanted to be able to promote this race correctly. I called Bob and told him I wanted to get my license. Monroe Guest, who usually drives the car, just had surgery and they needed to test the car before Topeka, so the timing was right. Also, I am slowly and methodically looking at putting together an A / Fuel team for next season. There is a possibility you’ ll see me in an A / Fuel car soon.
How did the sensation of driving a nitro-injected A / Fuel car compare to driving your screw-blown Pro Extreme car?
The biggest difference is obviously we run 660 feet with the Pro Extreme car, where the A / Fuel car runs 1,320 feet. That was a really cool deal to be able to run it out the back door at 270 mph. I’ ve never been that fast before, so I thought that was a really neat opportunity. I found that the beginning of the pass isn’ t as fast because they have a clutch and they have so much power that they have to back it down, but from 300- foot to the quarter mile was really fun to drive.
I can say the neatest thing is when they switch it over from alcohol to nitro on the startup because the first time we did that on the racetrack, it was like there was a thousand-pound gorilla on top of the car hitting it with a sledgehammer. You can feel every cylinder fire in the A / Fuel car while it’ s idling.
The driving of the car is very simplistic compared to the Pro Mod. The Pro Mod cars are a lot more to handle and there’ s a lot more going on inside the car, so you really have to concentrate on a whole bunch of things. With the A / Fuel car, you don’ t have as much to focus on. The craziest thing is that you never touch the throttle after you do the burnout. You’ ve got to get that through your mind – you absolutely cannot touch the throttle before the launch.
It’ s neat to be able to see the front end. You never get to see the front end of the car in the Pro Mod. In the dragster, you can actually see the front wheels and the whole front of the car going down the racetrack versus in the Pro Mod where you can’ t see past the end of the blower.
With the race weekend for the Pro A / Fuel Challenge rapidly approaching, how is the general outlook surrounding the event?
I’ ve already had 19 teams call me to pre-enter the race and pay the $ 2,000 entry fee. That says a lot about the potential of this race. The concentration of A / Fuel teams in our area have been very receptive to the idea of the race. We’ re just trying to do our part to make drag racing great. It takes people thinking outside the box and bringing new types of races to the spectator to make this sport continue to grow. DI
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