Drag Illustrated Issue 129, January / February 2018 | Page 30
Dirt
Back in the Saddle
Giangrande looks back with gratitude on Pro Stock return
By Lisa Collier
30 | D r a g
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
a super important part of everything that goes on.
She works on the car in between races, not your
typical female, very car-oriented. She’ll help me
with the engine, the clutch, and with every aspect
of the car. When we weren’t racing, I think she
missed it almost more than I did.
“My buddy Jered and his wife Jody Gall are the
other half of our team,” Giangrande continued.
“Jered is my right hand man. The four of us do
it together. It’s two husband and wife teams that
run this Pro Stock deal, which is pretty untypi-
cal of the people we’re competing against. We all
take pride in finishing sixth in the points. We
set our goal to finish in the top 10 this year and
we accomplished that. And at just about every
race this past season, we went out and set a new
personal best.”
The team focused this year on getting a baseline
and hopes next year to continue closing in the gap
on the Pro Stock frontrunners.
“I hadn’t done anything with a Pro Stock car
for almost 10 years now. So this was kind of a
re-initiation to Pro Stock for me. I had to get re-
acclimated with driving and tuning a Pro Stock
car. It is very different from anything else out
there. This was a learning year for all of us on
the team.”
Giangrande is a self-proclaimed underdog,
wheeling a nine-year-old car and 12-year-old
powerplant. He’s been able to compete close to
the top teams by paying close attention to all of
the details regarding the tuning of the car, not just
the engine. “When you don’t have some sort of
power adder, such as nitrous, supercharger or a
turbocharger, a premium is put on every aspect
of the car,” he added. “You can’t leave anything on
the table in the clutch, transmission and suspen-
sion department.
“We did our own motors this year,” Giangrande
continued. “We take a lot of pride in doing a lot of
this ourselves, because I’m really racing in a class
that I should not be racing in from a monetary
standpoint. But when you’re a car guy, and you
love racing, you just figure out a way to get it
done. That’s why the vendors that help are just
so important.
“I work at CV Products and XceldyneTech-
nologies. Xceldyne is our manufacturing division.
CV is our distribution portion. Really without
them I can’t get it done because they allow me
the time off of work to represent our companies
at the track. We’re involved sponsorship-wise
with PDRA, and we hope to grow that in 2018.
Xceldyne provides me with all of the valvetrain
components for my race car. Xceldyne provides
the highest quality titanium parts, which includes
the valves, retainers, a lot of other internal engine
components.
“I’ve also formed a relationship with CP Pistons
and Carrillo Connecting Rods over the last eight
or nine years. They’re like my family. Cindy, Snake,
Richard and the whole group out there at CP
and Carrillo take care of me like I’m one of their
own. They’re very instrumental in getting me the
Issue 129
T
he offseason is the perfect time
to reflect on the previous season, tak-
ing stock of the season’s pros and cons
in preparation for the season to come.
For Matt Giangrande, this was an important sea-
son on which to reflect. After being out of the
driver’s seat for a large part of two years, 2017
was Giangrande’s comeback year. Suitably, it was
also a comeback year, of sorts, for the class he
chose to run.
The Long Islander-turned-North Carolinian
became a door car fan from his youth and has
never swayed from that first love. He’s driven
and served as crew chief in both Pro Mod and
Pro Stock. He sold his Pro Nitrous car in 2014,
which began his break from driving. When he
chose to jump back into the driver’s seat this year,
he did so in PDRA’s Extreme Pro Stock. Know-
ing the recent history of mountain motor Pro
Stocks, Giangrande took the bull by the horns,
so to speak, and helped organize and unify the
class to have a strong showing with the PDRA
this season. His efforts paid off both personally
and with the class as a whole.
“It was so satisfying to see everyone racing
there and having a good time,” Giangrande ex-
pressed. “We had 16 or more cars multiple times
this year. There’s a lot of excitement going into
2018. I know that Bob (Harris), Tommy (Frank-
lin) and Jason (Scruggs) from the PDRA were
happy with what we accomplished in 2017. There
were quite a few unknowns (prior to this season),
but I think that the PDRA saw support in ways
that they’ve never seen before, and I think we
had to do that as a group. We were able to go
out and put on a good show. We got great feed-
back from the fans. It’s obvious that they love the
normally aspirated hot rods with clutches. As a
group we always want more cars and we always
want more participation, but I feel like this year
no one had to pick up our slack. We held up our
end of the bargain.
“I forgot how much fun it is racing with those
people – Montecalvo, Carr, Eman, Goforth, Mor-
ton, O’Brien, Pluchino, Cooper, Boone, DeFlorian
and Powers. We definitely, from time to time,
had our share of controversy, but when it comes
right down to it, anybody will do anything for
you almost more so than I have seen in any other
class. It’s really a tight knit group.”
Giangrande finished sixth in his first season
back and feels like he has much to be thankful
for from this kick-start season.
“My wife, Jennifer, is the most important per-
son in this whole deal,” he said of his wife of 11
years. “Anybody that knows me knows we’re in-
separable. We do everything together and racing
is no different. She loves it as much as I do. She’s