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PRESTON TANNER |
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The feel-good story of the weekend at the Premier Street Car Association ’ s Heads-Up Hootenanny at Gateway Motorsports Park was the incredible , against-the-odds performance by Preston Tanner in MX235 . Racing under the shadow of the Gateway Arch on the last weekend in May , Tanner debuted his family-owned ’ 92 Mustang and took it all the way to the winner ’ s circle from the No . 10 position . He nearly shared the winner ’ s circle with his sister , Lexi , who posted a runner-up finish in the advanced Jr . Dragster class . The on-track story was special enough for Tanner , an inaugural Drag Illustrated 30 Under 30 honoree , but it was the back story behind the weekend that sweetened the deal for the Tanner family and their legion of supporters watching on . The Indiana native skipped his high school graduation to compete at the race , mostly because it was his last chance to debut the supercharged Mustang before going off to National Guard training for the summer .
In between Top Dragster qualifying sessions at the PDRA Summer Drags in Martin , Michigan , Tanner sat down with Drag Illustrated to talk about his new car , the fantastic debut weekend it experienced and his plans for the rest of the year .
How long have you and your dad , Andy , been working on putting together this Mustang ?
Around two years ago we went and picked it up in the middle of July . It used to run quarter-mile Mustang races . It was a perfect roller for us , so we picked it up , then Snyder Motorsports helped us with the small-block Chevy powerplant and the ComSync EFI . Ryan Micke with ComSync also helped us go in the right direction . TRZ did the cage and everything on the inside . Originally ,
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... I DON ’ T THINK I ’ D REMEMBER MY HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION , BUT I ’ LL ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS FIRST RADIAL WIN , ESPECIALLY WITH THE WAY IT ALL CAME TOGETHER .
we were going to have it on 275s , but then the MX235 class was kind of calling our name , so we threw 235s on it and it ’ s paid off .
Heads-Up Hootenanny was your first race out with the car , but you had tested with it before , right ?
Yeah , we went testing at US 41 Motorplex in Morocco , Indiana , and made a 60-foot pass and it went , so we thought , “ Load it up and see what it goes ( at St . Louis ).”
Going into the race weekend , what were your expectations ?
For the car to shift ( laughs ). We decided we ’ d build our own transmission , just because we wanted to see what it was like and to see all the parts inside of it . So we built the transmission and the goal was just to hopefully make it shift . Low expectations for some , but they were high expectations for us just because we had never built a transmission before .
As the weekend progressed and you entered eliminations , how did your confidence improve ?
We ran the test session and went 5.18 . So we
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decided we ’ d pick it up for qualifying . We got a little greedy in the first round of qualifying , spun the tires . Then it rained , then we had a 137-degree track temp for the last two sessions . We were sitting No . 10 . We were facing the guy who went 4.60 , and our best pass was a 5.18 . Our confidence wasn ’ t really down , I was just glad to be out there at that point .
Our guy has us by half a second , but we ’ ll see what we can do . So we put a setup in it that would go A-to-B and we just hoped they ’ d all mess up . First round , Justin ( Cyrnek ) was hurt and he tried to limp through but it wasn ’ t any good . We went through there with a 5.18 . That was pretty crazy . The second round came around and we were racing for the bye in the semis , so we leaned on it a little more and got a 5.07 out of it . Alright , we ’ re going in the right direction . We leaned on it again for the semis , thinking , “ Well , we can ’ t just give it to this guy .” He spun , so then we ’ re in the final .
The guy we were set to face was running 4.9s , so we were close . We tried everything we could to throw it in the . 90s . I was sitting on the starting line ready to pre-stage and I saw his car going down the track . He couldn ’ t get backed up . I was sitting in the car thinking , “ So does that mean I won ?” We weren ’ t even expecting to win a round , so to think that I won , I couldn ’ t even get it through my head . I went out and ran a 4.97 in the final . That would ’ ve put us close to what that guy had been running .
One of the big stories online was that you were skipping your high school graduation to be at the race . How long did you have to think about that decision ? Or was it an instant decision ?
It was an instant thing . I had some people telling me we could take some pictures Friday morning , but we decided I ’ m either going to do it or I ’ m not , so I decided to skip it . The hardest part was
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PHOTO : JAMES SISK |