PAT MUSI
MR. WORLDWIDE: Musi’ s tuning talents have taken him to drag strips around the world. His international accomplishments include numerous victories in the Arabian Drag Racing League, like this 2014 win with driver Khalid Mohammed in Round 4 of the ADRL season.
“ Have we had our arguments? We’ ve probably had a couple in six years,” Musi says.“ I’ ll tell you one thing about Rickie – we might argue once in a while, but it won’ t be three minutes and he’ s at my trailer,‘ OK, let’ s talk. Let’ s get this over with right now.’ And we do. Rickie is just a really good racer.”
PHOTOS: COLE ROKOSKY, ROGER RICHARDS, ARABIAN DRAG RACING LEAGUE
OVERSEAS AND NHRA PRO MOD SUCCESS
Musi’ s engine expertise started to reach all corners of the world in the mid-2000s, which led to another major step in his success.
Musi had sold a 540 cubic-inch engine to a customer in Bahrain in what Musi estimated to be in the 2004-2006 range, which were the beginnings of the drag racing boom in Bahrain and Qatar. That grabbed the attention of a Sheikh in Bahrain, who quickly bought a Camaro from Musi and then brought him over to tune it.
Since then, Musi has become a nearly-annual visitor overseas as a crew chief, though it started with extremely humble beginnings in Bahrain.
“ When we first went over there to Bahrain, there were no lights or tree,” Musi says.“ You just lined up and let the clutch go.”
Between racing in Bahrain and later for His Highness Sheikh Khalid Bin Hamad Al Thani in Qatar, Musi has gained valuable information and made one test run after another. He was among the first to go overseas and, again, it paid dividends.
“ We were making runs under extremely consistent conditions every day,” Musi says.“ Pro Mod cars are so crazy you spend half the day getting the car adjusted to the track. There, we were just making runs in the same conditions. It was very valuable.”
That success and that time making laps continued to have a strong carryover in Musi’ s business and racing exploits. He performed well in IHRA Pro Mod and then – in what has been a theme for his racing career – had immediate success in the NHRA Pro Mod ranks. Musi went
BREAKTHROUGH: Musi drove Brandao’ s“ King Kong 5” to his first NHRA win in Pro Mod in 2010.
to the final round in his debut appearance in 2010 at Englishtown, following it up a race later with what was his first career NHRA victory in any class, winning in Norwalk, also becoming the first Pro Mod car to win a race with EFI.“ Being prepared is 90 percent of the battle,” Musi believes.“ That’ s important.”
In 2016, Musi signed a deal for 10 races with Al-Anabi Racing, which also included his daughter, Lizzy, driving during the winter of 2016-2017. Between her and Richie Stevens, Pat Musi had 130 runs to gather information, something that has paid off in a major way for Lizzy’ s success and his customers’ sterling track record as of late.
“ The data we brought back that year was huge,” Musi said.“ We had real good success bringing Lizzy’ s car over there. We had a year advantage on people. We were fast.”
- JOSH HACHAT
Back in the Musi pit at National Trail, the rain has slowed down enough for the crew guys to finish packing up the pit area. The conversation’ s topic changes to the future for Musi and the drivers he leads. Musi is understandably apprehensive about Green’ s next outing, the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod in early August. Green was the first nitrous car to accept an invitation to the event, held at Bandimere Speedway, which sits at nearly 6,000 feet above sea level in the Colorado mountains – not exactly ideal conditions for a nitrous-fed entry in a sea of supercharged and turbocharged competitors.
In stark contrast, the Edelbrock and Lucas Oil-backed“ King Kong 7” is entering the portion of the season when it should shine like a diamond. The next race on the PDRA tour is Drag Wars at GALOT Motorsports Park, where Lizzy and“ King Kong 6” recorded some of the quickest and fastest passes in Pro Nitrous history before securing the event win last year. If the new ride performs as well as its predecessor, the Musi camp will be in for a few races of late Saturday nights and low elapsed times, all in the name of putting the number one on the windshield after the PDRA World Finals at Virginia in October.
“ It’ s still not impossible to win the( championship), but it’ s going to be tough,” Musi realizes.“ We’ re certainly going to try it and see what we can do. You never know. Lizzy went out first round at the last race, but the other guy can go out first round at the next race. You know how it goes.
“ The tracks are coming to us and the air is coming to us. Everyone knows we run best in good air. And we have a lot of information at GALOT. I think we have the record there, too. We feel pretty confident, but you just never know. We’ re not even looking at( the points). We’ re just going to do the best we can and see what happens.”
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