Drag Illustrated Issue 138, November 2018 | Page 19

Special Section “WE HAD A BAD YEAR LAST YEAR AND WE HAD SOME STRUGGLES, BUT MY TEAM NEVER GAVE UP.” again, the class wasn’t having cars show up like I was hoping they would,” Boone admits, looking back on the short eight-car fields of 2016. “Now we’re having 15-16 cars. The class is growing. I really think that by next year we’ll have even more cars show up.” Mountain motor Pro Stock, by some accounts, was on its deathbed just a few years ago. But with a reliable place to race and a bevy of sponsors – like title sponsor Liberty’s Gears – supporting Extreme Pro Stock, Boone is confident the class can continue its nat- urally aspirated climb. “We would all like to see it get back to it was in the old IHRA days when you had 20-21 cars, but if we had 18 cars, that would not be out of the realm,” Boone says. “We sat and figured up there’s about 26-28 cars still left in the United States that could come out and race. I honestly feel like some of these guys will come back.” Trying to run at the front of a thriving class has required Boone to step up his program this season. His Boone Motor- sports ’07 Chevy Cobalt has been consistently running in the 4.0-second zone all season, carrying him to victory at the North-South Shootout and the Fall Nation- als, plus a runner-up finish at Drag Wars at GALOT Motors- ports Park. Boone, who services the engine and handles the sus- pension between rounds, shares credit for the car’s per- formance with tuner Mike Allen Jr. and the Boone Mo- torsports crew, adding that it all comes down to one thing. “Hard work,” Boone says. “ Very, very hard work, between the engine shop and testing different things. My engine builders work hard on my stuff. My team doesn’t give up. My team is one of the hardest working teams that I’ve ever been around. We had a bad year last year and we had some struggles, but they never gave up. Racing Suspension has helped us with the suspension. But the main thing has been hard work. Sometimes you don’t have to have the biggest pocketbook, you just have to work hard.” The always-humble Boone also offers his thanks to sup- porters like Hoosier Tire, Pat Norcia at Ram Clutches, Penske Shocks, and Richard Boling Race Cars, as well as the employees of his three businesses: Boone Concrete Works, WNC Refab, and Boone Motorsports, a high perfor- mance automotive shop. “We’ve tried some new stuff. Adam Lambert with Precision PDRA660.com 19