Special Section
WITH ITS SLEEK BODY LINES AND SPARKLING BROWN PAINT JOB, TIM ESSICK’S “BROWN SUGAR” 2018 FORD MUSTANG IMMEDIATELY
STARTED TURNING HEADS WHEN IT MADE ITS DEBUT AT THE 2018 PDRA FIRECRACKER NATIONALS AT VIRGINIA MOTORSPORTS PARK IN LATE
JUNE. FEW PEOPLE EVEN KNEW IT EXISTED BEFORE SHOTS OF THE CAR WERE POSTED ONLINE JUST ONE MONTH EARLIER, AS THE PROJECT WAS
KEPT A SECRET FOR NEARLY TWO YEARS AS IT DEVELOPED IN ESSICK’S THREE-CAR GARAGE IN PORT TOBACCO, MARYLAND. ASIDE
from the chassis powder coating, the entire build was conducted in-house
by Essick and a few friends.
Essick built the Alan Johnson Performance Engineering 481x powerplant with
a ProCharger F-3R-136 centrifugal supercharger to fit a specific rule package
within the Atomizer Racing Injectors Outlaw 10.5 National Championship Series,
which competes at PDRA races three times in 2019 with presenting sponsor-
ship from Drag 965. It’s a familiar combo for Essick, who ran a similar package
in the early 2000s before switching to twin turbos.
Essick admits he went through some typical “new-car blues” with Brown
Sugar, but it’s been a serious contender since the Outlaw 10.5 veteran worked
out the kinks. He recorded the first 3.8-second pass on true 10.5-inch slick
tires, a 3.896 at 195.73, on his way to a runner-up finish at the PDRA World
Your car has a unique story. Where
did it start?
We decided in 2016 to start building
a new car. Actually, when Ford
changed the Mustang design in 2015,
I petitioned to Ford to try to get a
body. At the time, they weren’t going
to release any. In 2016, they decided
they were going to release one to
me, so we went to Michigan and
picked up a car, then started this
build. We built it in secret based
around the rule package that’s in
the car currently because it looked
very favorable to me and I didn’t
want anybody else running the same
idea.
It was kind of funny – in the back-
ground at the time while we were
44 PDRA660.com
Finals in October, then lowered the mark with a 3.86 at the World Cup Finals
at Maryland, subsequently winning the Outlaw vs. Extreme class. Essick plans
on further improving the record this season.
“When I started this car, I would’ve never expected it to work so good, so
fast,” Essick says. “It’s just been a blessing being able to take my time and
build it the way we wanted to do it. I look forward to winning a lot of races
this year.”
After racing to a runner-up finish at the season-opening PDRA East Coast
Nationals presented by FuelTech at GALOT Motorsports Park, Essick sat
down with DRAG ILLUSTRATED to talk about Brown Sugar, the rewards of
building the car himself and his decision to stick with the 10.5 tire.
building the car, we started seeing
Steve Morris and Proline starting to
advertise that supercharged 481x
combo. We kind of giggled, “hey, do
they have a camera in our garage?”
I guess they had the same idea. me, some guys would need a little
something done – fix a broken trans
or whatever. We kind of had to trust
that a couple strangers who came
in wouldn’t say anything, and it
seemed like it worked.
All in all, we finished the car the
middle portion of last year. Since we
brought it out, after about 12 or 15
test passes, the thing just started
working flawlessly. You put the car together in your own
garage, from chassis fabrication,
engine building and wiring to the
paint and bodywork. What did that
process look like?
How hard was it to keep that under
wraps? I started by building a frame jig. I
didn’t have one in the past, so I went
ahead and built a jig, started building
the car and just worked bit by bit on
it by putting everything into it that
I had learned over the years that I
wanted and thought would work
best. Through 2016, we’d work on
It was a little difficult. I have a close-
knit group of friends that kept it
quiet, but sometimes when there
was a race at MIR (Maryland Inter-
national Raceway), which is local to
the new car during the week and
run the old car on the weekends.
In an era when most people go to a
chassis builder, paint shop and
engine builder to do most of the
work on a new car, how rewarding
was it to put your own car together
like that and have it be as successful
as it’s been?
It definitely is rewarding. Most of the
joy that I get out of it is actually
building or making the stuff. But to
be able to put something together
yourself and have it perform as good
or better than all of the big-name,
big-paid companies and people, it’s
definitely a humbling experience.