Special Section
ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2008, JIM HALSEY CARVED HIS NAME INTO THE PRO MODIFIED HISTORY BOOKS WHEN HE LIT UP THE
SCOREBOARD AT THE NOW-DEFUNCT OLD BRIDGE TOWNSHIP RACEWAY PARK WITH THE FIRST-EVER 5-SECOND QUARTER-MILE
NITROUS PRO MODIFIED PASS DURING THE SHAKEDOWN AT E-TOWN. TEN YEARS LATER, HALSEY IS STILL CHASING RECORDS. A
FEW THINGS HAVE CHANGED OVER THE LAST DECADE – HE WENT THROUGH A COUPLE CARS, SWAPPED THE CLUTCH FOR A TORQUE
CONVERTER SETUP, AND JUMPED INTO THE PDRA’S EIGHTH-MILE SWITZER DYNAMICS PRO NITROUS CLASS – BUT MANY OTHER
factors remain the same. He’s stuck
with the iconic ’68 Camaro body style
with a Gene Fulton powerplant, he’s
joined at the races by Cathy Crouse,
his girlfriend of 32 years, and he still
goes to the track with intentions of
winning every race he enters.
Led by tuner Brandon Switzer and
longtime crew chief Eric Davis, along
with crew members Michael McMil-
lan and Melissa Switzer, Halsey has
come pretty close to winning every
race he’s entered over the last four
races. He set the Pro Nitrous ET
record on the way to a runner-up
finish at the Brian Olson Memorial
World Finals to close out the 2018
season, then went into the new
season swinging, posting victories
at the season-opening East Coast
Nationals presented by FuelTech and
44 PDRA660.com
the Mid-Atlantic Showdown pre-
sented by Modern Racing.
Speaking from his race shop in Havre
de Grace, Maryland, Halsey sat down
with Drag Illustrated to look back
on the evolution of his career, his
hot start to the 2019 season and his
goals for the rest of the year.
How have these nitrous Pro Mods
changed in the time since you made
that first 5-second quarter-mile pass?
I think the cars are a lot more rigid
now. Back then, we were running a
clutch. I was actually running a
5-speed Liberty at the time. Now,
everybody is going away from the
clutches and clutchless transmis-
sions to converters and Lencos or
Turbo 400s and converters.
The PDRA Nitrous Wars competition
for engine builders within the Pro
Nitrous class is one of the highlights
of the class. What does it mean to kind
of carry the flag for Gene Fulton and
Fulton Competition Race Engines?
Gene Fulton and the guys at Fulton
have been a big part of my success.
I’ve been with them for close to 20
years now.
I don’t want to take anything away
from Charlie (Buck) or Pat (Musi).
They’re both great guys and they
build great engines, but I think a lot
of people had written Gene off. I
think with what we’ve done the last
year and a half or two years, we’ve
proved that he’s still got it.
You used to make a ton of test runs
at Cecil County Dragway (owned
and operated by Halsey and Crouse).
Is that still something you do?
We don’t do it as much as we used
to. When we first bought this car
from Jerry (Bickel), we spent quite a
few weekends up there testing. It
paid off in the long run to get
started, but we don’t test there reg-
ularly now that we have things
sorted out.
You finished the 2018 season with
a runner-up finish and the ET record
at the World Finals. How did that set
the tone for this season?
We knew the car was good. There
were some things we had been
wanting to try on the car that we
did in Virginia last year. That was a