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We’ re going to keep pushing the boundaries of engine development. I’ m going to continue to try to drive better. I drove decent this weekend, but don’ t think I drove great. If you look at reaction times, I was killing everyone, but we want to be better. I want to be an elite driver. We just got to keep working on all the pieces.
There’ s been a lot of discussion recently on parity between centrifugal superchargers and screw blowers. As someone who is carrying the torch for the screw combination, where do you stand? I’ m a firm believer that if you do not have the fastest and quickest car of your combination, you can’ t talk shit about the rules. I can’ t stand it when I hear people that are the 12th or 15th car from the fastest one bitching about rules. But we’ ve had the quickest and fastest screw blower combination for over a year.
The centrifugals have a large rule advantage. We don’ t know how much. At the end of the day, I have a lot of centrifugal customers, so for me as a business owner, we manage every type of power adder there is at KTR. My goal is always to make them all run the same. Let the drivers do the racing, let the crew chiefs do the racing. We don’ t know how much they got, but I know it’ s a lot. It’ s not 25 pounds’ worth.
Our engine has to be rebuilt. We knocked six pistons out of it in the final round to do that. We were very lucky in the chip draw to stay away from the centrifugals until the end. We made a really good run, but we burned it up.
Looking ahead, how does this win to kick off 2026 help propel you into the rest of the season? The guys at the engine shop are already working on the developmental engine that we’ ll run at World Series of Pro Mod. I’ ll be in a different car for World Series of Pro Mod than I’ ve ever driven
CHEERS AND PYRO FILL THE AIR IN THE WINNER’ S CIRCLE AFTER JACKSON WRESTLED THE DI WINTER SERIES MONKEY OFF HIS BACK.
before. So there’ s some pieces in the puzzle that we’ re moving around. We’ re getting ready to do a complete power adder platform change. If we can’ t get the rules fair, we’ re just gonna race what they have. It’ s the easiest thing to do.
If 75 % of the field is screw blowers and there were four screw blowers in the top 15, that’ s not Stevie carrying a torch. That’ s just somebody who knows how to run a calculator and knows we got something going on. We need a little bit of adjustment to help us out.
I’ m not worried about me. I have more power than anybody here. I can almost beat them. But what about the other 40 guys that have normal engines that are six or seven hundredths back? I had customers of mine that left the track on Friday because they know they got nothing for them.
But one thing that’ s awesome is you have a lot of people running the Winter Series that really love the sport. And when you have that, you’ re going to get good parity. No doubt things are going to get where they need to be.
And I am really, really excited about World Series of Pro Mod. The best thing about it is it’ s only four weeks away, so we get to carry this momentum and not have to think about it for six months. DI
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