Scott Tidwell on what it takes to build a successful team

BY CRAIG COOK

PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICK BELDEN, LUKE NIEUWHOF, CHRIS SEARS, AND DIEGO LUGO

The final Pro Mod qualifying session has just concluded at the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway in Concord, North Carolina, and Scott Tidwell is taking a much-deserved rest back at his rig. The 52-year-old team owner from Alabama has had as much success in the class as anyone in recent years, whether his Scott Tidwell Racing cars are competing in the JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod Series presented by Elite Motorsports, or the Drag Illustrated Winter Series presented by J & A Service.

Tidwell started his own companies, J. Scott

Enterprises and Dixie Trucking, beginning in 1989 with just one truck that he drove himself, and has built them into premier businesses. Likewise, he had humble origins in drag racing as a bracket racer and over the years has built a Pro Mod empire.

With rain moving into the Charlotte area and eliminations set for the following morning, Tidwell sat down with Drag Illustrated to reflect on how he first got interested in the sport, finding the right individuals to have success, and becoming one of the most prominent team owners in all of drag racing.

You have an extensive drag racing driving background. How did you first get involved in the sport?

Just by going to the racetrack at Huntsville way back when. I had a‘ 69 Camaro we cut up and made a bracket car out of. The first car I ever raced in NHRA was that car in Super Street, and then eventually we got a tube-chassis car, moved up to Super Gas, then Super Comp. Comp is where we did most of our winning. We won a lot of stuff in Comp over the years – we ran a truck there, we ran a 2002 Camaro, a Grand Am. We had a‘ 97 Pontiac Trans Am that we won a championship with, won several divisional and national events. But we ran a bunch of different cars. We had three or four different trucks, and about that many Comp cars.

Then we had a Pro Stock Truck. It was right at the end of Pro Stock Truck before we really had the parts and pieces to be competitive. We were finally making headway when they moved it back to Comp. We went back to Comp and raced one more year, then I gave it up. I came back in 2014-15 with a good friend of mine, Paul Gargus. He had a radial car and I came back to help him with it. We got to fooling with the radials and then worked our way back up to Pro Mod.

Were you a big fan of Pro Mod back when you were bracket racing? What got you into it?

Not really. I liked Pro Stock, and we did a little bit of that. I did more driving for people testing than I actually did in my own car. Pro Stock always had my attention, but it just doesn’ t excite me as much as it once did. Richard Freeman’ s a really good friend of mine, and me and him have kicked it around back and forth about me driving for him. I just haven’ t done it. We’ re pretty busy with these Pro Mod teams.

But the Winter Series stuff is probably my ultimate favorite, and then NHRA. I just like the organization. There’ s an organization over there for NHRA Pro Mod, it’ s a group of people that’ s hard to beat. And then Wes [ Buck ] has a really good, solid program down in Bradenton that he’ s put together too. It’ s just one of my favorite things.

As both a business owner and a team owner, what are some similarities and differences in how you run them?

I’ ve told my people all along, we need to assemble the right people and do it right, or I didn’ t want to do it. Through the years, we have done that. We’ ve got Steve Petty, Chris Terry, Brandon Stroud, and some of the best crew guys in the industry. It’ s not me. I assembled the people, but it’ s the people we assembled that have made the success for this team. Pro Line being a partner of ours is a bigger piece in this puzzle than people realize.

We also run other people’ s cars, like the RvW car that we’ ve had so much success with the last couple of years that belongs to Ken [ Quartuccio ]. We race it out of our shop, maintain it and show up to races for him. Steve tunes it, Chris is the assistant, and Franny [ McCarthy ] takes care of everything in the shop. Chris and Franny are taking care of this new screw car we debuted this weekend. Derek Menholt has his own Corvette that he raced at the Winter Series, and we plan to bring it out in NHRA. We just help him take care of it all and race together. That’ s the kind of team we’ ve put together. We’ ve got a lot going on in a positive way.

You talked about putting the right people in place. To see the recent success you’ ve had –

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