Bruce Litton recently announced the hiring of noted veteran Nicky Boninfante as tuning consultant and an integral part of the Lucas Oil/Torco Racing Fuel sponsored top fuel team.

“I can’t wait for the new season to start”, Litton said. “Coming back from my crash in early September, we made great progress with our back-up car at the IHRA final’s last year, with a new Hadman chassis being built for this season and adding Nicky makes us excited for racing to begin.  This will be a very competitive year in Top Fuel and I feel we need to put our best foot forward to be in the middle of a season long shoot-out.”

Boninfante has a long history with tuning nitro fuel cars, and who currently has the Torco NF/C National ET and Speed Record, has a long friendship with Richard Hartman (Crew Chief of Litton’s dragster).  “I started working with Richard in 1990 when we ran a funny car together Nicky said, and we worked together again starting in 1999 when we tuned on Bruce’s Top Fuel dragster team.  I consider Richard like a brother to me.”  In four years they led Bruce to his first Top Fuel win in 1999 and went on to amass 6 wins in 22 Top Fuel finals together during that period.

Nicky said, “This is like a homecoming, not only do I rejoin Bruce and Richard but also with Mike Wolfarth who assembles some of the nicest T/F dragsters in the business. Together we will represent two of the best companies in the sport today, Lucas Oil and Torco Racing Fuels.”

Litton not only known for his on track competitiveness, but having a keen sense to develop new talent, he was driving instructor to current T/F stars such as Clay Millican, J.R. Todd, and Doug Foley.

Plans for 2007 call for the team to do pre-season testing and start at NHRA’s Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida before heading on to San Antonio, Texas for IHRA’s season opener and continuing to mix several NHRA races through out the full IHRA schedule.