Spencer Massey admits he won’t rest until November, and then he’ll kick up his feet and watch some football and relax.

Chances are while the gridiron battles rage on his television screen, he’ll think back to the point in the season when he stopped the veterans at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Mich., to win his third event of the season.

Along the way he’ll reflect how he kept an uncharacteristic level head for a rookie driver. He’ll remember how he knocked off the defending world champion and made his first foray in the 4.6-second zone.

Massey will remember that weekend. But, that’s in the future and he’s looking anywhere but there at this moment.

He’s living by cliché, one day at a time. One round and one event at a time is the motto for the day. No fist-pumping for the driver of Mitch King’s Top Fuel dragster.

 

Spencer Massey admits he won’t rest until November, and then he’ll kick up his feet and watch some football and relax.

Chances are while the gridiron battles rage on his television screen, he’ll think back to the point in the season when he stopped the veterans at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Mich., to win his third event of the season.

Along the way he’ll reflect how he kept an uncharacteristic level head for a rookie driver. He’ll remember how he knocked off the defending world champion and made his first foray in the 4.6-second zone.

Massey will remember that weekend. But, that’s in the future and he’s looking anywhere but there at this moment.

He’s living by cliché, one day at a time. One round and one event at a time is the motto for the day. No fist-pumping for the driver of Mitch King’s Top Fuel dragster.

“It is a big deal because it’s Top Fuel but I have been in that similar situation in the Top Alcohol Dragster class,” Massey said. “I’ve been in that situation before but you don’t think about it. As soon as that car starts up, everything gets thrown out of the window. I forget about everything. Like I said if I have an itch on my armpit or knee it all goes away.”

Massey is a good student and he’s quickly mastered tuner Paul Smith’s curriculum of waste not and want not. In other words, he’ll kill you with consistency if you’re in the opposite lane.

“We just can’t go out and do anything stupid to beat ourselves,” Massey said. “The guys keep saying we’re 4.70ing them to death. It’s not the fastest car, but it’s consistent. That’s a Paul Smith tune-up.”

On a weekend when carnage was in abundance, Smith tuned the King dragster to good runs in the worst of conditions.

Hot track, cold track, no track conditions really affect the Paul Smith revered tune-up.

“It really doesn’t…but that’s why he’s Paul Smith,” Massey said. “That’s why he’s been around for as long as he has been. We haven’t had to change the cylinder heads once all weekend. It’s the same block we blew up last weekend and we put it all back in again. I mean it’s just a safe tune-up. I mean I’m sure we could lean on it more and make it go faster, but it would hurt it and Paul doesn’t like that. He starts getting aggravated.”

Massey’s victory enabled him to jump out to a 41 point lead over Litton who led the points coming into the event.

But, as he says, there’s still a lot of racing left to go.

For Massey, he’ll get plenty of seat time in the weeks to come but not all in Top Fuel. He’ll flip-flop between King’s Top Fueler and Gene Snow’s A/FD that he races in Top Alcohol Dragster.

He’ll race TAD this weekend in Brainerd, Minn., return to Top Fuel the following weekend at the IHRA event in Tulsa and back to Snow’s car for Indy.

Veteran Top Fuel driver Pat Dakin will drive the Top Fueler for King at Indy.

Massey is okay with that, as long as he gets to race something.

Structure and order is what Massey thrives on.

“You just have to take it one round and one race at a time,” Massey said. “That’s just what you have to do. That’s what I’ve always heard all the way from Warren Johnson to all the big names, watching them on TV and watching them in person. It’s tough … just getting after it and not thinking about it.”

Massey is secure in his ride knowing King is thrilled being on the outside, and having the time of his life, he might add.

Massey explained, “Everyone always asks him, ‘Wouldn’t you love to be driving?

“You would be in that situation right now. He’s having a ball. He’s feeling a lot more at ease outside of the car. He feels like he’s fine being outside the car and he totally is happy and he loves it. “