TONY CHRISTIAN'S WILD RIDE
Sun, 2008-11-02 10:31
Former NHRA Pro Stock runner turned Pro Street racer Tony Christian,
“The King of Pro Street”, is racing a
Reher-Morrison powered ’02 Grand Am at the Orlando Real World Street
Nationals in Orlando, Fla., after taking a short hiatus from
the event the last few years. He has made his presence felt this
weekend with arguably the best performing car in the front half of the
track, recording a 1.00 sixty-foot and going 2.77 to the 330 in his
last pass. He hit the traps with a 6.452 at 216.58 MPH on that run, but
that’s where the fun ended.
Christian hit the chutes, but had no help stopping as both chutes failed. A driver with any less experience than the Pro Street pioneer would have surely barrel rolled the car, but Christian was able to bring the car to a stop without hitting anything but the grass. Former NHRA Pro Stock runner turned Pro Street racer Tony Christian, “The King of Pro Street”, is racing a Reher-Morrison powered ’02 Grand Am at the Orlando Real World Street Nationals in Orlando, Fla., after taking a short hiatus from the event the last few years. He has made his presence felt this weekend with arguably the best performing car in the front half of the track, recording a 1.00 sixty-foot and going 2.77 to the 330 in his last pass. He hit the traps with a 6.452 at 216.58 MPH on that run, but that’s where the fun ended.
Christian hit the chutes, but had no help stopping as both chutes failed. A driver with any less experience than the Pro Street pioneer would have surely barrel rolled the car, but Christian was able to bring the car to a stop without hitting anything but the grass.
“I almost needed a change of shorts after that,” said Christian. “Neither chute came out and I remembered something (track owner) Carl Weisinger had told me. He said to crash into the hay bails if you run off the end of the track. I didn’t really want to do that because I knew it would hurt my hot rod. I got lucky and was able to spin it out in the grass.”
“Anytime you can get one to spin out like that and not flip it over, you’re just plain lucky,” Christian admitted. “God’s good to good people! Everyone keeps coming over and telling me what a great driving job I did, but I was just plain lucky.
“We’ve only been running it on two systems all weekend,” said Christian. “I’m gonna light up the third tomorrow and hit it hard. That’s the first good run we’ve made all weekend, and if I can keep my head out of my butt and drive tomorrow, I think we have a good shot at this thing. We’ve got a good baseline, but I keep screwing up. On two runs, I forgot to shift it into second gear. On another run, we had plug wires crossed up. I don’t know how fast it will go if we get it all together. I’m happy though.”
On the way out of Christian’s pits, we noticed a concerted effort by several of Tony’s crew members to dissect and correct exactly what went wrong with the chutes so they don’t have another incident like the one today.
Christian hit the chutes, but had no help stopping as both chutes failed. A driver with any less experience than the Pro Street pioneer would have surely barrel rolled the car, but Christian was able to bring the car to a stop without hitting anything but the grass. Former NHRA Pro Stock runner turned Pro Street racer Tony Christian, “The King of Pro Street”, is racing a Reher-Morrison powered ’02 Grand Am at the Orlando Real World Street Nationals in Orlando, Fla., after taking a short hiatus from the event the last few years. He has made his presence felt this weekend with arguably the best performing car in the front half of the track, recording a 1.00 sixty-foot and going 2.77 to the 330 in his last pass. He hit the traps with a 6.452 at 216.58 MPH on that run, but that’s where the fun ended.
Christian hit the chutes, but had no help stopping as both chutes failed. A driver with any less experience than the Pro Street pioneer would have surely barrel rolled the car, but Christian was able to bring the car to a stop without hitting anything but the grass.
“I almost needed a change of shorts after that,” said Christian. “Neither chute came out and I remembered something (track owner) Carl Weisinger had told me. He said to crash into the hay bails if you run off the end of the track. I didn’t really want to do that because I knew it would hurt my hot rod. I got lucky and was able to spin it out in the grass.”
“Anytime you can get one to spin out like that and not flip it over, you’re just plain lucky,” Christian admitted. “God’s good to good people! Everyone keeps coming over and telling me what a great driving job I did, but I was just plain lucky.
“We’ve only been running it on two systems all weekend,” said Christian. “I’m gonna light up the third tomorrow and hit it hard. That’s the first good run we’ve made all weekend, and if I can keep my head out of my butt and drive tomorrow, I think we have a good shot at this thing. We’ve got a good baseline, but I keep screwing up. On two runs, I forgot to shift it into second gear. On another run, we had plug wires crossed up. I don’t know how fast it will go if we get it all together. I’m happy though.”
On the way out of Christian’s pits, we noticed a concerted effort by several of Tony’s crew members to dissect and correct exactly what went wrong with the chutes so they don’t have another incident like the one today.
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