Father-son duo invites Alexander to share in ambitious Funny Car team plans
Chad Green came to the NHRA Funny Car class from the Wild-West-grade Pro Modified class, where the ill-tempered, punishing, 2700-pound race cars behave like menacing, snorting, bucking rodeo bulls with names like Sling Blade, Man Hater, and Unforgiven.
Green’s 29-year-old son, Hunter, is coming into the Funny Car ranks from the Top Alcohol Dragster category, one that Angelle Sampey said caused her to feel “reborn” and that Tony Stewart said transported him back “to being a little kid again.” It’s a highly competitive class that will throw the driver’s body into 3G shock on the launch, rocket from zero to 100 mph in a second, and demand attention at about 290 mph in the quarter-mile. But the ride is slightly less backbreaking – and yes, his dad literally broke his back as a Pro Mod racer – with a view out the front windshield that’s like gazing out the picture window of his living room back home in Midland, Texas.
But they’re teaming with Blake Alexander, who switched to a Funny Car from a Top Fuel dragster. And together they have ambitious plans that will start March 7-9 at the Amalie Oil Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla., when the 20-race 2025 Mission Foods Drag Racing Series begins.
Actually, Hunter Green hadn’t intended to race a Funny Car. His plan always had been to move into the Top Fuel ranks.
“I never saw myself as a Funny Car driver. The goal was always for me to go Top Fuel racing,” he said. “But we had the people, we had the parts, we had the cars to go Funny Car racing. It just made more sense for this to be my path. Plus, I’ve always considered Funny Car to be the top dog, the most difficult car out there, the biggest challenge. So, I wanted to just take that head-on, and I’m glad that I did.”
So far, he said, it has been everything he thought it would be – “everything and more.”
His dad said he’s pleased with his son’s progress.
“Compared to the average person, I would say he’s ahead of schedule,” Chad Green said. “I felt the same way about me, though, too, when I started driving. I didn’t really have any problem driving this car in the beginning. Now I naturally got way better at doing it, but no, I’m like, ‘I didn’t know how it would go.’ And I could just say I’m extremely proud of how he’s done.”
Chad Green said Hunter’s entrance to the Funny Car class, so different from his own, was the ideal path.
“For sure it was for him, just because of the speed aspect of it. Obviously, you got to drive these cars a lot more than those, but he got a lot of runs the last three years, going 280 miles an hour. So the speed difference going from that to this wasn’t as big a deal to him. Also, so they tell me – I’ve never driven a dragster – but dragsters feel a little faster. You’re sitting lower to the ground, so it just feels faster. So he seems to say he’s having no problem seeing the track. His visual, he says it’s not a big deal, so that’s good.”
Despite some natural learning curves, Hunter seems to be getting the hang of it, so much so that Dad has decided his son’s seat-of-the-pants instinct “seems pretty good actually.
“The first run he made out here, the first day, spun the tires and he was a little late catching it down-track. That was the first time that happened to him, and I think next time, he’ll be ready to catch it a little sooner,” Chad said. “But besides that, everything looks good. Just the normal procedures, which a lot of people have problems with when they switch over to something new like a Funny Car. He had never driven a Funny Car, only dragsters and just burnout, backing up, staging the car. He’s doing a great job. I couldn’t be happier with the way it’s going. “
He conceded that when Hunter made his first passes, Hunter was not the nervous one. He said without hesitation that it was” me – 100 percent me. That’s another thing. He hasn’t been really nervous. He seems confident, which is a good thing.”
So Hunter has no worries about the flurry of testing he’ll be undergoing soon.
“Our goal is to try and get him as many runs in the car in testing as we can before he actually goes and races,” Chad said. “So he’ll be back in my car for at least one, maybe two days in Gainesville, running it. I may just let him run it all through testing and get as many runs [as possible]. We’re actually trying to get our second car ready to bring it to Gainesville so we can just test it. We don’t plan to race it there. We plan for our first race to be in Phoenix, but if we can get that car ready and get it there, we can maybe get him in it, for sure. Get some runs with Blake in it. And then after Phoenix, we’ll probably stay on Monday, run the new car again and runs and as much experience as we can.”
The younger Green said, “I don’t know if I’ve kicked him out of the seat yet, but it’s just fun to be working with him, doing the same thing that he’s doing. This new team we’re putting together is really exciting for us. It’s been a goal of ours for a long time, and to see it finally coming to fruition is pretty awesome.”
The blueprint, Chad Green said, calls for Alexander to drive the second car at 14 races and Hunter to slide in the seat at four events this year. “We want to stay under the five, which would make him eligible for Rookie of the Year. We don’t want to dip into that, which is five or six races. So we’re going to keep it at four for him this year, and Blake’s going to run 14.”
But the Green Machine has thought this out beyond that.
“Me, my dad, Blake, we want to have a three-car team eventually, which will make us the biggest single Funny Car team out here. There’s not another team out here with three Funny Cars. So, that’s our eventual goal. So, we want to become a powerhouse out here. That’s our goal.” Hunter Green said.
“We always are shooting for the stars and trying to just up it every year, up what we do every year and become bigger and better professionals any way we can,” he said. “So, we want to be considered one of the big teams out here, one of the heavy hitters. So, that’s what we’re working towards every year. We’re making a lot of progress this year. We’ve made a lot of progress every year. If you look back year after year where we’ve been, every year we’re getting better, we’re getting bigger, we’re getting more professional, we’re getting more competitive. So, we want to keep that going.”
Strategizing about the direction of the team is what Hunter Green is focusing on. He doesn’t have a ready “elevator speech” about himself. Ask him what kind of a racer he pictures himself becoming, and he’ll say, “I don’t know.” But he has his mission: “I want to add to the sport any way I can. I want to be somebody the fans can root for, and I want to build our whole program.”
His father isn’t venturing a comparison between the two of them, whether Hunter is a chip off the ol’ block. ***
“Well, I don’t know. I guess that’s to be determined, but there’d be nothing wrong with being better,” Chad Green said.
If it turns out that’s the case, Hunter will have to earn it.
In pondering what it will be like the first time he lines up against Hunter in competition, Chad Green said, “Oh, that would be an exciting day right there. I can’t wait for that, actually. I never thought something like that would happen. So to even think about that, it’s hard to even wrap my head around it.”
It didn’t take him long to decide that, despite Hunter providing “a proud-dad moment for me,” that “that will be a cool, exciting day. I can’t wait to slap him around a little bit.”
That’s the mentality Chad Green has developed after wrestling Sling Blade and Man Hater and Unforgiven – when that’s his own race car. With Alexander’s flinty passion to win, this could grow into a dominant Funny Car team. And Hunter Green said he’s up for that.
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