Suppose you own a multi-national company that manufactures racing parts. You need a way to test said parts prior to sale. What do you do?
If you’re John Bojec, you put those parts in your nitro Funny Car, of course.
John Bojec runs Speed City during the week and races his Nitro Funny Car on the weekend as a way to not only research and develop parts, but also as a way to promote his company.
“We have a location in Brisbane, Australia, we have one in Riverside, California, and one in Cleveland, Ohio, and we’ve seen the capabilities of the pro categories in NHRA of how that could help our business,” Bojec explained. “We’re already into racing, we already drove Funny Cars so we said let’s get into pro, we think it will help out our business and I’m telling you, it’s unbelievable how much being out here with this car does for our business. It brings a lot of people to our website.”
Bojec, a former motocross racer, tractor puller, and NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car Nationals winner, knows it can be difficult to compete with teams owning massive budgets, but he doesn’t allow this to bother him much.
“Not really because we know where we’re positioned at,” Bojec said. “We know the Forces, the Schumachers, the Kalittas; they have major businesses out here, and you have to identify that and know where you fit. We may not have big, big budgets. We’re surely not for lack of any parts, equipment or staffing, but we’re just limited to how many events we can do.”
Friday evening at the NHRA Midwest Nationals, Bojec earned his way into the provisional field with a 4.037 elapsed time at 293.22 mph, despite lifting 800 feet into the run. This monumental performance was the first time he’d ever made it in the field overnight since he began racing nitro last season.
Recently in Charlotte, Bojec snagged another milestone in running 300 miles per hour to beat Alexis DeJoria in the first round. This is pretty impressive for a car, he says, has not reached the finish line under power yet.
“This car is starting to run good now,” Bojec said. “We’re running early numbers that are right with those guys. So once we can get to the finish line you probably shouldn’t see a lot of errors.”
