Twenty-five years ago, Chip King rolled a Dodge Avenger into Gainesville Raceway for NHRA’s first Pro Modified exhibition and qualified No. 2 with a 6.243-second run at 211.06 mph.
Bill Barrett tuned the car, and King supplied the driving, although he admits there was at least one problem with the arrangement: He missed the finish line.
“I qualified number two because I missed the finish line and had to shoot side early,” King said.
That was March 17, 2001. Twenty-five years later, King found the finish line just fine and carried Pro Modified someplace it had never been.
The longtime Pro Mod racer blasted to a 5.596 at 257.24 mph, becoming the first driver in the history of the class to run in the 5.50-second range. He entered the fourth and final qualifying session sitting 10th and left it No. 1.
There wasn’t much reason to expect history when King rolled into the water box alongside Kevin Rivenbark. They were only the fourth pair down the track, with most of the session still to come.
Rivenbark went 5.702 at 252.52 mph, while King left with a .920 60-foot time and covered the eighth-mile in 3.685 seconds at 203.68 mph. When the scoreboard flashed 5.596, Pro Modified had its first 5.50.
King had the perfect response.
“That’s exactly right. As a matter of fact, when I was at the other end, first finished run, I yelled that out,” King said. “‘Who the F is Chip King?’ I’m sure I used the expletive, though.”
If you know King’s story, you understand. If you don’t, that probably explains him better than anything else could.
“Who the F is Chip King?” has followed King around long enough to become part nickname, part inside joke and maybe the best description of a racer who has spent decades popping up where people least expect him.
King never followed the manicured path through professional drag racing. He came from the rougher side of Pro Modified, where ingenuity could compensate for budget, personalities weren’t manufactured and driving one of these cars occasionally required considerably more than pointing it toward the finish line.
He was an outlaw before outlaw became a marketing term. By the time NHRA opened the door for Pro Modified at Gainesville in 2001, King was there with his Dodge R/T Avenger and Barrett turning the knobs.
A quarter-century later, Barrett was one of the first people King wanted to talk to after making history again was his late crewchief Barrett.
“That was when Bill Barrett was tuning me,” King said of Gainesville. “And trust me, I was talking to Bill Barrett last night when I got to the hotel room.”
Put those two time slips beside each other. King went from 6.243 at 211.06 mph to 5.596 at 257.24, a difference of .647 seconds and more than 46 mph.
King didn’t read about Pro Modified’s evolution from the sidelines. He drove through it.
“It’s everywhere. It’s just a milestone,” King said. “And I guess for somebody that was at the very first race and been at a lot of them ever since through good and bad times, to be able to break that milestone is pretty cool.”
Pieces of King’s history remain scattered throughout today’s professional pits. Some young crew members who learned around his operation moved on to major teams and careers of their own.
Tim Fabrisi, now a crew chief for Funny Car racer Jack Beckman, is one of them. Recently, Fabrisi walked over while King was working underneath his car and resurrected one of Barrett’s old rules.
“You know Bill Barrett’s rule? Don’t talk when you’re under the car,” King recalled Fabrisi telling him. “I still preach that to all my crew guys. Do not talk when you’re under the car. You’ll forget something.”
King never imagined the guy who once had trouble locating the finish line would become the guy who broke one of Pro Mod’s biggest performance barriers.
“No, never, ever,” King said. “Not even yesterday morning would I have believed it.”
The 5.596 wasn’t exactly a sightseeing trip, either.
“No, it had the front end hiked up and it was moving,” King said. “We drove it about 1400 feet to make that 1320.”
For the old Pro Mod crowd, there’s something familiar about that description. Before automatics and electronics helped tame the cars, getting one through the finish line sometimes required every inch of the lane and every trick a driver knew.
King remembers because he lived it.
What King wasn’t prepared for was the reaction after the run. His phone began filling with messages from racers and fans around the world, including people who haven’t been regular fixtures around Pro Modified in years.
“My phone has been dinging off the hook from all over the world all night,” King said. “So many people from so many countries.”
Even Danny Rowe reached out.
“Even Danny Rowe texted me last night,” King said. “And he hadn’t stuck his head around Pro Mod in years.”
Ask King why he’s still crawling underneath these things and strapping himself between the doors after all these years, and don’t expect a speech about dedication or unfinished business.
“Oh, just old and dumb,” King said.
After the run, King admitted there was a moment when even he wondered whether there was anything left to accomplish that day.
“I actually, after that run, was like, ‘You know what? I can just go home now and be very satisfied,'” King said. “I don’t even have to race first round. I can just go home.”
Twenty-five years later, the cars are quicker, the speeds are crazier, crew members became crew chiefs and yesterday’s impossible numbers became routine. King just kept showing up.
“Yeah,” King said. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. I’m just enjoying life right now.”
