Sometimes drivers compete in a variety different classes for years before they find their drag racing niche.

That wasn’t the case for Rob Atchison.

Nearly his entire racing career, which began in 1995, Atchison has been piloting an Alcohol Funny Car.

“My dad (Bob) was drag racing in the late 1950s, early 60s, so it has kind of been in the family blood,” the 34-year-old Atchison said. “I made my first pass in ’95 and I just fell in love with drag racing the second I hit the throttle.”

Sometimes drivers compete in a variety different classes for years before they find their drag racing niche.

That wasn’t the case for Rob Atchison.

Nearly his entire racing career, which began in 1995, Atchison has been piloting an Alcohol Funny Car.

“My dad (Bob) was drag racing in the late 1950s, early 60s, so it has kind of been in the family blood,” the 34-year-old Atchison said. “I made my first pass in ’95 and I just fell in love with drag racing the second I hit the throttle.”

In a relatively short period of time, Atchison reached the pinnacle of success, capturing the IHRA Alcohol Funny Car world championship three years in a row from 2003-2005.

Fast-forward to the present and Atchison is basically re-learning his craft, thanks to the IHRA dropping Alcohol Funny Cars from their series in 2009.

The abrupt decision by the IHRA led Atchison to switch gears and race on the NHRA’s Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series this past season. Atchison had limited success in the NHRA because of the set up he was running.

“Last year was kind of a transition year for me and it was difficult,” said Atchison, whose family runs the Atchison Machine Service Inc., business in London, Ontario, Canada. “I was taking a known combination that I had great success with (in the IHRA) and I had to more or less take two or three steps back. The supercharger was completely different with the way it wanted to be tuned and the clutch acted differently. It was a real hit on the ego, that was for sure. We used to be in the IHRA and the competition was stiff, but we used to qualify in the top three or four cars most of the time and have a legitimate shot at winning the race before we ever left the shop. The NHRA stuff was definitely a dose of reality. Those guys have been running those combinations for a lot of years. We did qualify at every NHRA race we went to last year, which made me happy. They were eight-car fields and we running an IHRA (spec) car at a majority of them, which was like taking a knife to a gun fight in some situations.”

With the upcoming NHRA season on the horizon, Atchison already has a game plan in place.

“I’m going to be running two (Top Alcohol Funny) cars, one on the West Coast and one on the East Coast,” Atchison said. “I will be running division and national events. I’m fortunate enough to have a sponsor in Western Canada (Ace Manufacturing) to be able to go to Vegas, Phoenix, and some divisional races in that area and then with my East Coast car, I will go to Reading and Norwalk and Division 3 and Division 1 races. I have the schedule laid out so I can run as many possible races as I can with both cars.”

According to Atchison, he will make his 2010 debut at a Division 7 event Feb. 26- 28 at Firebird International Raceway in Phoenix.

Although Atchison now has some NHRA experience to build on, he isn’t making any bold predictions for 2010.

“I think this (coming) season is going to be equally as tough,” Atchison said. “I’m still getting my feet wet with the supercharger and I’m trying to catch up on experience, which is impossible to do, but I’m trying as best as I can to get the 12 years of experience I have back under my belt. I was able to get like 12 passes at the end of last year with my new cars, and I treated that like testing. I feel like I have a lot better shot starting out this year in terms of having an idea about what the cars will need, and I feel a lot more confident.”

Atchison said the two Funny Cars he will be competing in the coming season will be mirror images of each other.

“I ran both these cars in IHRA and they were originally both here in my shop (in London Ontario, Canada),” Atchison said. “I was able to get a handle on both cars and set them up identically. Now, I have one of the cars in Ontario and the other one in a shop in Alberta. With the cars being different in NHRA, that has been a transition for me, but hopefully, I will be able to springboard my learning curve and get up to the top (this season) with these cars.”

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