Chris Rini, the current NMCA Pro Street point leader, went to the number one qualifying spot in the opening session at the NMCA/NMRA All-Star Nationals at zMax Dragway in Concord, NC. The show of performance cost him.
    
Rini, of Carmel, NY, known more for his exploits in surviving a plane crash than his driving talents, paid the price. He didn’t have much spare time before towing his ATI-sponsored Dodge Stratus back to the pits than a race official arrived seeking a closer look at his racing secrets.

“I’m not cheating but I probably should be for all the checking they are doing,” Rini said shortly after the first visit. “We run an honest program and they’ve already tore our s*** apart once already this weekend. I was torn down in Chicago and looked over in Maple Grove.”

Chris Rini, the current NMCA Pro Street point leader, went to the number one qualifying spot in the opening session at the NMCA/NMRA All-Star Nationals at zMax Dragway in Concord, NC. The show of performance cost him.
    
Rini, of Carmel, NY, known more for his exploits in surviving a plane crash than his driving talents, paid the price. He didn’t have much spare time before towing his ATI-sponsored Dodge Stratus back to the pits than a race official arrived seeking a closer look at his racing secrets.

“I’m not cheating but I probably should be for all the checking they are doing,” Rini said shortly after the first visit. “We run an honest program and they’ve already tore our s*** apart once already this weekend. I was torn down in Chicago and looked over in Maple Grove.”

So what were they looking for?

“I think traction control,” Rini guessed. “I don’t know, they were checking everything. They didn’t share that information with me. They made me take all of the tin out of the car. They wanted to look at my last run on the computer and download the computer and everything. They wanted to look at my ignition.”

Rini has mixed emotions about being the object of the technical inspections. He understands they come with the territory of being atop the leaderboard.

“I guess in one sense it pisses me off and in another it makes me feel good that we are doing well enough they feel the need to check us,” Rini said. “They just did a rule change on us and it honestly pissed me off. The rule change came on me, Joe Dunne, Jeff Lutz.”

Rini’s nitrous-injected, automatic transmission combination was hit with a 100 pound addition thanks to a record-setting performance last month at the NMCA/NMRA Super Bowl in Joliet, Ill.

“I guess that turned on the crybabies,” Rini said. “Unfortunately a lot of guys haven’t been making good runs. That makes it unfair for us. We’ve struggled but we also make a lot of runs. I was in Mooresville [NC] testing a few days before this event. We made 13 hits before we came here. Some of these guys will make 13 runs in a month. I shouldn’t get penalized for going out there and improving my program.”

If you ask Rini, he’ll tell you it’s the rule makers who are to blame for the class getting quicker.

“They allowed more power and larger displacement and that made the class faster … they made those rules, not me. Now they are backpedaling. I could have just run my 5-inch [bore space] engine. It cost me $85,000 to step into this season with a new engine. I’m not complaining but I have an engine inside of my trailer that I could unload and run 6.30s all day long. I have all the data but they have made it hard for us because we want to win. We want to be in the front half and we got slapped because we were too much of a front half. The rules are the rules. They can’t make anymore changes this season.”

Rini hopes these spot checks aren’t limited to just those who run quick and win races.

“I hope they are checking others, they spent an hour here. I have had to pull the head off of my car every race. I don’t mind doing that if everyone gets the same treatment. It should be across the board not just the ones running fast.”

While race officials are bound by an honor code of impartiality and confidentiality, Rini isn’t comfortable about his sensitive information being under constant scrutiny. The reality of impropriety is something which remains very clear to him.

“They checked my electronics and computer … that’s personal and private,” Rini said. “Every run and that data we gather costs us money. Then you have someone go through it and look at it, who knows where it’s going to go? A couple of beers and two guys are bs’ing, and you never know. If guys want to complain. Let them spend their money and time to test.”

Outside of the lessons learned for running quick and fast, Rini is learning firsthand the fickle nature of running Pro Modified-style Pro Street vehicles.

“This is a new engine package for us, a larger engine and there’s more horsepower to try and harness,” Rini explained. “Everybody thinks you can just throw in a bigger motor and go fast. I’ve had to work more and struggled more with increased power than ever before. I’ve watched it first hand by sitting back and watching Pro Mod and you’d watch someone dominate one week and struggle the next. Now I know what they were up against.

“These cars are finicky,” he continued. “I had to make two adjustments on my first run and nearly lifted. It was moving around. It’s no joke to take one of these cars down the track at a 6.20 or 6.30 and keep it off of the wall.”