Kirk Williams admits that he “wasn’t the best mathematician in high school.”

But he didn’t have to be an Einstein to understand that Funny Car Chaos was the place he needed to race based on raw numbers.

“Where else can you go and have a $100 entry and run for $6,000?” the Glenwood, Iowa, racer said.

He’ll be looking for that, plus the knowledge that he already has a claim to the $5,000 Funny Car Chaos championship, when the circuit’s season concludes this weekend, Oct. 7-8, at the Texas Motorplex.

Williams and one of his brothers, Chris, have experienced success before as NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car racers, winning three divisional championships and more than 20 events. But the payouts there didn’t make sense, and they were looking for an alternative or an exit from motorsports when FCC appeared on their horizon.

“NHRA (racing) wasn’t paying the bills anymore, not that they ever did,” Kirk Williams, 59, said. “I had been watching Funny Car Chaos on the internet, and my brother and I were building a new chassis at the time. We went down to Mo-Kan (Dragway in Missouri) and watched it. We talked to (series founder Chris Graves) about the rules and how it all worked. He said the magic words: ‘There aren’t any rules, we just want you to have all the right stuff on the car’ as far as safety. We decided, ‘Let’s run this thing.’”

The “200 Proof” car, whose chassis was built in-house on the Williams brothers’ jig, wasn’t ready until the 2020 season. By 2021, they were ready to attack Funny Car Chaos. 

The ’21 season opened at the Motorplex, and ithin a month of its debut, Kirk Williams had the car in the finals against Singleton at Amarillo, Texas, and took a runner-up finish. The third race, at Odessa, Texas, saw Singleton and Williams square off again, but the final was rained out and rescheduled for early June in Eddyville, Iowa. Williams not only won that duel, he defeated Singleton a second time that weekend and took $12,000 home across the state to Glenwood, which is near Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Omaha, Neb.

“I’ve never won that kind of money, ever. It still just makes me tingle, it was so much fun,” he said.

Williams also captured the 2021 finale at San Antonio, but finished second behind Singleton, who won the championship for the third consecutive year.

This season has basically belonged to Williams Brothers Racing. Kirk’s worst qualifying performance of the year has been a sixth, and he’s been the No. 1 qualifier in the last six events – in an alcohol-fueled car, not one burning nitromethane. He won at: Baton Rouge, La.; Lufkin and Odessa, Texas; Eddyville, Iowa; and Mo-Kan in Asbury, Mo. He was the runner-up to Jeff Cameron at Kearney, Neb.

That type of consistent performance sends him into Ennis, Texas, and the Motorplex with an insurmountable lead over Tom Furches of Littleton, Colo.

Williams began drag racing 37 years ago on motorcycles, then raced in Super Pro and Super Street for about seven years. By the end of the 1998 season, Kirk and Chris Williams had all but decided to quit racing. They helped a friend who had a Funny Car, then wound up buying one from NHRA Division 5 stalwart Cy Chesterman. They’ve been fielding an alcohol-burning entry ever since – and relishing their time at the track with Funny Car Chaos.

“The nice thing of it is, you go to all these old-school tracks, and it’s just a lot of fun to race them,” Kirk Williams said. “You have so many people there that want to see you; you are the main show. All the kids, you’re able to hand out your hero cards and sign them. It’s just a wonderful series to run.”

It doesn’t hurt that he’s fielding a car that is not only a solid performer, it’s consistent, too. Williams has run the same Jamie Noonan-built engine since 2016, with the only major changes being the replacement of one crankshaft and the addition of a new set of cylinder heads for this weekend’s race.

“Everything is so correct on this thing,” Williams said. “The geometry of the valve train, the bore and stroke. It’s only a 472 cubic-inch engine, but it just runs and you just don’t have no problems with it.”

The Williams brothers definitely have a handle on the engine and clutch combination. For instance, in the April 30 victory in Lufkin, Texas, the car had runs in eliminations of 3.76, 3.76 and 3.75 seconds. At Eddyville at the end of July, he put the car in victory lane after passes of 3.72, 3.70 and 3.71 seconds. At the most-recent show, when he defeated Ronny Young and the “Blue Max” in the final round, Williams posted runs of 3.73, 3.74 and 3.73.

“I had no idea Ronny used to drive for Raymond Beadle in the ‘Blue Max,’” Williams said. “Running against ‘history’ like that makes this stuff even funner.”

And there’s a special satisfaction in defeating nitro-burning cars, and the prospect of competing against the more powerful machines was a concern for Williams early on. 

“A good friend of ours, Mike Cavalieri, said, ‘Those fuel cars, by night-time, they’re at a disadvantage because when that humidity comes in, it raises hell with them. Unless they really, really know what they’re doing with them, it’s just going to be another race. Don’t worry about it,’” Williams said.

Given that the championship is already in hand, it’s obvious that the Williamses capitalized on that bit of advice. Now,  Kirk said he would like nothing better than to celebrate the title with a Texas victory this weekend.

“The new heads we bought from Noonan ought to help it make more low-end torque,” he said, “so we’re hoping we can get to (Ennis) and not pull a first-round loss. When we ran NHRA, we could run round after round, and I’ve won at that track. But with Funny Car Chaos, I haven’t been able to get out of first round. I would like to get to the final and win and show them why we’re champions.”