Tuner Donnie Bender came of age in 2007, and is now on the verge of making a serious championship run with driver Larry Dixon, Jr. and the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Special.  Thanks to team owner Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, the team has the tools with which to win.  Now it’s up to them.

Bender had a teammate last year in tuner Mike Green and Funny Car driver Tommy Johnson, Jr., but both are now with other operations.  Bender is not, however, going it alone because of the tuning arrangement Prudhomme made with independent Funny Car racer Tim Wilkerson.  Thus far the new arrangement is working well.

Tuner Donnie Bender came of age in 2007, and is now on the verge of making a serious championship run with driver Larry Dixon, Jr. and the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Special.  Thanks to team owner Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, the team has the tools with which to win.  Now it’s up to them.

Bender had a teammate last year in tuner Mike Green and Funny Car driver Tommy Johnson, Jr., but both are now with other operations.  Bender is not, however, going it alone because of the tuning arrangement Prudhomme made with independent Funny Car racer Tim Wilkerson.  Thus far the new arrangement is working well.

“We’re bouncing things off of Tim,” Bender said, “and so far it’s working pretty good.  He’s a little more receptive than what we had last year.”

Bender likes the format change in the Countdown because “the last two races aren’t so important.  You can screw up one race,” he said, “and still have a chance to win the championship.  I do like that.”

In a remark aimed squarely at Toy Schumacher, Bender added, “when you win more rounds than the guy who won the championship (last year) there’s something hokey about the system.”

Bender also like the new qualifying system, saying, “I do like that.  There are times when you screw up on Friday night that it’s over for you.  At least this way, if you can get down there good on Saturday you’ve still got a shot to get in.”

Driver Larry Dixon, Jr. remains the most youthful appearing 41-year-old in drag racing.  He looks almost exactly as he did when he first started working for Prudhomme back in, well, it was a long time ago!  It’s startling to hear him say, “I’m going to drive until I’m 50,” and realize that’s only nine short years away.

While other drivers might aspire to a faster, slicker street car, or the fast lane lifestyle, Dixon is incredibly grounded.  He knows what’s important, and realizes that what he does today will ultimately impact the rest of his life.  He has quietly become a mini-real estate magnate in Indianapolis, and now owns three buildings totaling over 125,000 square feet near Prudhomme’s shop in the Indianapolis suburb of Brownsburg.  They’re 80% occupied by tenants, many of them in motorsports.  Dixon is the landlord for the Morgan Lucas/J.R. Todd team, Mike Ashley and Melanie Troxel, Dexter Tuttle as well as for a Canadian Go-Kart team and a Toyota Atlantic team.  Because of his racing background Dixon was able to design the shops with racers in mind, and it’s paid off.

“It works for me,” he says.  “I don’t know real estate and stuff like that.  From working on race cars I know what a race team needs in a shop, so we laid them out with that in mind.  I try to stick with what I know.”

Dixon admits to not being a fan of last year’s program, but he allowed himself to be sold on its merits by what he terms “the powers that be.  They told me how exciting it would be, and I bought into it.  I was sold.  And then it changed again, so like, I think it’s just better for me not to be sold on anything!  I’ll just go out there and race the car, and whatever happens, and whatever point format they want to use to decide the championship, I just hope I’m in the middle of it.”