Terry Haddock never figured that winning an IHRA Funny Car world championship in 2008 would lead to running a Top Fuel dragster on the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.

That’s how drag racing has turned out to be for Haddock this season.

He’s approaching this season from a pure business standpoint and he’s going to let the bottom line dictate which car he rolls out of the trailer in 2009.

 

Terry Haddock never figured that winning an IHRA Funny Car world championship in 2008 would lead to running a Top Fuel dragster on the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.

That’s how drag racing has turned out to be for Haddock this season.

He’s approaching this season from a pure business standpoint and he’s going to let the bottom line dictate which car he rolls out of the trailer in 2009.

“My plan for the dragster originally was to use it as a rent-a-ride kind of car, if a driver had enough money to rent it for a couple of races they could,” Haddock explained, discussing plans for the dragster formerly owned by Evan Knoll and driven by Scotty Cannon.

”We’ll give them a good competitive race car to compete in and that would allow me to stick to Funny Car where my heart is,” he added.

Two weeks ago Haddock entered competition at the NHRA Kragen Auto Parts Winternationals with the Funny Car and leased the dragster to European champion Andy Carter, who traveled to the United States to compete in Top Fuel.

Without Carter racing in Phoenix, Haddock studied the entry list and deemed his chances of a better paycheck were in driving the dragster in the desert.

“We looked at the list of drivers in both classes and the deal is there are 17 Funny Cars out there that at any moment can run really fast,” Haddock admitted. “Our Funny Car is very competitive; we won a championship with it. I learned to run [quarter-mile] 4.90’s on a dirt road but I couldn’t run quicker without encountering a learning curve.”

Haddock’s business model, not to mention his budget doesn’t allow for a learning curve at this moment.

“It made better business sense to run the dragster,” Haddock said. “The chances of getting the qualifying check were a whole lot better. I want to drive that Funny Car as much as I can but I have to be smart. I have to think about business and not going out of business and losing money just because I want to drive the Funny Car.”

One lesson that Haddock has already learned is the difference in tuning the two diverse approaches to nitro racing.

“When we first starting running a dragster everyone told us that you need to run the dragster harder and tune it harder and all of this stuff,” Haddock said. “I’m running it the same way that I would run my funny car and the parts are coming out looking beautiful too.”

“The window for tuning is so much larger,” Haddock continued. “It’s easier to run a dragster than a funny car, by far in my opinion. Some of these guys out here would probably have a differing opinion, but this thing is out here trying to run well so I’m not going to complain.”

Right now Haddock believes he’s the weak link in the dragster chain.

“I’m still kind of struggling on reacting in the car because I still feel like I’m sitting on the floor, so my reaction times have been terrible but hopefully we’ll work on that and we’ll get better,” Haddock explained.

Haddock says he’ll continue to work the ropes on both combinations, hoping and praying that the ability to perform in either situation will not only pay for itself in racing, but the world of sponsorship.

“I’d like to think there would be a lot of sponsorship opportunities because we won the championship but the world is in such tough times right now, so everyone is struggling to get any amount of money,” Haddock admitted. “So now you have to be really creative and make things last, over the years we have been really lucky because we have had the little deals that have stuck with us and made everything so much easier.

“Let’s say we run the dragster well [and] get a qualifying check, then get a little bit of help; then it can keep going. It’s my hope that at the end of the day when things turn around that people will see that we have spent some good time of the day to keep getting better. People will see that all this team needs is a sponsor. I don’t need someone to come buy us a truck and trailer and all this stuff.

“We have two very good race cars and plenty of parts. Hopefully someday people will see how hard we work at it and give us that break. At least we’re here and ready, so if they came here tomorrow we’d say bring your stickers…and your check.”  

Advertisement