Chris Raschke sells parts daily to drag racers who cover a race course at over 330 miles per hour. 

Raschke, the Director of Sales and Marketing for ARP Bolts, recently drove his way to the only prize awarded at each SCTA-BNI SpeedWeek, the Hot Rod Magazine Perpetual Trophy for the fastest speed timed over one mile during the event behind the wheel of George Poteat's Speed Demon entry. It was the 11th time the team had taken home the hardware.

Raschke recorded a 333.360 while running on a restricted three-mile course with a a twin-turbocharged, alcohol-burning, 444 cubic inch small block LS Chevrolet V8 in the A/Blown Fuel Streamliner class.

"Just personally being able to even work on the cars is so incredible," Raschke said. "And then I get to be around these people to do these crazy things: these crew chiefs, these car owners, and drivers. When I go around these people, and you talk about the Speed Demon, they all want to talk about that. So it's very special, of just being around the car and then getting offered to be able to drive the car, and then I guess somehow I put it together, and I've made it down the track now four or five times with it."

"The fact that George Poteet let me drive this car is such a big thing," Raschke said. "George Poteat is just an incredible car guy. For some reason, it was two years ago that he called me and asked me if I wanted to drive that car. I just said, 'Well, yeah."

This 75th running of the event was a challenging one, as the traditional week-long event was narrowed to just three days because of the weather. 

Raschke, using the talents of team manager Steve Watt, crew chief Ken Duttweiler, tuner Shane Tecklenburg, and the entire "Speed Demon" team, was the only entry over 300 mph during the event and ran 79 mph faster than its closest rival.

"Going to 333 on a wet three-mile course with no shutdown was pretty good," Raschke added.

For the record, Raschke has been much faster, running 391 miles per hour on a five-mile course. One must wonder what sensation goes through a driver's helmet when they experience that speed. 

"If you ever watch a Star Wars deal and you see where the stars start to move and then suddenly they turn into warp speed, that's pretty much a good way to explain how it's in that car," Raschke explained. "The difference between the little engine and the big engine is it just starts accelerating. It just continues to accelerate. "

 

 

 

 

The quickest Raschke has been on the drag strip was 8.8 seconds, and he described that acceleration as incredible. But Poteat's car, that's another story in itself. 

"This thing starts accelerating; you're accelerating for, say, a minute, and it pulls all the way until you lift and pull the chutes," Raschke said. "So the acceleration, the feel of going, and it's just going faster, faster, and faster."

Then, as Raschke describes, the moment Mother Nature throws her two cents worth into the matter. 

"In Bonneville, there's a break in the mountains, which is like a few miles away, and when you're going down the course, George Poteat's telling me, explaining to me, what he suggests I should do, he goes, 'People who argue to tell you where you want to be on the course, but you need to be prepared depending on which direction the wind," Raschke explained. "The breeze is blowing across the track because you'll be going along, and just in that certain area, even though it's way away, the car will start moving over on you. So you got to think, 'Whoa, I got to start moving on back over a little bit."You know? 

Raschke's 333 didn't come without a cost as an injector o-ring failed, setting the car on fire. Yes, he ran 333 with flames in tow. 

"It was just burning everything up under the hood," Raschke added.

The team switched to the 560-inch engine, which ran 481.576 mph four years earlier. According to noted motorsports historian Bret Kepner, the team's 481 mph run in 2020, the third-mile speed was 383.168 mph. With the conditions, the team came nowhere near the past performance. 

Raschke said he has unaccomplished goals he'd like to attain if given the opportunity. 

"I have what they call a Red Hat, or the 200-mile-an-hour club hat, which I got that hat driving Wayne Jesel's truck," Raschke said. "I went 247 in that truck and got a record, which got my 200-mile-an-hour club Red Hat. I wear my Red Hat pretty proudly because it's not a big group of Red Hatters running around. So my goal was, and what George said, 'I couldn't get you a blue hat and a black hat."

The blue hat means a driver has officially recorded a 200 and 300-mile-per-hour record. The black hat is a combination of 300 and 400-mile-per-hour clubs. 

 

 

As Raschke puts it, Poteat's team is far from finished.

"We're going to run the E engine, which is a 256 cubic inch Chevy small block Dart block, Little Chief Heads Twin Turbo," Raschke said. "We are going to run that for the E record, and the E record's kind of soft, it's only like 348, I think.

"I ran 391 with that little E engine; I just couldn't back it up. So that would get me that Blue Hat. Then we were going to run the B motor, which is still in the trailer and still ready to run, and that record; it's our own, we're running against George's record, our record, which was, I think, at 416. So I figured we could have bumped that up to a 440 or 450, and that would get me a Black Hat. 

"The third goal was to get the Hot Run Trophy, which is the fastest car of the meet. We held that we held it for ten times, and there was one other team that held it for ten times, but now we have it for 11. So in the history of that trophy, the Speed Demon Racing Team is the only team to have gotten that 11 times."

For Raschke, that's quite the conversation piece.

"And my name's going to be on the trophy, so this is the kind of stuff that I never dreamed of, that I didn't think of," Raschke said. "Just like I say, being allowed to work on that car is incredible."