The McGaha family race team has turned heads in NHRA Pro Stock: Chris has eight national-event wins, and his son, Mason, 20, has been to 10 semifinal rounds in just 37 races.

“Like I said, I did those COVID races, so I feel like I got my feet wet here doing all those races,” Mason said about competing in Indy. “Then we ran last year (here), and we ran decent. I mean, it's the ‘Big Go,’ but it didn't really intimidate me much. It takes a lot to rattle me.”

Mason has had some impressive runs in his brief Pro Stock career, but he’s far from satisfied.

“Well, I haven't won yet,” Mason said. “I feel like a failure. I mean, we've had good races, but I haven't won. I want to win. I can look at those and go, ‘Well, we did good.’ But we have not won. Erica's won how many races this year?” It's consistency. We can pop off those runs, reaction time and ET wise, but you’ve got to do it four times in a row on race day. You can't do it first run and choke the second round or semis or whatever. You got to do it every run. And that's pretty much our only issue I feel like at this point is just doing it every run.”

Mason acknowledges his career-choice was all about racing.

“I mean, I've always grown up around it,” Mason said. “It's just ... I don't know any different. I’ve always been around it. Our family reunion, instead of going and doing a barbecue, we go to the drag races. My dad is easy to work with. He's pretty patient. I mean, he was really good for me licensing because he was the one who kept the whole thing together. It was like the ship was falling apart and he kind of kept it all together. And here we are now.”

At his young age, Mason is appreciative of the opportunity he has in racing.

“You get to race against Greg Anderson and all that,” Mason said. “Because as little kids, he was like my Derek Jeter for racing. I was like, ‘Oh, Greg Anderson, Greg Anderson.’ So, getting to race with him and just how competitive the class is. It's cool to be a part of that.”

Chris said he’s enjoyed seeing Mason’s progression, and would love nothing more than to see him get a Wally.

“It's been good, but I'm with him, the end goal is to win a race,” Chris said. “I would've thought we would've been able to do it by now, but we haven’t. So that's really the end goal. It would be pretty good to watch it go from we can't even do a burnout to we won a race.”

Chris takes pride that he provides his team with in-house engines.

“I always have (done my own engine program), I mean, that's probably helped me be able to afford to do it,” Chris said. “Even though that is a big expense too, but you are the controller of your own destiny at that point. When you're renting, yeah, you're at somebody's mercy.”

Chris said he has no plans to stop driving.

“No, no, no. I still enjoy doing it,” Chris said. “I still would love to win. It's been a little harder the last few years. I turned it red in Dallas last year and really, we've kind of stunk it up since then. Even into this year, it's like, ‘Why have we struggled so bad?’ I still want to win probably as bad as he does, but it hasn't worked out very well.

“You get off on tangents in this deal and trying to go faster. Feel like some things have changed that we've had to adapt to for some reason; why, I don't know. We've changed a lot coming here. Because the last two races were pretty ... I mean, we ran really good in Denver and we ran really good in Sonoma and then we went to Seattle and Topeka, and we should have just stayed home and saved the money. It was bad. It was really bad. We made seven straight runs with the silver car and never went down” the track.

“That kind of stuff is – that's pretty trying your patience, it really is. We went to Martin, Mich. (on Monday and Tuesday before Indy). He couldn't go. So, I drove both cars. I mean, we felt like coming here we were pretty good, but we've changed so much that it's like, ‘What is it, really?’ So we were a little hesitant going up there last night. We were like, ‘Well, this is more than we've been doing.’ And then we thought, ‘OK, well we can do even more.’”