The 2022 PRI show in Indianapolis was again a huge showcase of some of the very best in speed technology.

EVENT PHOTO GALLERY

There is something to be said for the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. Of course, this location is known worldwide for all manner of racing, but the yearly arrival of the Performance Racing Industry show here still makes big news locally. Following its return in 2013 to the Hoosier State after a number of years in Orlando, Fla., the city rolls out the red carpet for this event and local news programs pointed out that visitors now fill the myriad group of downtown hotels and quality eateries to the “breaking point.” The truth is, this is truly a trade show that belongs to this city of motorsports importance. Indeed, PRI now has its main headquarter in nearly Speedway, Ind., as well.

As exhibitors rolled in to set up on Tuesday and Wednesday, their sense of excitement was already evident. As many know, the break created by the COVID situation impacted literally every industry, and the echoes from that have continued in the raw materials supply chain and employment sectors. Nonetheless, both PRI and SEMA were full of exhibitors in 2022. At Indianapolis, that included over 1,000 vendors and exhibitors, filling both the Indianapolis Convention Center and adjacent Lucus Oil Stadium, the latter reserved primarily for trailer exhibitors and the Featured Products Exhibits. In true evidence of the importance of the location, a regional development spokesperson noted about 10 percent of the exhibitors and businesses on hand were from the Hoosier State.

Beyond that, this annual December occurrence is a last hurrah for many people each year. The racing seasons are over, and planning for the coming season now begins. Even where budgets are not finalized, this is a location where parties can see the latest developments, especially from smaller exhibitors and manufacturers who might find a trip to SEMA and a not-so-racing oriented crowd to be too costly to justify. Here is also the almost-as-crucial opportunity to network, away from the stress of intense raceday work or even pursuit of now-completed world championships. 
In conclusion, PRI is a big deal. Let’s take a look…

 

 

WORTH YOUR WHILE (and $40.00 a year) - As membership is required to access the event even for most professionals, the PRI magazine comes with your membership, and the issue released for the show was 320 pages of contact info and updates on the business of speed marketing. It featured dozens of advertisements and highlighted content about this event. Even if you could not attend, this is a “reading room” keeper if no other reason than you have quick access to this info and company phone numbers.

But PRI is more than a simple trade organization. President Dr. Jamie Meyer gave an impassioned editorial about the critical state of politics in the racing business. As much as many people would like to “stop the world, I want to get off” when it comes to our racing passions as a business or hobby, the truth is, the wolf is always at the door in the 21st century. The RPM Act (Recognizing the Importance of Motorsports) is a major legislative goal of this organization and for good reason. 

Without this type of serious proactive lobbying effort, the industry has little to no protection from the opposing political powers that can use the law and pen to silence the sounds of performance race or street cars. Understanding the importance of how your own local, state and federal officials perceive your freedom, your business opportunities, and your love of motor-drive competition should always be considered when making these critical decisions in the ballot box. Further, it should also be a given that you have not simply voluntarily given up your right to cast a vote whenever you can. It matters. A lot. Especially now.

THINGS NOT TO DO AT PRI… LOL - One interesting feature in the magazine this year was a “Stop Doing That” section where industry professionals noted some of the things you should not do at PRI. An important one was to not dress unprofessionally. Formal wear is unnecessary, but this is a trade show, not a garage work zone. Another suggestion was to not search out only friends but make an attempt to expand your business network. This goes for exploring the event in its entirely as well, and have a pre-made plan of who you hope to see. 

Also, chasing personal racecar sponsorship may not be the wisest idea when business people are more focused on big wholesale orders and potential sales here; this event is a networking opportunity for everybody, but probably not the right place to present your multi-year marketing plans out of the blue. Obviously, if you have pre-scheduled an appointment, that is different, but again, interrupting a speed business’s best seasonal opportunity to grow their own potential at this important event is unwise. Finally, do not be the last one to shut down the bar; you want to be able to function if you intend to conduct business the next day. And it is a long day.

BREAKFAST AT TONY’S - Tony Stewart opened up the event during Thursday’s 3,000-person open breakfast with a number of rollicking statements, including his own proclivities on occasionally being overserved. He admitted that drag racing is now deeply embedded in his psyche and jokingly noted that driving Top Fuel was an experience that was far faster than his mind could process, so he has “slowed down” to Top Alcohol as his training continues. He also chatted about how getting into the racecar was the best way to understand what wife, Leah Pruett, was telling him about the car’s performance.

Following the likes of Art Malone and John Andretti from open-wheel racing to the quarter mile, Stewart’s involvement in NHRA should not be underestimated. The impact he could eventually bring to this sport professionally is tremendous. Hearing his history as a racer, including what he had to do to climb up the ranks from his sportsman days, his differing driving experiences in so many disciplines, and his philosophy as a car and business owner was inspiring, though perhaps if a bit off-color. It was a breakfast that will be remembered.

 

 

FX STANDS FOR FUTURE EXPECTATIONS - NHRA technical director Lonnie Grim and racer Geoff Turk were on hand for several back-and-forth discussions about the upcoming FactoryX category’s introduction in the NHRA on Fox booth. Both were excited, as Turk’s nearly-complete Blackbird Challenger build was on display for the first time as well. This is an all-new car, though looks quite similar to the well-traveled version that fans have seen on the Factory Stock Showdown tour. In chatting with informed sources, with the final rules package already complete, builders and racers will be going flat-out to get fresh cars ready for the 2023 Gatornationals.

To those who have not been following along, the new-for-2023 FX category will be for the basically-unchanged supercharged Factory Showdown engine package in a body and chassis that can finally make full use of the 1500 or so horsepower these mills are capable of. The reality of a wider tire, 2650-pound minimum weight, race-spec chassis built into the OEM factory production body core, and other adaptations are expected to quickly push the gasoline-powered cars toward both 6-second and 200-MPH barriers. Indeed, Grim admitted this may be one of the final frontiers for a 200-MPH Club in the sport for the foreseeable future.

Turk, who has driven a number of different door cars in the course of his career as a racer, noted that of all things he looked forward to, it would be letting the clutch out and grabbing gears that really was getting him ready for that first test hit sometime in the offseason.

“My competitive race cars have never been a manual,” he admitted with a grin. “I’m really looking forward to letting out that clutch. I mean, I get in the car when nobody is looking, and bang through the gears and make motor sounds. I’m itching so bad to get to the track.”

The class rules call for a manual transmission and allow for an 8-inch multi-disc clutch, up to 3 discs. Grim noted that he did not expect these Pro Stock-type units to require between-round servicing, at least at this stage of the game. Once the combination is dialed into the expected horsepower-to-rear tire optimum, this job would be able to get done when the weekend is complete. He also noted that, due to the dangerous potential of these parts coming apart at race RPM levels, an SFI spec 6.3 bellhousing had been mandated as well.

“With the established rules, I know of 8 cars that already have pipe being fitted or construction underway,” says Grim. “I know of about 20 other guys who have said they have deposits with builders or are planning to get involved. 

“We have great partners in this category,” he continued. “We call it Factory X for a reason; there’s a lot of history in factory experimental.”
Holley has come on the class sponsor, and other developments will certainly occur before that first set of WIDE tires behind a Factory Showdown motor splash through the bleach box at the Gators.

 

 

 

PARTS PRO: 5-STAR BODIES GETTING READY FOR FX EXPLOSION OF GMs - A stop by the 5-Star Race Car Bodies booth found the first of the Camaro FactoryX one-piece noses proudly on display. Owner Carl Schultz noted that this part has been assigned a GM number, is available through GM (not 5-Star) as an FX body piece and GM owns the tooling and the design work. The provider of NHRA-legal bodies in Pro Stock, Schultz also stated that he hopes distribution of his FX production units will be underway sometime in January. The company is presently also prototyping a rear tail, a deck lid, a spoiler with spill plates, and bumper cover. The rules require a specific portion of any FX entry to be the steel assembly-line body, including rear fenders.

Interestingly, in the desire on keep costs down, the nose is not carbon-fiber or Kevlar. “It’s a high-end composite manufacturing process using a specific blend of fabrics,” he noted, choosing his words carefully to keep the process proprietary. “It doesn’t have carbon fiber or high-cost cross materials in it.”

A rudimentary examination of the part showed very modest changes from the OEM configuration but nothing radical; do not expect 1965 “funny cars” to return. Indeed, all the factory grille trim needs to be installed on it. 

 

COPO ’23: IT’S ’69 ALL OVER AGAIN... AND THEN SOME - Chevrolet Performance has announced the release of the 2023 COPO Camaro. Unlike the supercharged cars that get so much attention, this example has an EFI-equipped big-block engine but displaces what may be the most cubes in the history of OEM car releases – 632 CID!

However, the 2023 COPO model will also be offered with a normally-aspirated LSX design 427 design similar in displacements to the original Central Office Production Order, or COPO, Camaros did in 1969, as well as a Factory Stock-style supercharged LSX 350. A cage certified to 8.50, LineLoc, harnesses on both seats, and other race-only stuff will be included. No price was shown, and there are several optional pieces that can be packaged on the car as well. If you want this paint job, however, you need to go big – it's exclusive to the 632 release. 

 

 

 

“YOU’RE IN!” SAMPLE - In chatting with the legendary Ted Jones, former IHRA president and owner of Masters Entertainment, who will be producing the World Series of Pro Mod $100,000 television program announced by Wes Buck, an entertaining tale came up from the past.
During the heyday of IHRA, dozens of Pro Stocks would attempt to make the 16-car racing program. One Saturday night “Do-Or-Die” final session at Rockingham found one Malvern Magician on the bump and a North Carolina hot rod barn legend looking to improve. The NC man, well-known to all for antics in the class, had been adding a somewhat illegal substance (ok, totally illegal, propylene oxide) using a steel STP Fuel Treatment can in the lanes just before the run. The Magician came up and grabbed the ½-empty can from his hand and said, “Look, I’ve bought a bunch of this stuff, and it don’t work. I’m using the rest of yours!”  

“Fair enough,” came the reply. “Do you know how to get it through fuel check?”

“Hrrph! Not my first rodeo, son!” In it goes. The Magician moves off the bump to 13th, and “last-Hemi-standing” goes from 5th to 3rd. They run through tech, and the Mopar is up two spots and the man from Malvern is mad. He fails fuel tech. He’s out, so he confronts our hero. “Hey, you said this would pass!”

“Did you know how to get it through fuel check?”

“Yeah, he gave me the jar, I pulled the line, ran fuel into the jar, and gave it back to him.”

“Did you wrap the $100.00 bill around the jar when you handed it over?"..

JESEL TALKS ABOUT DANNY’S RETIREMENT AND THE STATE OF THE HOBBY - One of the most familiar faces in motorsports is Wayne Jesel, whose roots reach back to the 1960s era Stock Eliminator battles of the Northeast in the YooHoo sedan delivery. With the recent announcement that older brother Danny had recently retired from active involvement to become Executive Chairman, Wayne was open to discussing changes in the well-known brand.

“For the last ten years, Danny’s been working on that Equal 8 engine. So while he is also was on hand to do whatever he needed to, he was already handing the baton off.” The Jesel Equal 8 engine is all-new, fully machined of billet, and was Danny’s imaginative effort to take the optimal features of many 90-degree V-8 engines and meld them into a single platform using an innovative equal-column valvetrain across all cylinders. Jason Line has been involved, and Wayne hopes to have a chance to run one of two finished prototypes in his Bonneville vehicle next year. He expects the engine to possibly end up in Comp Eliminator, too. 

“Danny’s been at the valve train business for 42 years now, and he really wanted to get that done while he was still active in the company and doing everything. Now that the engine is done, he’s 81 years old, and he’s just going to kind of take it easy for a while. He’ll still remain available for whatever we need guidance-wise, but he really wanted to take it easy.”
The firm, located in the New Jersey city of Lakewood, continues to be a trendsetter in development, and Wayne himself noted that there is already a process in place when he himself decides to retire, with longtime management employee Rich Runne now taking both a controlling interest in the firm and the CEO position. Meanwhile, when asked about the state of the industry, Wayne noted that while business is strong, the firm is confronted by the same issues that many companies, automotive and otherwise, are dealing with in 2022.

“Everybody right now is maxed out. Everybody’s back-ordered, and where we lack is human capital. We need people to run the CNC machines and that type of thing. Our business has never been in better shape, but we are back-ordered just because of the amount of orders that we’re getting right now. I mean, we have machines, we have time, we have material. We just need more operators.

“We haven’t lost any of them,” he continued. “It’s just that the business has grown so rapidly in the last year and a half or so. Right now, we could do two shifts very easily if we had the manpower, but we’re challenged to have just one shift. Everybody needs people.”

 

 

 

3.5-71? INDY MOD MAN FITS IN - Kenny Lazzeri at Indy Cylinder Heads may not be familiar to a lot of people outside of the Chrysler community, but one project he had on display was a small Roots-design supercharger by TBS that can be bolted to most Mopar and AMC forged-internal race engines with little need to change other things. 

Rated at approximately 350 HP, the secret for compatibility is using the unique ICH Mod Man modular intake, an adaptable top design with a large open plenum area that Indy casts for most of those brands’ popular engines. Fitted to the engine, this blower makes a small enough amount of boost that current bottom-end parts’ normal compression ratios can likely be left alone if the engine is healthy, though Ken cautions that running methanal would be good insurance due to the heat generated.

ICH offers a whole kit to mount this package to the 440 Chrysler. Also in Indy’s booth was Chip King’s latest Pro Mod car built by Dreamworks, another advancement on the 1970 Charger styling he has been running the past several seasons.

 

TONY GILLIG: BUSINESS AND PLEASURE MEANS NEW DIRECTIONS AND OLD - Though driver Tony Gillig doesn’t have the household name recognition some other racers do, he is now a person who has come full circle. Since assuming the managing role in Flatout Gaskets (now Flatout Products LLC), a company formerly owned by the late Mark Adellizi, Gillig gave Competition Plus a look at his newly-minted present role.

“I’ve always wanted to do something different and always had a passion for the sport,” he says. “I kind of had this thing in my head like I know the restaurant business, and I know the racing world. I thought it’d be a nice transition for me into something different because I wanted to get away from nights and weekends and food, period.”

Gillig had spoken with Adellizi on occasion before his passing about a possible role with the firm, but when Mark passed in 2021, and his brother took over as the owner, a larger opportunity presented itself. In 2021, the Gillig family had also sold their family pizza business, and another pizza shop owner, Jeff D’Agostino, known in the motorsports world as owner of Fast Times Motorworks in Chicago, agreed to come in as a partner to make it financially feasible for Flatout Products to become part of Gillig’s career trajectory.

Though their catalog showcases numerous products and even services in the non-automotive world, the company is best noted for doing short-run specialty gaskets and has the equipment and capacity to generate them quickly, even a single unit. As a service to the innovative motorsport world, this is important. “We’ve got steel core product, graphite, other laminates, and stuff like that. Everything’s done in-house. The cutting and the coating process on our copper stuff is all done in-house. We do a lot of metal fab stuff.”

He continued that it has been a pleasant learning curve as well, a far cry from building, say, a stromboli. “I didn’t know all of it until I got involved, and every day I’m like, wow! We make something and when you watch the process happen, well, your eyes are popping out of your head. Like, ‘that’s all that took? That’s cool!’ the laser we have, the water jet, the CNC press. So it’s cool.”

“We’re all racers,” he continues. “Somebody calls and they have a one-off gasket need. I have them send a sample pattern or scan, and I can get what they want, get it quickly. Once we set it up, we can still have it on file if they need it again, or even modify it if they change a port or location on it.”

Gillig, whose family racing program has often been somewhat fluid, is now back in mountain motor Pro Stock, where he cut his teeth in the early days of the 1990s.

 “I stopped back in ’06, had a stint in 2012 driving for Billy Dingman and then my dad and I resurrected a Cutlass and built the clone door car from the nineties," Gillig said. "Then we got this crazy idea, let’s go Mountain Motor Pro stock racing again. We got a Pontiac GXP, went to our first PDRA race, and we won it. We just ran this whole season, PDRA and the NHRA side for mountain motor, and finished number two in the points.”

“Yeah, so it’s been fun,” he concluded. “It’s all working together and I think the company will continue to prosper. We’ve had a great six months here since we bought the place, it’s a pretty cool deal, pretty promising, and we’re excited about the future.”

 

 

 

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AC/DC IN CONCERT: ELECTRIC DRAG RACING GETS A MIX - In keeping with the storied tradition of Thomas Edison vs. Nikoli Tesla, the PRI EVI zone was centerpieced this year by a pair of dragsters that featured “opposing currents” of propulsion. The AC versus DC possibilities offer interesting scenarios, and a signboard between the two cars gave the pros and cons of each. 

On the AC side was the Steve Huff Motorsports machine, running an Axial Dual Stack (4 motors total) from Phi Power using an AEM controller for each motor, plus a High Tech Systems 800-volt lithium cobalt polymer battery and an Owens Racing single-speed transmission. If that means nothing to you, try this – 7.74 at 202.82 in testing at Sonoma. 

In the world of DC (and, no, we ain’t talkin’ comic books) is legend Big Daddy Don Garlits, whose exploits in the juiced Swamp Rat 38 are well-known. A record-level 7.235 at 189.04 from 2019 were the best current numbers we could find for the car, which runs a canister-design Lawless EV brush-type motor, also with a single-speed (like a direct-drive) transmission, a Marshall custom battery design, and a Zila controller.

The AC version has a broader usage curve, longer life, and is more energy efficient than DC. The DC version offers higher initial torque and horsepower than AC and is less expensive initially. You can almost imagine Tesla and Edison and pointing at each other and saying, “see, I told you so!”

 

 

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