What Hartford fears most isn’t really the scoop itself. It’s what comes after it.
Anybody who has spent time around Pro Stock knows racers never stop once a new combination appears. They chase airflow. Then they chase tiny gains inside the airflow. Then somebody finds something in testing, and suddenly everybody else has to spend money trying to catch up.
Hartford broke it down in language racers understood immediately.
“Well, think about this,” Hartford said. “If I said, ‘Hey, you got a Mustang at home. Oh, by the way, now you got to put an LS engine in it for next year.’ There’s a lot of cost to doing that. Every time that you make a change on one of these things, it’s a lot of cost.”
Then the list started. And once the list starts in Pro Stock, the number at the bottom gets ugly fast.
“We’re going to have to change, all the manifolds now have to change, all the tops have to change, the body has to change,” Hartford said. “You have to buy the scoops. Now you have to start cycling through all the different brands of scoops that are out there. People are going to make their own scoops. You got to make your own throttle bodies.”
That still isn’t the expensive part.
The expensive part is figuring out which version actually works.
“You’re going to try every type of machine you can in the throttle body to get the airflow the way you want it,” Hartford said. “You’re going to do all kinds of stuff down inside the manifold, and you have to go to the track and test all this stuff over and over and over.”
That sentence right there is the real story. Testing.
Because testing in Pro Stock isn’t a casual weekend with a few passes and sandwiches in the trailer afterward. Teams burn through engines, parts, fuel, tires, manpower, and travel budgets trying to find a few thousandths.
“To go run one of these cars down a racetrack is extremely expensive,” Hartford said. “So like I said, your minimum $100,000, probably pushing $200,000 per car just to do the amount of testing you’re going to need to do to be competitive.”
HARTFORD WARNS NHRA HOOD SCOOP CHANGE COULD DRIVE OUT PRO STOCK’S SMALLER TEAMS
Last month NHRA rolled out multiple changes to its Pro Stock rules package. Some hit immediately. Others are waiting for 2027.
The one that keeps coming up in conversations between racers, crew chiefs, and engine builders is the return of hood scoops.
Matt Hartford isn’t buying the idea that the move helps the category. The veteran Pro Stock racer believes it opens the door to another expensive development war, one he says independent teams may not survive.
Hartford recently laid out his concerns during an interview with drag racing video journalist Noah Carmichael, known around the pits as Mighty Mack. He didn’t sound like somebody trying to win a political argument. He sounded like a racer staring at a spreadsheet nobody wants to talk about publicly.
“What you’re going to see is you’re going to see a lot of the cars drop out of the class now,” Hartford said. “It’s going to cost somewhere between 100 and $200,000 per car to make the change over. By the time you get the change over done, R&D, go testing and so forth. And NHRA is not raising the purse at all. So what you’re going to see is a handful of the smaller teams drop out.”
Hartford doesn’t hate hood scoops. Quite the opposite. He likes the look. Most Pro Stock fans probably do, too.
That’s part of why this issue has become complicated. One side sees factory hot rods looking like factory hot rods again. The other side sees a pile of invoices.
“This is an extremely bad decision by NHRA to make that happen,” Hartford said. “I love hood scoops. I think they look good, but if they’re going to do it, there had to be a cost reason to do it. There isn’t one. There’s zero reason that this change needed to happen, other than to cost the small teams a lot of money.”
There’s another layer to this that keeps surfacing in the pits. Pro Stock finally reached a point where the category feels tight again. Not just close on paper. Tight everywhere. Qualifying. Race day. Lane choice.
You can miss the setup by a blink and lose four spots.
NHRA’s stated reasoning centered around parity and future performance development. Hartford says parity is already sitting right in front of everybody.
“I have no idea,” Hartford said when asked why the move happened. “They said parity. I’m not really sure where parity was. Last week we had three cars qualify with a 54 or five, and it was on speed where you were. There is absolutely no reason that this change should have happened.”
What Hartford fears most isn’t really the scoop itself. It’s what comes after it.
Anybody who has spent time around Pro Stock knows racers never stop once a new combination appears. They chase airflow. Then they chase tiny gains inside the airflow. Then somebody finds something in testing, and suddenly everybody else has to spend money trying to catch up.
Hartford broke it down in language racers understood immediately.
“Well, think about this,” Hartford said. “If I said, ‘Hey, you got a Mustang at home. Oh, by the way, now you got to put an LS engine in it for next year.’ There’s a lot of cost to doing that. Every time that you make a change on one of these things, it’s a lot of cost.”
Then the list started. And once the list starts in Pro Stock, the number at the bottom gets ugly fast.
“We’re going to have to change, all the manifolds now have to change, all the tops have to change, the body has to change,” Hartford said. “You have to buy the scoops. Now you have to start cycling through all the different brands of scoops that are out there. People are going to make their own scoops. You got to make your own throttle bodies.”
That still isn’t the expensive part.
The expensive part is figuring out which version actually works.
“You’re going to try every type of machine you can in the throttle body to get the airflow the way you want it,” Hartford said. “You’re going to do all kinds of stuff down inside the manifold, and you have to go to the track and test all this stuff over and over and over.”
That sentence right there is the real story. Testing.
Because testing in Pro Stock isn’t a casual weekend with a few passes and sandwiches in the trailer afterward. Teams burn through engines, parts, fuel, tires, manpower, and travel budgets trying to find a few thousandths.
“To go run one of these cars down a racetrack is extremely expensive,” Hartford said. “So like I said, your minimum $100,000, probably pushing $200,000 per car just to do the amount of testing you’re going to need to do to be competitive.”
Hartford’s comments also hit differently because he isn’t operating one of the giant multi-car organizations.
He leases engines from KB Titan Racing, but he made it clear there’s no magic pipeline of tuning information flowing into his trailer every weekend.
“Our alliance with KB is that we lease engines from them,” Hartford explained. “They roll over the power unit and that’s the extent of it. They have nothing to do with tuning our car. We have nothing to do with tuning their car.”
That distinction matters inside Pro Stock because independent teams wear that label with pride. If they outrun a powerhouse operation, they want everybody to know they did it themselves.
“We’re as competitors as it gets the minute that we roll up there,” Hartford said. “So there’s no data share between our teams. So to be a single-car team out here and be able to run with those guys, I mean, they are the best.”
Hartford then turned toward Greg Anderson and KB Titan with the kind of respect competitors usually reserve for people who have beaten them repeatedly.
“Let’s just be clear,” Hartford said. “Greg Anderson’s the best there ever been in one of these cars. And their power is just incredible, and their team is incredible. So anytime you can run with them, it’s an honor. Anytime you can beat them, it’s even better.”
That’s the balancing act Pro Stock has been fighting to maintain for years. Big teams. Smaller teams. Same ladder. Same tree. Same shot when the bulbs drop.
Hartford thinks the hood scoop change tilts that balance toward whichever organizations can spend the most money the quickest.
He also believes Pro Stock has already sacrificed enough financially compared to NHRA’s nitro divisions.
“So far, all NHRA has done over the past several years is take our purse money away from Pro Stock and give it to Top Fuel,” Hartford said. “I think there’s only like 13 or 14 Top Fuel cars here [Valdosta]. So the money they keep taking from us, they give to Top Fuel to get that class to grow.”
Then came the line that probably echoed through more than a few race trailers after the interview surfaced.
“You’re going to take the strongest class in NHRA, and you’re basically ruining it now.”
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HARTFORD WARNS NHRA HOOD SCOOP CHANGE COULD DRIVE OUT PRO STOCK’S SMALLER TEAMS
Last month NHRA rolled out multiple changes to its Pro Stock rules package. Some hit immediately. Others are waiting for 2027.
The one that keeps coming up in conversations between racers, crew chiefs, and engine builders is the return of hood scoops.
Matt Hartford isn’t buying the idea that the move helps the category. The veteran Pro Stock racer believes it opens the door to another expensive development war, one he says independent teams may not survive.
Hartford recently laid out his concerns during an interview with drag racing video journalist Noah Carmichael, known around the pits as Mighty Mack. He didn’t sound like somebody trying to win a political argument. He sounded like a racer staring at a spreadsheet nobody wants to talk about publicly.
“What you’re going to see is you’re going to see a lot of the cars drop out of the class now,” Hartford said. “It’s going to cost somewhere between 100 and $200,000 per car to make the change over. By the time you get the change over done, R&D, go testing and so forth. And NHRA is not raising the purse at all. So what you’re going to see is a handful of the smaller teams drop out.”
Hartford doesn’t hate hood scoops. Quite the opposite. He likes the look. Most Pro Stock fans probably do, too.
That’s part of why this issue has become complicated. One side sees factory hot rods looking like factory hot rods again. The other side sees a pile of invoices.
“This is an extremely bad decision by NHRA to make that happen,” Hartford said. “I love hood scoops. I think they look good, but if they’re going to do it, there had to be a cost reason to do it. There isn’t one. There’s zero reason that this change needed to happen, other than to cost the small teams a lot of money.”
There’s another layer to this that keeps surfacing in the pits. Pro Stock finally reached a point where the category feels tight again. Not just close on paper. Tight everywhere. Qualifying. Race day. Lane choice.
You can miss the setup by a blink and lose four spots.
NHRA’s stated reasoning centered around parity and future performance development. Hartford says parity is already sitting right in front of everybody.
“I have no idea,” Hartford said when asked why the move happened. “They said parity. I’m not really sure where parity was. Last week we had three cars qualify with a 54 or five, and it was on speed where you were. There is absolutely no reason that this change should have happened.”
What Hartford fears most isn’t really the scoop itself. It’s what comes after it.
Anybody who has spent time around Pro Stock knows racers never stop once a new combination appears. They chase airflow. Then they chase tiny gains inside the airflow. Then somebody finds something in testing, and suddenly everybody else has to spend money trying to catch up.
Hartford broke it down in language racers understood immediately.
“Well, think about this,” Hartford said. “If I said, ‘Hey, you got a Mustang at home. Oh, by the way, now you got to put an LS engine in it for next year.’ There’s a lot of cost to doing that. Every time that you make a change on one of these things, it’s a lot of cost.”
Then the list started. And once the list starts in Pro Stock, the number at the bottom gets ugly fast.
“We’re going to have to change, all the manifolds now have to change, all the tops have to change, the body has to change,” Hartford said. “You have to buy the scoops. Now you have to start cycling through all the different brands of scoops that are out there. People are going to make their own scoops. You got to make your own throttle bodies.”
That still isn’t the expensive part.
The expensive part is figuring out which version actually works.
“You’re going to try every type of machine you can in the throttle body to get the airflow the way you want it,” Hartford said. “You’re going to do all kinds of stuff down inside the manifold, and you have to go to the track and test all this stuff over and over and over.”
That sentence right there is the real story. Testing.
Because testing in Pro Stock isn’t a casual weekend with a few passes and sandwiches in the trailer afterward. Teams burn through engines, parts, fuel, tires, manpower, and travel budgets trying to find a few thousandths.
“To go run one of these cars down a racetrack is extremely expensive,” Hartford said. “So like I said, your minimum $100,000, probably pushing $200,000 per car just to do the amount of testing you’re going to need to do to be competitive.”
Hartford’s comments also hit differently because he isn’t operating one of the giant multi-car organizations.
He leases engines from KB Titan Racing, but he made it clear there’s no magic pipeline of tuning information flowing into his trailer every weekend.
“Our alliance with KB is that we lease engines from them,” Hartford explained. “They roll over the power unit and that’s the extent of it. They have nothing to do with tuning our car. We have nothing to do with tuning their car.”
That distinction matters inside Pro Stock because independent teams wear that label with pride. If they outrun a powerhouse operation, they want everybody to know they did it themselves.
“We’re as competitors as it gets the minute that we roll up there,” Hartford said. “So there’s no data share between our teams. So to be a single-car team out here and be able to run with those guys, I mean, they are the best.”
Hartford then turned toward Greg Anderson and KB Titan with the kind of respect competitors usually reserve for people who have beaten them repeatedly.
“Let’s just be clear,” Hartford said. “Greg Anderson’s the best there ever been in one of these cars. And their power is just incredible, and their team is incredible. So anytime you can run with them, it’s an honor. Anytime you can beat them, it’s even better.”
That’s the balancing act Pro Stock has been fighting to maintain for years. Big teams. Smaller teams. Same ladder. Same tree. Same shot when the bulbs drop.
Hartford thinks the hood scoop change tilts that balance toward whichever organizations can spend the most money the quickest.
He also believes Pro Stock has already sacrificed enough financially compared to NHRA’s nitro divisions.
“So far, all NHRA has done over the past several years is take our purse money away from Pro Stock and give it to Top Fuel,” Hartford said. “I think there’s only like 13 or 14 Top Fuel cars here [Valdosta]. So the money they keep taking from us, they give to Top Fuel to get that class to grow.”
Then came the line that probably echoed through more than a few race trailers after the interview surfaced.
“You’re going to take the strongest class in NHRA, and you’re basically ruining it now.”
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HARTFORD WARNS NHRA HOOD SCOOP CHANGE COULD DRIVE OUT PRO STOCK’S SMALLER TEAMS
Last month NHRA rolled out multiple changes to its Pro Stock rules package. Some hit immediately. Others are waiting for 2027. The one that keeps