When Krista Baldwin purchased longtime racer Pat Dakin’s Top Fuel Dragster in April, she knew she would have a learning curve getting used to the parts and pieces.
 
“The first half of this year, we have had a little bit of bad luck, and a couple of different gremlins have come up,” Baldwin said. “Everything from my driving style to some of the tune-up. We’ve just had some bad luck the last couple of races.”
 
Baldwin has competed in four races this season, mostly recently in Las Vegas and Chicago.
 
To expedite her progress, team owner Baldwin is putting veteran Spencer Massey in the driver’s seat of her dragster at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals Friday through Sunday in Norwalk, Ohio.
 
“Spencer actually used to drive Pat Dakin’s car for many years, and he’s been a really close friend to me the last couple of years when I made the transition into Top Fuel,” Baldwin said. “It just happened that Norwalk wasn’t on my (race) list, and he wanted to make a race, so we set a deal for Norwalk.
 
“I’m pretty excited to have him driving my car. He’s one of the best drivers in the class, and he will help me learn more about my car while I’m outside the car and he’s inside the car. We can converse back and forth with what is happening and how he feels the car is reacting and it will actually help me in the long run.”
 
Baldwin admitted Massey was her favorite driver when she was a kid.
 
“I would always pick him over anyone else,” she said. “I met him through the Snake (Don Prudhomme) when he was driving for Snake. He came over to my grandpa’s pit one day, and my mom said to Snake, ‘Hey, my daughter loves your driver. Can she meet him?’ Of course, Snake puts me on the golf cart, and I get to go over and get a whole tour of his whole compound of what Don Prudhomme Racing was at the time, and I got to meet Spencer, and it was a little kid’s dream, to meet her idol.
 
“Ever since then, I have always been a Spencer Massey fan, and I will always be a Spencer Massey fan.”

 
Massey has 18 career NHRA Top Fuel national event wins. He won the 2009 Auto Club Road to the Future Award while driving for Prudhomme and then joined Don Schumacher Racing, where he drove from 2011 to 15.
 
Since he departed from DSR in 2015, Massey has been running a limited schedule in Dakin’s dragster.
 
“Technically, Spencer has driven this car I have because it was Pat Dakin’s, and I bought everything from Pat Dakin on April 1,” Baldwin said. “Spencer knows the car so much more than I do. He actually was up in Chicago with us for a couple of days, and I was able to bounce ideas back and forth with him. ‘Hey, did this happen when you were driving, or is this normal in this car?’
 
“Every car has its own personality and so every time you hit the gas in a different car it reacts completely different. This car reacts ways different than my old car, so I’m still on the learning curve of how to make this car work and how it works with my driving style. Spencer has been really good about telling me this is what you’re going to feel, or this is pretty normal. This what you should expect from this car and things like that.”
 
With the intel Baldwin gets from Massey being in the seat it will have her better prepared for her next outing as a driver in Martin, Mich., for the Northern Nationals, Aug. 2-3.
 
“That is match race and I’m working towards a fundraising event to get me to (drive at) the U.S. Nationals,” Baldwin said.
 
With Massey driving this weekend, Baldwin wants to get her program headed in the right direction.
 
“The expectation this weekend, this car is known for going 3.70s down a dirt road,” Baldwin said. “The way I see this (the Norwalk race) as a team owner is this is going to be a free test session to me because Spencer is getting in the car, and it will get the car back on track, so when I jump back in it for Indy, I should be smooth sailing.”