Richard Freeman says the numbers and facts don’t lie.
Freeman shakes his head whenever he sees what he believes are misinformed social media posts regarding the class he has passionately invested in. Some suggest Pro Stock is nothing more than an Elite Motorsports vs. KB-Titan battleground. And, the battleground, they say, “Is a Pro-Camaro” skirmish.
He’s ready to deliver a refresher course on why Pro Stock is the best it’s ever been.
YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT REASONABLY AFFORDABLE FOR SUCCESS
As Freeman sees it, today’s Pro Stock delivers the best chance for a driver to win as there has been since the class started. Never mind the days of 40 cars fighting for a spot in the 16-car field, he believes when a team gets in the 16-car field, they have a better shot of winning than one not named Glidden, Johnson, or Reher-Morrison back in those so-called glory days.
Freeman knew when he embarked on a new way of Pro Stock thinking in 2014 that it was necessary to eliminate the exclusive thinking of the past. He understood that once a class is gone in NHRA’s sphere, there is no way to bring it back.
Freeman, who took the reigns of the Pro Stock rebirth in July 2014, believed then and still believes a healthy Pro Stock can be a cornerstone of the NHRA’s professional drag racing presentation and a viable alternative to the thunder and lightning of fuel racing.
The impetus for the need to revamp was not for financial gain. Freeman wanted to do his part to save the class his father once raced and one the Elite Motorsports team owner has loved since childhood.
“Pro Stock’s been my dream ever since I was a little kid,” Freeman said. “Standing behind the ropes of the likes of Warren Johnson, Bob Glidden, Darrell Alderman, and all those guys. If you really want to look at Pro Stock and how it’s evolved, you go back 20 years; everybody wants to talk about yesterday, right? [They] want to go back to carburetor. They want to go back to hood scoops. The problem with that is that’s not how the world works. It doesn’t matter what it was; everything evolves.
Freeman understands that while he gets the lion’s share of the credit for revitalizing Pro Stock, drag racing fans should give a fair measure of credit to rival KB-Titan for reinvesting in the class to ensure its long-term survival. It was largely a “coming to Jesus meeting” between him, Greg Anderson, and others in the class that set the wheels in motion to remove the obstacles that shackled growth in the class.
RELATED STORY (2014) – RICHARD FREEMAN: PRO STOCK ISN’T BROKEN; STIGMAS NEED TO BE ELIMINATED –
An overwhelming majority of race fans and journalists, as well as some racers, believe the current version of NHRA Pro Stock is broken. Consider Richard Freeman, owner of the point-leading Pro Stock entry driven by Erica Enders-Stevens, a proud member of the minority.
“No, absolutely not,” said Freeman when presented with the question of whether the 500-inch factory hot rod division is broken. “Sure don’t [feel this way].
In the upcoming NHRA Western Swing only one of the three events currently has a full field of cars [Denver]. Sonoma has 14 cars and Seattle has 13. As of this article’s posting, Freeman’s car isn’t entered at Sonoma or Seattle and he’s tight-lipped regarding his plans for those events.
“There are low car counts in every class,” Freeman pointed out. “The difference between Pro Stock and the fuel classes is that we don’t have as many full-time drivers. We still have to go home between races. Plus, when it comes to the nitro teams you have several multi-car owners, and if one of them decides to stop racing, it hurts those classes really bad. Take this into consideration and tell me if Pro Stock really sounds like the broken class?”
These Pro Stock shareholders understood that if they didn’t open up their exclusiveness to allow aspiring Pro Stock racers to lease engines/cars with the opportunity to actually win and be competitive, Pro Stock was going to continue its decline. They also had to create a method for more participation, even if they had to be the ones to facilitate it.
“What we did is a couple of things,” Freeman explained. “One, we [Elite and KB-Titan] worked together; even though we’re competitors, we worked to change what it cost to run the class. [In] 2013, I’m rewinding now; I would rent motors for $1 Million dollars a year to someone. Pro Stock back in those times cost about $2.5 Million [to field a competitive car], and now it is $1.2 Million.”
There was a lot of give-and-take in the meeting, Freeman said, with KB-Elite agreeing to the 10,500 rpm limit for the future of Pro Stock and bringing down the costs of the category. The same rpm limit handicapped the Mopar racers and eventually limited the combination.
The facts remain in Freeman’s favor when he contends the greatness of the class today. At the end of the 2014 season, 17 drivers entered the NHRA Finals, and of those, nine no longer compete. There were 19 on the list for the 2024 event, and only six of those drivers were on the list in 2014.
As Freeman points out, today’s world is largely instant gratification, meaning the days where one would make a heaping financial investment to build from scratch in the professional ranks are likely gone unless one has a limitless financial stream.
“People want results,” Freeman added. “Who in the world would invest $5-to-$10 million into an engine program and try to build that when all of the data, all of the people, and again, I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but they’re at our two camps, and we provide a service.”
LIMIT THE NUMBER OF TEAMS ONE CAN FIELD
Freeman has heard the calls on social media for NHRA to limit the number of teams an operation can field, focusing their attention on Elite Motorsports. The only problem with the argument, Freeman says, is that he doesn’t own all the teams racing under his umbrella. Freeman says he just manages them.
“The reason we say Team Elite is because we want everybody to feel like they’re a part of something, right?” Freeman contends. “So I think it’s real important for us to educate the people where they understand better how the process works.
“I get it. The perception is, ‘oh, Elite’s got nine, 10, 11, right? KB’s got, oh, they got six, seven, eight.”
“The problem is if I didn’t offer the service [for example] for the Cuadras, they’re not racing. They’re not running Pro Stock. They’re not racing at all because they live in Mexico. They can’t do this. So it’s just different. It’s a different time. It’s a different era.”
Today’s Pro Stock has come a long way from the days of the switcheroo lease engine era when a driver’s value could be based on which of the lease engines he had and whether or not he had to race the boss. The practice of using one engine to qualify multiple cars inspired NHRA’s rule to connect an engine to a particular car.
There were six different winners in 2024, but in the glory days of Pro Stock in the 1970s, in 1979, for instance, there were only three different winners. The year before and after, there were only three, as well.
“We’ve got a fantastic group of fans, but I want them to understand more,” Freeman said. “My phone’s always on. You can get a hold of me at any time, and I’m pretty open about how we do things. But I can tell you in Bradenton, we had a brand new guy, Steven Bell, who never driven a Pro Stock car. He got his license in three runs, did a fantastic job, and he ran within a .001 of Erica.”
Freeman added the difference between today’s Pro Stock and the years past: a novice Pro Stock racer, using Bell as an example, can come in and have the potential to be a contender. For instance, he made 16 test passes with only one unplanned shut-off due to transmission failure. As he sees it, the current atmosphere is conducive to promoting new Pro Stock business development.
“We’re proud of what we’ve done,” Freeman said. “I think it’s our job; that’s me, CompetitionPlus.com, NHRA, and all of us involved in the sport to keep promoting this message to educate our fans where this sport, and in this case, Pro Stock, is going.”
RELATED STORY – OCTOBER 2022 – PRO STOCK: HOW WE GOT TO WHERE WE ARE – Just ask a casual drag racing fan what they think of today’s current NHRA Pro Stock, and chances are you will get one of these answers.
“Nothing stock, nothing relatable, never watch them. Best time to go check out the sportsman pits.”
“Park a Pro Stock car next to the factory-produced equivalent, and that’ll answer the question as far as I’m concerned.”
“More like Pro Camaro. Need to swap it out with Pro Mod on the national tour.”
THE PRO CAMARO DEBATE
If one wonders why there’s an abundance of Chevrolet Camaros, it’s largely, but not solely, because Chevrolet was the last manufacturer to remain in the class after the others bailed. Chevrolet’s technology is the most current of the three American manufacturers who used to support Pro Stock.
Ford left Pro Stock in 1997. Chrysler ended its Pro Stock support in 2016. Oldsmobile and Pontiac are no longer in business, leaving General Motors and its Chevrolet brand as the only manufacturer involved in the class, and they also left a few years later.
When race fans detest the Chevrolet Camaro as a Pro Stock car, it’s really the only option available for a General Motors competitor. Once Pro Stock went to the “box standard” in 2000 to combat chassis builders building cars on their interpretation of the rules, it took the ability to choose a car out of the racer’s hand and into the manufacturers. A body could not be made into the likeness of a production car without treading upon the manufacturer’s trademarks.
Back in the day, if a Chevrolet racer didn’t want to race a Camaro or a “tired” Monza, they could always build a Citation, or in the case of a Ford competitor, they could always choose a Fairmont over a Mustang. That’s because the racers were dealing with a real car [stock roof & quarters] instead of a one-piece, carbon fiber facsimile of a production car.
One of the reasons there were different body styles was because the Pro Stockers of yesteryear were a steel roof and quarter-panel-based chassis. This philosophy, as many of today’s current Factory X racers are finding out, is more expensive and cumbersome (adding up to 100 man-hours more) to complete.
“I saw recently where somebody posted a brand new car order from Jerry Haas from 1990 or along that time, and it was $60,000 for a roller,” Freeman explained. “Today, when you get a Pro Stocker ready to the point where you are adding the motor, transmission, third member, and clutch in it, you are already at $230,000 for a rolling chassis. A Pro Stocker using the ‘good ‘ol days’ method is $350,000 because it’s harder to build.”
Many racers believe the Camaro adds the best aerodynamic option for Pro Stock for racers, where victories are sometimes determined down to the ten-thousandth of a second. Chevrolet ended production for the Camaro at the end of the 2024 season, leaving only the Corvette as its only coupe. It no longer makes sedans, opting only for SUVs and trucks.
Ford still makes the Mustang, and the last remaining Pro Stock body for Pro Stock drag racing is the 2017 Dodge Dart, a car no longer in production.
Freeman points out that these factors are why the Camaro is the predominant choice, and it’s because of availability and efficiency.
“I can take the motor out of Erica’s Camaro and put in the Ford Mustang [ driven by Fernando Cuadra Jr.], and it’ll slow down two-and-a-half,” Freeman explained. “Go look at the front end on a Ford [Pro Stocker] and then at a Camaro. It’s different. It’s way different. Well, it matters. And we don’t have the technology or the equipment to find out what needs to be different. It’s not that it can’t work, but nobody’s paying us $5 million a year to figure that s*** out.”
The NHRA changed a longstanding rule that said the engine didn’t have to match the body manufacturer in 2018. When NHRA adopted the 500-inch format in 1982, none of the engines were factory engines, just based on a design.
“This is an aftermarket sport, and that’s one more thing we must embrace,” Freeman said.
THE CONCLUSION
Freeman contends race fans might not prefer to see Pro Stock’s positives in the same vein he does, but if they step away from the rearview mirror of the “old days,” they will see an impressive presentation today.
In yesterday’s Pro Stock world, hard work and 24/7 dedication could overcome a lack of monetary funds, but not today. A racer must work non-stop and have money to accompany their efforts. Freeman said its just part of the evolution of Pro Stock.
“I always used to tell my guys at my car stores, either get on the train or step back because it’s going, and you’ll get run over,” Freeman said. “If we don’t evolve, I’m telling you, you get crushed. Look at NASCAR. Everybody hates what they’ve done, but they had to make a decision. Same thing happened there. There is no manufacturer support for the majority.
“NASCAR made what they called the Next-Gen car. Do I like it? I don’t know if I like it or I don’t, but it doesn’t matter. The manufacturers don’t make cars. What do people want them to do? Again, I don’t have the answers. I’m not saying I do. But what I do know is when you ask about Pro Stock, which I’m heavily invested in, and you ask, ‘Why do we have eight, nine, 10, 11 cars running under the Elite banner?”
“It’s simple. I’m doing my part to keep it growing, and others are too.”
