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FNG: My Weekend in the Trench With Peter Farber’s NHRA/ADRL Pro Mod Team PLUS VIDEO


FNG: My Weekend in the Trench With Peter Farber’s NHRA/ADRL Pro Mod Team PLUS VIDEO

I have seen drag races through several different angles during my time in the sport. I have seen them as a racer in a street car or bracket bomber, I have seen them as an announcer and race director, and I have seen them as a fan. Up until last weekend, I had never seen them as a crew guy on a professional level drag car like a Pro Mod. Thanks to NHRA and ADRL Pro Mod racer Peter Farber, I can now say that I have seen it from that side too. As someone who prides himself on really knowing the sport in a detailed way that I can relate to people in the stands while announcing, it was super humbling to realize quickly that my conceptions and what reality actual is, didn’t jive. That was certainly not a bad thing because it proved to be one of the most educational drag racing weekends of my life.

As a special treat, we’ve got in car video from multiple angles showing Peter wrangling this mother down the track. Check it out at the end of the story.

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The setup

I help Pete out by writing press releases and stuff for him during the racing season. We were on the phone talking about his release for the Charlotte NHRA event when he mentioned that he was going to be really short on crew help for the ADRL Bristol race. Being a guy who isn’t rolling in giant corporate money, Pete’s crew is a volunteer unit…a damned good volunteer unit. I quickly threw in that I would be more than happy to help for the weekend if he needed more hands. Questioning if I really meant it, I assured him that I did and he accepted my offer of help. A couple days later I let my wife know while ducking under a table.

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The plan

As flying to Bristol, Tennessee is shockingly expensive, Pete and I, living about an hour away from each other, decided that driving the nearly 800 miles to the track was the best scheme. I have known Pete from the drag strip for several years, but we’d not spend 12 hours together combined over all that time and we were getting ready to do that all in one shot heading for Bristol. At the track we would stay in Pete’s rig, which doubles as a motorhome with the other guys. Because his regular dudes would not be here, Pete let me know that it would be a busy weekend and my jobs as the FNG (the F doesn’t stand for ‘fun’ in this case) would include stuff like cleaning the car, helping move and setup equipment, removing the doors and nose of the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona body after each run, not getting in the way, and doing whatever else he needed me to do. I was A-OK with that because frankly, my experience with tearing into blown, 3,000hp Hemi engines is limited at best.

My own mental plan was to pay damned close attention to what was going on, keep my mouth shut, and try to learn as much as possible about running one of these cars.

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The drive

We left Massachusetts at about 2:30 on Wednesday afternoon and debated on whether to drive it straight through to the track or stop at some point overnight and sleep. Pete’s back was bugging the hell out of him so his comfort level in the car was pretty low. We ended up cooking along until about 11pm when we entered West Virginia and decided to call it a night. The hotel and city will remain unnamed but I will simply say that you should never stay at the Rodeway Inn located in Martinsburg, WV. Let me clarify, you should never stay there unless you are down to your last $50.00 because that will get you a room for the night. It may be a room that smells like pee, which ours did, but it was reasonably clean and the shower head was about 4.25′ off the ground. On the upside, the place did have a bar. I got a fancy mixed drink called Jack Daniels on the rocks which confused the bar tender because he forgot the rocks part. We were up and gone at 6:00AM.

Pete and I covered the remaining 320 miles with nothing much to report. Arriving at Bristol Motor Speedway is certainly something. The circle track is a huge structure. Compact but still mammoth with a seating capacity that supposedly pushes 150,000. We cruised in and found our pit space where lead man Malcolm and some outside help were servicing the engine with bearings and making all the necessary checks on the big mountain of aluminum.

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The drag strip

Bristol Dragway is by far the most stunning drag strip I have ever been to. Bar none, end of story. I had seen “Thunder Valley” on television but never in person and my jaw hit the floor when entering the place. It is both the most amazing and weirdest spot for a strip I have ever seen. Built in the bottom of a V-shaped wedge between a pair of massive hills/mini-mountains it is beautiful in every direction. The history of the place rules as well. I would recommend any drag racing fan put this place on the “must visit” list pronto!

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The car

Pete’s car is a wild one. The chassis was built by New York’s G-Force Race Cars. Power comes from a big 500+ ci all aluminum hemi topped with a blower that is overdriven by 14% per NHRA Pro Mod Rules. The engine was built and is tuned by Canadian Al Billes and his guys. Billes was a stand out Pro Mod racer before turning his time to concentrating on supplying engines and tuning help to Pro Mod racers all over the world. He is a recognized authority on these cars and Pete keeps him on retainer as part of his racing program.

Pro Mods are fully suspended cars meaning that you will find shocks and springs on all four corners like a “regular car”. Funny Cars and the like are not suspended and are really different animals on both the driving and tuning front.

A Mopar guy since birth, Farber’s car wears a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona body. It is one of only a handful of Pro Mod cars to have this body style and it attracts A LOT of attention. We were on the end of a row in the pits and there was a constant stream of people shooting photos and gawking at the car. Painted by “The Shop” in Maryland, it is a  combo of the factory scheme and some neat graphical stuff that hints at Pete’s regular occupation as the proprietor of a towing and auto repair business in Gardner, Massachusetts.

Pete gets product sponsorship from CRC Industries and we used their Brakleen, silicone, and other products through the whole weekend. Brakleen is one of the greatest things known to man and other than the body, a surface on the race car is not considered clean until you have zapped it and wiped it down with Brakleen.

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The guys

Along with Pete, I would be working with his lead man Malcolm, Jim Elliot, and Dan Lang.

Malcolm has been around blown alcohol Funny Cars, Dragsters, and Pro Mods, for a very long time. He is the clutch man for the car and definitely serves as the crew leader in the pits. While Pete is considering what tune up to use and any changes that need to be made, Malcolm can be found cutting clutch discs, yanking the driveshaft out, barking an order or two, and generally overseeing everything.

Jim Elliot is a Canadian who has been neck deep in Pro Mod since before they were cool. Normally he wrenches on Kenny Lang’s Summit Racing sponsored car but this weekend he was pressed into service with us. Elliot has worked with teams like Melanie Troxel’s and others during his time in the sport and he was a jack of several trades, packing parachutes, draining puke tanks, helping to install cylinder heads, and doing whatever needed doing.

Dan Lang, or “Pops” as he is also know is the father of Kenny Lang, the two time Pro Mod world champion who hails from western Canada. Kenny was not racing at Bristol, but will be at the NHRA Houston race, so Danny stayed down in the states between events. He, like Elliot has been around these cars for a very long time. Lang was taking care of some engine maintenance and again, whatever else needed doing.

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An unexpected change of plans

As I mentioned earlier, when we got to the track Malcolm and another guy were servicing the engine. The other guy is Mark Savage, an employee of Al Billes. Savage would be the engine guy for both us and Ray Commisso as he is also a part of the Billes program. All was well until Savage took a fall on Thursday night and was hospitalized. We didn’t learn about this until Friday morning and it certainly changed the approach we would take for the rest of the weekend. Pete would now concentrate on the engine duties between rounds of qualifying and eliminations. This meant more work for Pete who normally uses the time between rounds to analyze run data, make selections on the tune up for the car, and perform other work that would now be transferred onto the rest of the team.

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The action starts

The guys had told me on Thursday that Friday would be a far more hectic day with three qualifying sessions. We were slated to run at 12,3, and 7PM. We had test fired the car on Thursday, so there was not a whole lot of stuff to do in order to get it ready for the noon session of qualifying. I spent my time cleaning the car and listening to Pete go over his options with respect to the tune up in the car.

This was when the first lightning bolt hit me. It all needs to be perfect.

Dumb as it is to say, having never been on this side of the proverbial fence, I didn’t give a lot of thought to the fact that every inch of the operation needs to be perfect to get a good, clean run out of the car. This goes for everything from making sure the right stuff is on the golf cart (squirt bottle with fuel, jump pack, bar to turn the motor over, etc) to the right clutch settings, launch RPM, transmission gear ratios, and tire pressure.

It was at that point that the pressure, mentally anyway, really ramped up for me. I didn’t want to be the scumbag that did something to screw up a run. I was also fueling the car so that was one of the last things we did before sticking the nose back on and heading for the staging lanes. The directions were to put eight inches of fuel in the front mounted cell. Myself and pops knocked this task out, made sure the oil level was correct in the oil tank, and went to put the nose on.

Here’s where I got my first lesson on being the FNG. The nose has to go on at a very low angle as there are two large receiver pins that slide into the front of the chassis to align it. Once they are in, several Dzus fasteners secure it to the car. Well, we had the angle wrong by a metric ton and Malcolm let us know about it. He gave me the boot and showed the proper way to do the job. Duly noted!

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The first hit is a miss

We pushed up to the staging lanes and waited our turn to run. Jim monitored the traction level and temperature of the starting line, reporting back to us and to Al Billes who would make the final tweaks based on the info he was getting from Jim and what he was observing himself. At this point, only small changes can be made to the car. Launch RPM can be adjusted, timing can be tweaked with the use of different pills, and tire pressure can be mussed with if necessary. If any of the major factors are wrong, none of this little stuff is going to overcome it, meaning that an improper fuel curve or clutch setup will not be fixed with a launch RPM change.

I was shocked at how much pressure I actually felt. I didn’t see myself getting worked up or nervous about Pete running but there I was in the lanes with my damned heart pounding in my chest.

When the car was fired, it was my job to take the golf cart to the chase road and secure it for the other guys so they could get Pete at the end of the track.

The car launched and shook the tires hard, causing Pete to shut it down and coast to an eighth mile ET of over six seconds, almost double what we were looking for and certainly not good enough to qualify us for the show. We were right about that second part. After the first session we were sitting in the 10th spot and only eight cars would be racing the next day.

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Back to the pits and the real work begins

I walked back to our pit space as the other guys went to get Pete. I got back and opened up the trailer, starting to prep for the rest of the crew to show up along with the car. We had a couple of hours between rounds so it was not a Top Fuel 75-minute thrash, but we got busy in a hurry. The car was put up on the Pro Jacks and we yanked the nose and doors. Malcolm dove inside the car and pulled the trans tunnel open, removed the driveshaft, pulled out the Lenco transmission, and set about disassembling the clutch.

Jim worked at the back of the car, packing the parachutes, Dan and I were at the front of the car pulling the valve covers and looking over the engine. We removed the plugs so they could be read by Pete and Al, put fuel in the car, checked stuff, cleaned stuff, and I tried to soak it all up like a sponge.

This was when lightning bolt number two struck me. Crew consistency and practice is incredibly important.

Being that all of these guys have experience, not necessarily on this car, or even working together, but working on similar stuff, things went decently smooth. There was some barking and direction given, but it was pretty smooth overall. Going back on the old, “everything has to be perfect” line from before, this is where having a rag tag crew gets dicey. Why? Mainly because people don’t know what their specific job is and there is a million and once chances for something to be overlooked. There is too much for one guy to oversee, especially when everyone is working, so there is lots of redundant questioning going on, which is good. You can literally never ask, “Is there oil in it?” and, “Is it fueled up?” enough times. Not asking means that it will probably get forgotten and getting pissy when you are asked multiple times is just dumb.

While we were on the car, Pete was tweaking the Lenco transmission with a steeper gear ratio. The guy is a 100% hands on car owner and that was proven by his mastery of the disassembly and reconstruction of the Lenco with the revised gear set.

The clutch and trans were installed, the car was fired, and we were ready to get after it on the track.

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The second shot puts us in

The pressure was certainly higher on this second qualifying lap as we really wanted to knock our way into the field and not have to worry about really pressing on the third and fourth sessions. Going through the same procedure and motions as before the track was checked, the final tuning tweaks were made by Billes and we prepared to fire up the car.

On this lap the Charger Daytona went 3.964 which was good enough to move us into the 7th qualified spot. We certainly wanted better, but it was a good indication that Pete’s gear ratio change and Al’s last minute tweaks had us on the right track to 3.90-ville.

Again, I hoofed back to the pits and the boys went to fetch Pete.

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Do it all again

The car rolled into the pit space and the same procedure we followed after the first lap was set into motion again. Nose off, doors off, trans tunnel out, clutch out, clutch grinder fired up and working, parachutes packed, car fueled, oil checked, valve covers off, and about 100 other things. The three hour time breaks between runs went by in what seemed to be 30 minutes. It was incredible how fast the time moved. This was not some willy-nilly thrash, it was as coordinated an effort as anyone would find around the track, although the trained ear would hear a lot more basic questions (what drawer are the wrenches in?) and perhaps a few more wasted steps with this crew as we didn’t hardly know each other, let alone the car we were concentrating on!

Then lightning bolt number three hit me. There’s a lot of idiots in the pits.

The coolest part of being at the drags is hanging out in the pits and watching the thrash go down. The majority of people know and understand where proper boundaries are. A small minority has no problem virtually climbing up on top of the car, pawing pieces, and looking at tools in a way that said to me, “I am going to grab this thing if no one is looking.” Hell, one drunken jack ass on Friday night waltzed up to the work table and started eating our dinner! He was quickly chased off.

Again, from my normally cozy confines in the tower, I never experience this. Yes, the odd drunken fan stumbles up looking for a birthday announcement or to tell you that you suck, but to see how many people have no problem just getting right up in everyone’s business is pretty wild.

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That ain’t good…really time to go to work

Remember when I told you about how everything has to be perfect and that there are a million things that can be missed, overlooked, or that can potentially just jump out of the dark and bite you in the ass? That’s what happened to us during the third qualifying run on Friday. Down the wounded engine specialist, Pete was working like a guy with six arms. After we got the car turned around and into the lanes for the last lap on Friday, we were hoping to better our qualifying position and run the car down the track a lot closer to 3.90 than 4.00 seconds. Unfortunately, that was not to be.

Unbeknownst to us, two of the adjuster nuts on the rocker arms had loosened and that loss of power caused the car to wad the tires up and Pete rolled to a 4.61 at only 142mph. Thankfully this was an eighth mile run because had it been a quarter mile charge, the motor probably would have failed in pretty serious fashion. The blower would likely have tested the tensile strength of the safety straps that hold it on.

The ends of the valves were damaged so the word came from Pete that the head had to be removed and both valves in that cylinder had to be replaced. I gave some early assistance in that tear down process and was then assigned FNG duty on dinner prep. I cooked steaks for the boys as they yanked the blower off, unbuttoned the head, and went through the rest of the car.

When it was all said and done, we hit the sack at about 2:30 on Saturday morning.

Lightning bolt number four. These guys legitimately work their asses off. 

Again, I knew that crew guys worked hard on these cars and all professional level drag race iron, but before actually being in the trench myself, I was blissfully clueless. Fun being a relative term, this is hardcore fun. Due to the nature of this drag racing beast and the investment car owners have in their equipment, screwing around isn’t something that lots of people will tolerate. I am not saying that it was operating room serious, but all of us were concentrating on what our jobs were and doing them correctly.

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One last chance to move up

With the previous night’s thrash behind us and our car sitting on the bump spot after three rounds of qualifying, Saturday morning wasn’t exactly brimming with cheer for us. We were in the field by the slimmest of margins, but in reality, we wanted to step on it and climb into a more favorable qualifying position. As it stood, we would be facing Mike Castellana in the first round. Castellana has been running extremely strong for the last couple of years so there were better options than him in the field.

Pete did a nice job behind the wheel and hammered the tree and the car ran the quickest lap of the weekend with a 3.963 second blast but that wasn’t enough to get us out of the eighth spot. As I walked to the pits and the guys went to get Pete, my ears were glued to the PA listening to the announcer call out elapsed times and qualifying positions as the final pairs of the round went down. Again, a funny spot to be in for the guy who is usually the announcer.

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MONSOON!

The weather for Saturday was predicted to be wet, with an 80% chance of rain. At one point with the skies getting darker, I fired up my phone to check the radar and alerted Pete to the fact that a thunderstorm that was colored RED on the radar was making a beeline at us. While my delivery may have been bordering on the hysterical, Pete found it convincing enough to ask that we relocate the doors and nose to inside the confines of the trailer. Thank goodness that we did. A wild thunderstorm rip sawed through the track and dumped a couple inches of rain in just a few short minutes with gusts that had to have been over 60mph. All of us were drenched, but thankfully we had gotten the car cover on and nothing was damaged.

With the race delayed we spent a couple hours drying our stuff.

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This time it is for real

I found out before the rest of the guys that we survived an onslaught of runs by the last couple of cars that could have knocked us out. Frustrated but relieved and buoyed by our quickest run of the weekend, we set about turning the car around again. It had not gone unnoticed by Pete or the rest of us that Castellana had shaken the tires on his last two runs.

Pete and Al conferred on the tune up while Jim, Malcolm, pops, and myself did our separate jobs on the car. At this point, we had gotten our individual roles pretty well worked out and we were clicking along at a good clip.

With the car ready and the call from announcer Brian Olson, we rolled toward the lanes and got ready to meet up with Mike Castellana. Pete is a great leaver so we had supreme confidence in his ability to wheel the car off the starting line, it was making sure the thing stayed glued to the track that had me concerned. I had some legit iron butterflies in my stomach as we were waiting to run. We were the fourth and final pair of the round so there was plenty of time to stew and listen and see what happened to the other teams.

When the green light came on, Pete left on Castellana but went into tire shake. Castellana also shook, but it was too late for Pete to catch him. We were done, our race day ended in the first round.

We cleaned up our pit space, loaded the trailer and took down the awning. It would have been way more fun doing that at night after winning the race, but it was not to be. Pete will be racing this weekend at the NHRA event in Houston, Texas. In fact, Malcolm is driving the rig there as you read this.

Pete and I climbed into the car at 7:30PM and decided to iron man the ride home. We arrived at his driveway at 9:00AM on Sunday morning, tired and totally wiped out. My amazingly eye opening weekend on the crew of a professional drag car was over and I was so tired that I could barely see straight.

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An amazingly educational weekend 

I left the weekend very impressed with Pete Farber, his car, and the guys I worked with. Knowing that we were not his normal group and the fact I was as green as the hills that surround the track but we still worked together made me proud in an odd way. I would have loved to been standing around the car in the winner’s circle at the end of the night but it was not to be.

Pete is working on some big, exciting stuff for 2013. I think he has paid his dues and raced very hard for a long time so to see this coming together for him is something that makes me smile. Given the chance, I would hit the road with him again tomorrow to do it all again. I have not learned so much about a side of drag racing I knew so little about in a weekend ever, nor will I probably ever again.

I can honestly say that I’ll never look at a race team the same again, especially one that doesn’t have 14 tractor trailers supporting it at each race. It takes real dedication and love for the sport to spend 12-14 hour days wrenching on these cars. Pete and the guys definitely have it. Keep your eyes peeled for some good news coming from the Farber camp.

If you are at the races and see Pete and his car there, stop by and say hello. Just don’t touch the steak, that won’t go over well. Trust me.




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8 thoughts on “FNG: My Weekend in the Trench With Peter Farber’s NHRA/ADRL Pro Mod Team PLUS VIDEO

  1. Joe Henderson

    Brian,

    Great article. Really glad you got to expierence crewing on a Pro Mod.
    Pete does work very hard and we all look for great things for him in the near future.

    Joe Henderson

  2. craig b blue

    Hey, Martinsburg,W.V. is a cool little town – you were just on the wrong side of it!!

  3. Gerrit

    Excellent write up, Brian. Thanks.
    It’s always good to know what these guys (and gals) encounter during a typical race weekend.
    We (my buddy Frank and me) run his SC Fiero together with our wives taking care of the food and drinks. After every weekend racing we are exhausted.
    On the other side; we respect the track announcers

    Gerrit (www.lowlandsXtreme.com)

  4. Birdman

    Wow; the violence happens fast! Very cool story, car, team and owner /driver. Props for coming away with a new resume entry, Brian!

  5. Bill

    Hey Brian,

    Great story on your weekend. I followed it in real time on the computer.

    Bill Freel

Comments are closed.