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Giving Peace a Chance
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Former adversaries Musi and Christian
build Pro Street “super team”
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Story and photos by Brian Wood |
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Down through the years the intense competition prevalent in the sport of drag racing has led to many heated battles, both on and off the quarter-mile. In recent years, fiercely gung ho racers have had a number of high-profile confrontations with each other, much to the glee of controversy-hungry race fans and the motorsports media.
A perfect case in point is the ongoing war of words waged by perennial Funny Car champion John Force with such opponents as Al Hofmann, Cruz Pedregon and Whit Bazemore, among others. And it’s a sure bet that Warren Johnson and Greg Anderson aren’t on each others Christmas card lists these days, either. Of course, these personal skirmishes go on at every level of the sport, and in the nearly 15 years of its existence the Pro Street ranks have had more then their share. Perhaps the most high-profile of these has been the battles between Carteret, New Jersey’s Pat Musi and Sarasota, Florida’s Tony Christian. In fact, the two first locked horns when each ran in NHRA Pro Stock between the years of 1985 and 1989. Musi recalled the early days of their mutually wary but respectful relationship. “I started running in NHRA Pro Stock in 1974, and put in seven years in the class before quitting in 1981 so I could devote full attention to my engine building business. Now, Tony wasn’t running Pro Stock in those days, but by the time I came back out on a part-time basis in 1985, he was in the game, and we ran against each other for the next five years.
“There’s no doubt that we were rivals back then,” Musi added. “He was from Florida, and I lived in Florida for quite a while myself, so that was part of it. But even though we raced against each other and were adversaries, I have to say we still had mutual respect for each other.”
While Musi and Christian soldiered on in the super-tough Pro Stock wars, a grassroots movement was slowly but surely gathering a head of steam, and by the early 1990s “Street-Legal” drag racing was a full-fledged phenomenon. Originally conceived as a venue for owners of factory muscle cars to have some fun racing their daily drivers, the performance bug soon bit a good number of the participants, and the speeds and elapsed times escalated at an alarming rate as true street cars were replaced by powerful, purpose-built pure racing machines. The top dog of the high-performance “Street-Legal” classes was Pro Street, and Christian soon found himself heavily involved in the category, having purchased Stan Shaw’s “Evil Twin” ‘57 Chevy, the first tube-frame car in the class, and fittingly, one of the most controversial. Considered extremely radical at the time, the crimson brick took on all comers - its naturally aspirated combination generating more than enough horsepower to dispatch the hottest nitrous-aided machines of the day on a regular basis.
Between 1995 and 1998, the outspoken Floridian and his trademark red shoebox Chevy dominated the top Street-Legal class, taking three National Muscle Car Association and two Hot Rod Magazine Pro Street Championships along the way.
As technology and innovation marched on, however, it was only a matter of time before the aerodynamically challenged 3,300 pound Chevy was threatened with obsolescence. Prior to the 1998 season, Christian parked the fan-favorite hot rod in favor of a ‘96 Camaro, which he drove to his third NMCA title. Later, when a rule change made it more favorable to race his original car, Christian brought the ‘57 back out from under wraps for a while, but he soon realized the car’s glory days were behind it, and it was eventually replaced by a 1998 Pontiac Firebird. For his part, Musi saw what his old rival was up to, and after another hiatus from active competition, he decided to climb back into the driver’s seat.
“I had hung up my helmet again after running Pro Stock, and Tony went on to run in Pro Street,” Musi recalled. “He was the one who eventually lured me over to the “street-legal” deal – I figured ‘hell, if he can do it, I can do it,’ so in 1996 we took the original ‘Popeye’ car - a mostly steel ’69 Camaro built by Willie Rells - and jumped back into racing. “It didn’t take long for the old rivalry to flare up again full blast – we were at each others throats right from the start,” Musi said. “At the time he was the man to beat in the Pro Street game, so of course we took direct aim at him.”
Christian responded by saying “Oh yeah – after I got into Pro Street Pat just had to come over and see what the excitement was all about. I started out driving a ’57 Chevy built by Tommy Mauney, and two or three years later Pat came out with his ’69 Camaro, and I made him famous! “It didn’t take long before we were at each other pretty good - we had some pretty good arguments, believe me,” Christian continued. “A lot of it was for the benefit of the fans, but we had some pretty heated discussions, too. The fans ate it up, and the media had a field day with it, so we were in the headlines quite a lot back in the 1990s. Underneath it all Pat and I were still friends, but there were times it was kinda hard to tell!” After the 2001 season, Christian announced that he had purchased a supercharged 1963 Corvette from California’s Kirk Kuhns and he was going Pro Mod racing. The deal never really got off the ground, however, as Musi explained. “Tony planned to go into Pro Mod in 2002, but it just never happened for him, and after he broke his back in a testing wreck in Texas, he quit driving altogether until I called him to help me out one day. “I had booked a match race in Curacao with Marc Dantoni, but he had to pull out at the last minute, so I called Tony to see if he was interested in driving my other car and taking Marc’s place,” Musi said. “He finally agreed to go, and we’ve been working together ever since. In fact, Tony drove my ’69 Camaro at the World Streetnationals in Orlando last fall, and he finished runner-up in the 32-car Super Pro Street class. This season he’s joined Don Reem and me as part of a two-car team, and we’re going to do our best to dominate the NSCA’s Pro Street class.
“Don owns the 2000 Firebird that I drive and I own the Camaro, which Steve Grebeck built for me,” Musi explained. “The way Don and I met was kind of a strange deal. I actually owned the Firebird at the time, and he wanted to buy it because he planned to race it. I was supposed to deliver it to him after the World Streetnationals in Orlando three or four years ago, but after he drove it a couple of times I think he decided that driving wasn’t for him, so he asked me if I would drive it for him and he’d own it. “We decided to try working on a partnership basis for a while, and I have to tell you that I have never liked having partners, but this has turned out to be the best deal I have ever had in my entire racing career,” Musi said. “Together we have built up one of the best teams in the sport, and that extends from our Pro Street program with Tony and I to the new Pro Mod deal we’re putting together. “We’re going to bring out a 1953 Corvette that Don is building right now, and Cody McManama will be driving a new late model Cavalier, which his dad Jim will be ordering from Rick Jones real soon. Of course, Cody has the ’57 Chevy we’re using as a test bed right now, so we’ll eventually have three Pro Mod cars. These days the stakes are so high that you have to have a back-up car available – there’s no way around it. “Of course Tony will be involved in the Pro Mod program, too,” Musi added. “We all have areas that we’re strong in – mine is engines, Tony’s is cars and Don’s is in chassis building, so we have everything we need for a super strong team. Don’t forget that Marc Dantoni is also part of our team – he works out of our shop and brings a lot to the table himself. He’s a great racer and a talented guy and a real asset to our racing program. He’s won four Pro Outlaw titles, won Orlando three times and took the Big Dog Shootout last fall. He’s working to get his own Pro Mod program off the ground now, and he’ll be tough once he gets everything fine-tuned.”
Of course, with all these people and cars under one roof, the potential is there for tempers and egos to get knocked out of whack. “Oh yeah – Tony and I are both used to winning and being the top dog, so there could be some friction from time to time,” Musi acknowledged. “I’d be surprised if we didn’t get on each other’s backs every once in a while, but we’ve been doing this for a lot of years and I hope we’ll know when to draw the line if it happens.” Christian added his own take on the situation by saying “Like I said, Pat and I are good friends, and thanks to him I’m back in the seat of a good Pro Street car. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be arguments, probably on a weekly basis. In fact, I can’t guarantee that there won’t be some punches thrown – hell – you just never know how long this deal will last!” It looks like only time will tell if Musi and Christian will write
a new chapter in Pro Street history or resort back to the antagonistic
style of head-to-head competition that defined their rivalries of
years gone by. After all, the subject of team orders never even
came up, and if you don’t think that could be a huge can of
worms then you haven’t been paying attention!
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