Long Time Coming
Mick Snyder's automatic drive to the 5.50s - Lenco style
By Annie Proffit; Photos by Roger Richards and Brian Wood

Mick Snyder’s come a long way from the realm of racing junior dragsters to help promote the family business in Demotte, Indiana.

The 24-year-old Purdue University graduate (business administration) continues to turn heads with his proficiency in the NHRA’s POWERade and Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series as he piles up the stats in the Top Alcohol Funny Car category in both the Divisional and National arenas.

The unique Lencodrive transmission/Coan torque converter combination utilized by Snyder Motorsports has gotten the team two Division 3 championships in a row – in 2004 and 2005 – and Mick is working hard to gain a three-peat during the 2006 season.

He’s also hoping to move into the top three in POWERade National competition after finishing fifth this year.

Armed with a new engine program that’s brought Snyder the distinction of being only the 23rd racer in history to achieve a (backed up) pass in the sub-5.60-second range, Snyder is pumped up about the 2006 program after having his new technology in his Pontiac-powered flopper for only the last two races of the season.

“We didn’t start changing things until after the Topeka Nationals in late May,” Snyder admitted. “It wasn’t a very good race for us; the air is so different there. We didn’t run as fast as we wanted so we knew we had to change something in our program.”

As the Snyder Motorsports team began investigating ways to get their Funny Car down the track quicker, they came up with the initial solution of using Brad Anderson heads, amongst the standards of the industry.

“We started with the motor because that’s what we had. We had to work around the transmission to find the right combination,” Snyder continued. The engine used for his package has to be smaller, due to the fitment with the tranny.

The team named the engine “Elmer” – as in the cartoon character Elmer Fudd – and went to work on it. “One of Jay Payne’s guys, JR, told us we needed to bring a bigger gun so we painted a shotgun on it and it worked really well,” he laughed. Payne finished fourth, just in front of Snyder in this year’s National rankings.

“Elmer runs a lot better and we only used it at the Columbus Divisionals and at Chicagoland. You know, we race each other hard but at the track, we all hang out and goof around. Jay told us he was ‘going to get you’ at Topeka and we knew we had to step it up.”

In addition to the BAE heads, “we started asking questions and gathering information, just to see what we could do to get more power out of Elmer. Our combination is so different from everybody else’s because of the Lencodrive transmission.”

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Snyder thinks there’s more to come from Elmer in 2006, now that he’s backed up his 5.59-second pass. “We’ll be testing with Torco Racing Fuels (his primary sponsor) and with Competition Plus in Valdosta the week before Gainesville next spring; that’s our first race of the season.

As Snyder Motorsports has racked up the low E.T.s in qualifying, taking the Spitzer Low Qualifier Series Championship en route to their second straight title, they’ve been improving the driveability of the package.

“The first time we went to a race after we changed to BAE heads (and changed a lot of other stuff to complement), on the first pass we blew the tires off so we said, okay, that’s different. We were pretty pleased to have found more horsepower at that point but still knew we had to keep changing things around to make it stick,” Snyder recalled.

Beyond changing the heads, Snyder Motorsports tinkered with everything at their disposal to find the right combo: “We worked on timing, compression, all kinds of stuff. Once you find it – the right combination of components – and get it perfect, you can go real fast,” he said with a grin.

Since he began using the Lencodrive/Coan package on his Funny Car, Snyder has had only one transmission failure, which occurred after the team failed to find all the sand he’d gotten into during a previous weekend meeting’s run. “There was sand in the tranny and when I shifted at 250 pounds, where I’m supposed to, it broke a bearing. It wasn’t the transmission’s fault; it was our own fault,” Snyder conceded.

Since taking on the Lencodrive toward the end of the 2003 season, Snyder Motorsports has upgraded the transbrake clutch pack “so we get more horsepower and higher RPMs and still hold. It’s stronger than before so that’s worked out quite well,” Snyder said.

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The amount of success Snyder Motorsports has engendered over only two full seasons of Top Alcohol Funny Car racing is bringing more racers into the Lencodrive/Coan fold. “We are getting a lot more interest and it’s amazing how much publicity we get because our package is so different from everyone else’s,” he agreed.

“I explain the transmission and bellhousing system to them and it gets people thinking, ‘why wouldn’t I buy one?’ and then they do.” Will Hanna currently races will this package in TAFC and, according to Snyder, next year Tim Wilkerson’s son Daniel will use the combination.”

Being an innovator is quite cool to Snyder, who realizes he’s bucking 20-30 years of tradition in NHRA. “We’ve set up something totally alien and people thought it’s not going to work, you’re wasting your time doing that. But the system we have has been in place for five years so it’s actually quite common to our team, not different at all.

“Now there’s not much difference between us and the regular guys.” In addition to the Lencodrive/Coan combination, Snyder has brought along changes to his MSD ignition timing to the class and, together with Payne has a new launcher for the TAFC class’ chutes. “We’ve got a launcher like they have in Pro Stock and we were the first two guys to do that. We have less issues about stopping the car than we had before and it’s neat to bring new things to the table.”

Mick Snyder isn’t getting any wanderlust to move along because he still has worlds to conquer in the Lucas Oil and POWERade NHRA series. He clearly wants a third straight Division 3 title and intends to get into the top three in National competition. Beyond that, “I would look at Top Fuel or Funny Car but it would have to be the right situation.”

With a long, cold winter on tap in northern Indiana, Mick stays in shape by playing NHRA’s drag racing game on his computer. He’s a champion in all three categories – Pro Stock, Funny Car and Top Fuel – and is “waiting for a new game to come out to test myself. Something, anything – I need more,” he laughed. “It’s getting a little out of control and I’m almost addicted to it,” Mick confessed.

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