Numerous companies have come and gone in the world of drag racing for various reasons.

Through years of research and development and perseverance, Liberty’s High Performance Products, Inc., has found a niche in drag racing.

Presently, Liberty’s ultimate clutchless transmission is used by nearly every NHRA Pro Stock driver.

“The stuff we have now that they are using is the equalizer transmission,” said the 44-year-old Craig Liberty, who is president of Liberty’s High Performance Products, Inc. “All the transmissions we make for those guys are off from what we call our equalizer platform. It’s basically a gear-to-gear transmission. There’s no planetaries, no clutch packs. We have had every Pro Stock qualifier in the NHRA, I believe for the past five or six years, running a Liberty Transmission. There might be one, maybe two cars a year show up that have a Lenco still in, but they’re cars that have absolutely no chance of qualifying.”

Numerous companies have come and gone in the world of drag racing for various reasons.

Through years of research and development and perseverance, Liberty’s High Performance Products, Inc., has found a niche in drag racing.

Presently, Liberty’s ultimate clutchless transmission is used by nearly every NHRA Pro Stock driver.

“The stuff we have now that they are using is the equalizer transmission,” said the 44-year-old Craig Liberty, who is president of Liberty’s High Performance Products, Inc. “All the transmissions we make for those guys are off from what we call our equalizer platform. It’s basically a gear-to-gear transmission. There’s no planetaries, no clutch packs. We have had every Pro Stock qualifier in the NHRA, I believe for the past five or six years, running a Liberty Transmission. There might be one, maybe two cars a year show up that have a Lenco still in, but they’re cars that have absolutely no chance of qualifying.”

Liberty’s High Performance Products, Inc., was founded by Craig’s father, Joe Liberty, in the late 1960s and it was incorporated in 1973. The company is based in Taylor, Mich., which is 15 miles west of Detroit. Joe Liberty retired from the company nine years ago.

The NHRA Pro Stock class was formed in 1970 and Liberty transmissions was on board for that inaugural season. Drivers like Mike Fons and Don Carlton were campaigning the Liberty transmissions.

From 1970-72, the use of four-speed transmission like the one Liberty had developed was in use by Pro Stock drivers.

However, citing the fact that the maintenance and repair of a stick-shift transmission was too time consuming and expensive, NHRA outlawed the use of Liberty transmissions in the Pro Stock class.

“We came out with our clutchless four-speed back then and it looked extremely promising and we took tremendous orders for them,” said Craig Liberty. “Pretty much everyone was going to have to change over and then they (NHRA) outlawed them.”

Pro Stock competitors, as a result of the NHRA rule changes, switched to the clutchless planetary transmissions that were introduced by Lenco in 1973.

Liberty’s High Performance Products, Inc., moved forward and it wasn’t until the mid-to-late 80s that it became involved in NHRA again, but it still wasn’t a good fit for the company.

“We came back to Pro Stock in the mid-to-late 80s with Bob Glidden trying it (a Liberty transmission),” Craig said. “The chassis just weren’t quite ready for it and plus we were again trying 4-speeds because that’s what Lencos were at the time. We tried it with four-speeds and it didn’t work out very well. The chassis weren’t ready for it, and clutch technology had not really caught up to what we could bring them.”

Once again, Liberty’s High Performance Products, Inc., left the NHRA ranks and then came back later with its clutchless 5-speeds.

“Larry Morgan and Bob Glidden were the first two to put our clutchless 5-speeds in,” Craig said. “It is the same exact trans as the clutchless 4-speed, except it’s a little bit longer with an extra gear in it. When we did do that, we kind of waited for chassis and clutches to kind of catch up to what we knew we were going to bring these guys. Lenco is a planetary-style transmission that has a kind of shock absorber built into it with the clutch packs. We don’t give you that, so we had to wait until clutch technology caught up so you would be able to utilize the extra horsepower that we were giving them (Pro Stock drivers) to the rear tires. We knew it was going to work and be a benefit for them. Clutch technology didn’t need to really excel any until we came out with our 5-speeds. That's when with the clutch technology they could see the benefits we were bringing them and that they could help harness. Then, clutches just took off something fierce at that point, because there was a need for them.”

Back in 1970, Pro Stock cars were going down the quarter-mile in the 10-second range, but with the help of Liberty transmissions Pro Stock machines are now clocking six-second elapsed times at 210 mph.

“Going to our transmissions opened up a bunch of windows of opportunity for these guys in terms of clutch technology, chassis technology and engine technology,” Craig said. “The RPMs of engines just keep going up and up and up and you can benefit from those higher RPMs, partially because of our transmissions.”

Although Liberty transmissions have been in the NHRA’s Pro Stock class for numerous years, Craig wasn’t about to predict the future of the class.

“It’s so expensive today and there’s no doubt it’s a rich man’s sport,” Craig said. “There’s not enough sponsorship out there to keep it growing. I just don’t know about the future of the class. They can’t really change its course at this point. You can’t really curb it very much without putting spec engines or something like that and they are not going to do that. That is not what the class is all about. I hope that there are enough people out there to keep it going. It’s scary.”

Craig was quick to admit that his business has evolved the last several years.

“We have changed a lot and become a lot more diversified in the last seven or eight years and fortunately so,” Craig said. “With NHRA Pro Stock, we built them a transmission that’s virtually bullet proof. So even if a new team comes out and we sell them three transmissions and plenty of gear sets to get through the season, we do not fail. Nothing breaks. We do not have a lot of repeat business from them because the stuff doesn’t fail and doesn’t cycle out. Warren Johnson bought four transmissions four years ago and he’s still running the same transmissions and that was for a two-car team. Now, we do a lot of machining for virtually anything and the future of our company looks very strong.”

Liberty has also branched out to be a part of the Pro Mod class.

“It is a good market for us to hit,” Craig said.

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