Transmission specialist Jim Hughes believes a crash earlier this season involving his Super Comp dragster only validates his development of a new product his company, Hughes Performance, has introduced to the marketplace. For the record, his dragster was equipped with one of the Legal Traction Control converters. His competition didn’t and at the finish line, Hughes believes they both paid the price for it.

Hughes said Chris Forsyth was driving his dragster, when the opponent he described as being “loose” for much of the run, came over into his driver’s lane and clipped the front of his dragster, sending both cars into barrel rolls. According to Hughes, there were no significant injuries, but the incident was avoidable.

Transmission specialist Jim Hughes believes a crash earlier this season involving his Super Comp dragster only validates his development of a new product his company, Hughes Performance, has introduced to the marketplace. For the record, his dragster was equipped with one of the Legal Traction Control converters. His competition didn’t and at the finish line, Hughes believes they both paid the price for it.

Hughes said Chris Forsyth was driving his dragster, when the opponent he described as being “loose” for much of the run, came over into his driver’s lane and clipped the front of his dragster, sending both cars into barrel rolls. According to Hughes, there were no significant injuries, but the incident was avoidable.

“With the engines get bigger and bigger in these Super cars, we have problems with traction,” Hughes said. “That’s not so much to do with track prep as we’re all given a track to go from A-to-B on. It’s up to us to get the cars down the track, and because of this we’ve come up with some designs in the converter that we can keep the car under control, keep the tires planted basically.”

How does the Legal Traction Control converter work?

“What it does is it gives you multiplication off the starting line for reaction time and to plant the tire and then down track it’s almost like taking clutch away,” explained Hughes. “But we’ve designed it to where you are not losing any top-end efficiency and if you’re running a throttle stop it’s more consistent on the stop. It doesn’t try to labor the motor or pull the engine down. But it allows the tires to stay planted without overpowering the track.”

Hughes believes his Legal Traction Control converter was built to combat sometimes less than optimum track conditions for a certain style of cars, primarily those on throttle stops and powered by larger than average cubic inch engines.

“As the engines get bigger, whether it’s in bracket racing or throttle stop racing or any type of sportsman racing, you’ve got to have some way to control how much torque you are trying to put to the asphalt,” Hughes said. “If we’re on a dusty or dirty or greasy track we’ve got to be prepared to get the vehicle down the track.”

Hughes points out the Legal Traction Control converter is purely mechanical.

“There is nothing electronic about it,” Hughes said. “It’s all mechanical within the torque converter and it’s a design that comes out of over 30 years of building technology and creating new stater, turbine, and pump designs with modifying clearances. It gives us the ability to control the converter more like a clutch in a standard car.”

Hughes believes the timing has been right for the introduction of the Legal Traction Control unit.

“It’s just an evolution in converter technology in our industry that I think has been needed and overlooked for a long time,” said Hughes. “Every racer wants to get the best of both worlds. He wants consistency and he wants speed.”

Hughes first tested the unit in his Super Gas car, which turns 170 in the quarter-mile, and it only slowed his car minimally.

“We only lost one mile per hour, but the car was planted to the track,” said Hughes. “Normally, it might have moved around a little. But what price are you willing to pay for stability? I’m willing to pay one mile per hour.”

He doesn’t fear the unit giving some drivers a false sense of security and driving over their heads.

“There are times when you’re in a car and the tires are breaking loose and you’re hanging on to the steering wheel with white knuckles trying to keep the car in the groove,” said Hughes. “Any time that you can have a sensation in the car of being in control I think it gives you a lot more confidence in your equipment.”

Hughes believes racers will see the benefit of this design when racing late at night, or at national events, long after racing is completed for the pros.

“We never have a 100% perfect track to run on and so it’s up to the manufacturers to come up with products that will enable the race cars to get down the track,” said Hughes.

Hughes said he designed the new converter aimed at helping the indexed, pro-tree racers but would love to see it migrate into other classes such as Top Dragster as well as Stock and Super Stock.

“Any automatic can run that same technology. Years ago we came up with a soft converter which was a larger demand with a fit angle that wasn’t as aggressive to the track,” said Hughes. “Then bigger engines started coming out and it helped the cars stick the tire to the track on the starting line instead of blowing the tire away. So that same technology has now been introduced to the converter all the way down the entire quarter-mile where you don’t lose any efficiency like we have in the past.”

Or, in Hughes’ case, don’t lose a race car when you don’t have to.

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