Chris McGaha is having a career year in NHRA’s Pro Stock class. He made the Countdown to the Championship for the first and he arrived at the Midwest Nationals in St. Louis 10th in points.

The Odessa, Texas driver, however, is far from smiling about his season.

Chris McGaha is having a career year in NHRA’s Pro Stock class. He made the Countdown to the Championship for the first and he arrived at the Midwest Nationals in St. Louis 10th in points.

The Odessa, Texas driver, however, is far from smiling about his season.

In the offseason, McGaha purchased Mike Edwards’ Pro Stock operation in its entirety. Edwards, the 2009 Pro Stock world champion, finished fourth in the points last season on the strength of six wins and an incredible 15 No. 1 qualifying positions, but those results have not translated to McGaha.

“The main goal is to win a race and it still is,” said McGaha, who is piloting his Harlow Sammons Camaro. “It has not worked out. We got close at the first of year and we’ve been struggling since right after Atlanta (Southern Nationals, May 16-18). We kind of hit a downward spiral and we haven’t been able to recoup from it. Championship was never in my vocabulary yet, but winning a race was.”

McGaha did show some promise early in the season, qualifying No. 1 at Phoenix and the first Charlotte race, but he has lost in the first round at the last six races in a row.

McGaha doesn’t believe the Pro Stock class advanced past the equipment he purchased from Edwards.

“No, absolutely not,” McGaha said. “The first of the summer I thought that, but now no. We’ve slowed down, there’s not a doubt about it. I tell you right now it’s so bad that we’re probably not even going to go to Reading over it. We’re probably going to skip Reading. I actually wanted to skip St. Louis as well. You can see the problem, you just have to fix it. I have an idea what it is. I’ve been here before. I didn’t realize it had escalated into such a problem. It’s on the engine side. That’s why our performance has been somewhat to be desired. I went home and was working on a motor that I was going to try and get ready for St. Louis and it didn’t come out like we wanted, but the truck was already in St. Louis.”

Reading, Pa., Oct. 2-5 is the next stop on the NHRA’s 2014 schedule.

“Probably at the first of the year, we will do another car,” McGaha said. “We are having another car built, and we’re probably going to start with it at the first of next year.”

Despite starting over with a new car, McGaha doesn’t believe the Edwards purchase was a complete waste.

“Not really,” McGaha said. “A lot of people want to buy this car and this car is not even for sale yet. The other car has to prove it is better than this one before I ever release this car. I’ve never had a back-up car. You need a back-up car.”

McGaha also isn’t blaming his woes on the fact that Edwards didn’t team up with him to run this car

“Maybe at first there was (disappointment), but I’m kind of over it now,” McGaha said. “My dad and I have looked at the deal now and it is kind of bittersweet. I tell you this, I’m not saying we have buyer’s remorse, but if we had it to do over, we wouldn’t do it in so many ways. Not because Mike didn’t come help us. Mike went on. There are a lot of other reasons why now.”

McGaha acknowledged he probably should have just kept on with his Dodge program instead of switching to the Camaro.

“Now I know some of the things that are wrong with my Dodge program,” McGaha said. “Yeah, I wanted to be in a Chevrolet and I still want to be in a Chevrolet, but (it) probably would’ve been better to maybe start over with new stuff. It is what it is now.”

McGaha also remains realistic about what he would like to see his team accomplish the remainder of this season.

“I would like us to at least get back to where we were,” McGaha said. “I would like us to get back in the top half consistently. I knew some of these guys were going to be faster than us anyway, maybe because they did make advancements, but they didn’t make enough advancements to be light years ahead of me. We knew we had power and about the time we got to Sonoma (Calif., July 25-27) and Seattle (Aug. 1-3), I started going something is not right. It kind of all hit at one time and you start stacking up all those races, there’s nothing you can do. ”

McGaha is hopeful his program will receive a boost from Aaron Stanfield, who is running one of his Pro Stock engines.

“That’s an engine we had that they are using.” McGaha said. “That’s one reason we did that. Ok, it is the car? Is it us? It appears to be more on the engine side than it was the car side.”

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