Matt Hartford made a name for himself racing four-cylinder, turbo doorslammers on the NHRA Sport Compact series. He’s prepared to give the same effort to establish a reputation on the big stage of 500-inch NHRA Pro Stock racing.

Hartford is driving the David Nickens Stratus for a limited amount of races in 2008.

“I'm going to try to run Pro Stock as much as I humanly can but what that means?” Hartford said. “I don't know.”

Hartford made the Phoenix field, his second consecutive qualifying race. He’s not shy about showing his excitement, either.

”This is great,” said Hartford. “David's great to work with.  How long this deal lasts I don't know but we're going to enjoy it while we can.  Any seat time is good seat time.  I've got Mike Sullivan up there telling me how the world is round and if I listen to him and David then I should be pretty good.” Matt Hartford made a name for himself racing four-cylinder, turbo doorslammers on the

NHRA Sport Compact series. He’s prepared to give the same effort to establish a reputation on the big stage of 500-inch NHRA Pro Stock racing.

Hartford is driving the David Nickens Stratus for a limited amount of races in 2008.

“I'm going to try to run Pro Stock as much as I humanly can but what that means?” Hartford said. “I don't know.”

Hartford made the Phoenix field, his second consecutive qualifying race. He’s not shy about showing his excitement, either.

”This is great,” said Hartford. “David's great to work with.  How long this deal lasts I don't know but we're going to enjoy it while we can.  Any seat time is good seat time.  I've got Mike Sullivan up there telling me how the world is round and if I listen to him and David then I should be pretty good.”

Running Pro Stock this time is more peaceful than the last time he contemplated running the same category under the IHRA banner. He was one of four drivers proposed to introduce four-cylinder, turbo sport compacts into the IHRA’s mountain motor division. The plan didn’t come to fruition and placed him on the receiving end of complaints levied by the IHRA’s Pro Stock fraternity.

Hartford admitted that he withdrew his name from consideration.

“Pro Stock has to be naturally aspirated in my opinion but they wanted me to run that turbo deal,” said Hartford. “At the time that was the only opportunity I had to go racing so I was going to go do it.  I backed out of it.  I called Scooter [Peaco, IHRA Vice President], ‘I said I really don't think I want to do this. I don't think it's right and I don't think it's going to be good for anybody.” 

Hartford continued, “He said, ‘I understand.  If you don't want to do it, then let's not do it.” 

”I sold everything and started looking for a 500 inch ride and here I am.”
 

 

Hartford replaced a former IHRA mountain motor Pro Stock driver behind the wheel of

the Nickens ride. The sport compact driver brought the necessary funding to the table to race this season. With that said, Gene Wilson, the originally announced driver stepped aside for Hartford.

“We certainly think Gene's one of the better drivers out there,” said Nickens. “He's working on funding and hopefully he can put something together that maybe we can do something as the year goes on.  Matt's going to kind of do a race by race deal.  If that works out then we think we can bring him out and he'll be in a position to win some races.  Hopefully the funding will come through and we'll be able to do it.”

Nickens is quick to point out that he and Wilson are beating the bushes in search of the necessary sponsorship.
 
“We're trying to put some stuff together where we can do it,” explained Nickens. “Matt wanted to make the first couple of races with me which gave us a little more time to be able to put something together for Gene.”