Ron Krisher abandoned his own in-house engine program to lease an engine from Cagnazzi late last season. The program has been paying dividends ever since. On Saturday, the program yielded a quite an accolade during qualifying at the NHRA Southern Nationals in Commerce, Ga. He led qualifying from start to finish.

“The best money I've spent in a little while,” Krisher said. “Aside from the fact that their really, really good people to work with.  I just have an excellent relationship with all of these people and I'm extremely happy with the whole situation.  You can run it and be at odds with everybody but that's not happening.  It's a really, really good situation that I'm in.  It can't get much better than it already is.”

Krisher said this pathway has put the fun back in racing for him.
 

Ron Krisher abandoned his own in-house engine program to lease an engine from Cagnazzi late last season. The program has been paying dividends ever since. On Saturday, the program yielded a quite an accolade during qualifying at the NHRA Southern Nationals in Commerce, Ga. He led qualifying from start to finish.

“The best money I've spent in a little while,” Krisher said. “Aside from the fact that their really, really good people to work with.  I just have an excellent relationship with all of these people and I'm extremely happy with the whole situation.  You can run it and be at odds with everybody but that's not happening.  It's a really, really good situation that I'm in.  It can't get much better than it already is.”

Krisher said this pathway has put the fun back in racing for him.
 
“It's no fun to not have a shot at being at the top,” Krisher said. “Just qualifying doesn't get it.  We've been there for a number of years and I think at Dallas five years ago was the last time we qualified number one and that's been a long time.  We were getting kind of used to it, 1, 2, 3 all the time.”

Krisher said the resurfaced Atlanta Dragway deserved credit for his first pole position in fifteen years.

“The track was the best I've ever seen at this race track because this race track has usually been a problem for everybody,” Krisher admitted. “This is the best race track I've seen in Atlanta, Georgia.  I was surprised.  We were so surprised we had the wrong transmission in the first run anticipating what we usually see.  I could've drove that thing down a turnpike it was geared so high, hooked up and could've just rode forever.”

There was a time when Krisher went fast with his own engine program on a consistent basis.

 

“Well, we kind of got used to it before,” Krisher admitted. “We had a fast race car, a good crew chief, Tom Head, I've got good guys lined up.  It takes a whole bunch of people to make a run like that.  You can't lay it on one guy.  Victor Cagnazzi has been tremendous.  Joe Hornick has to warm me up.  They are just a tremendous group of people that all make this happen then you've got to drive.  That's the easy part.  If everything else goes right then it's easy to drive.

Krisher pointed out the top qualifying effort in Commerce was a hard-fought one. He added the quality of the class is going to demand the best from everyone, time and time again.

“There are a lot of tough people out here in Pro Stock,” Krisher said. “This whole thing started to get jammed up again.  There was a big spread at the beginning of the season and it's starting to crunch down here pretty quick for some reason.  With Dave Connolly coming in there's going to be a spot that somebody needed to qualify in that was open earlier.  It's pretty simple.  It's about power, crew chiefs, about guys lining you up, it's about a lot of things not just you sitting there.  You've got to shift great and do everything right but they do too.  I can't give enough people enough credit.