The most important aspect working in the favor of veteran tuners Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald is not their high level of talent; it’s their knack for being able to adapt to a forever changing curriculum.

The duo has been joined at the proverbial hip, since Mike Ashley brought them together in 2007.

Ashley first began nitro racing in 2005 and Oswald served as his crew chief. When he joined Don Schumacher Racing in 2006, Corradi was assigned as his tuner.

Corradi and Oswald joined together in 2007 and their unified effort not only led Ashley to his first-ever NHRA POWERade Funny Car national event victory but two others for good measure, including a remarkable U.S. Nationals victory.

Ashley was essentially a sophomore driver when the two contributed to his success and a year later they pulled off a national event victory with freshman driver Melanie Troxel. The most important aspect working in the favor of veteran tuners Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald is not their high level of talent; it’s their knack for being able to adapt to a forever changing curriculum.

The duo has been joined at the proverbial hip, since Mike Ashley brought them together in 2007.

Ashley first began nitro racing in 2005 and Oswald served as his crew chief. When he joined Don Schumacher Racing in 2006, Corradi was assigned as his tuner.

Corradi and Oswald joined together in 2007 and their unified effort not only led Ashley to his first-ever NHRA POWERade Funny Car national event victory but two others for good measure, including a remarkable U.S. Nationals victory.

Ashley was essentially a sophomore driver when the two contributed to his success and a year later they pulled off a national event victory with freshman driver Melanie Troxel.

It’s that kind of resourcefulness that has many cheering for Corradi and Oswald as they pursue their latest challenge – Top Fuel.

Corradi and Oswald have replaced veteran tuner Lee Beard as tuner of the Matco Tools dragster, purchased two weeks ago by Ashley. As was in the case with their former driver turned team owner, they are dealing with a sophomore driver in Antron Brown.

The one thing they enjoyed in the previous two seasons holds true in this scenario, they are working with a driver of considerable talent.

“Out of three runs, we’re very happy with the performance of the car,” Corradi said, discussing this weekend’s testing in Phoenix, Az. “We fixed a couple of gremlins in the car. It was a new car that was just put together a few weeks ago. Today was the first time it went down the race track. All-and-all it was a good day. We look to be better tomorrow. I made a few clutch changes that I used to do on the Funny Car and implemented my tune-up, and ran it like we ran the Funny Car. We changed the nitro percentage and that’s about it. We want to go quicker tomorrow, but we’re happy with the first day of testing.”

Corradi and Oswald have that good cop, bad cop image, but their common goal is to work for the good of the team. While Corradi may bring to the equation his “tell-it-like-it-is” Cleveland mentality, Oswald may counter with a kinder, gentler approach, though both have an unquenchable passion for success. The results of pairing these two speak volumes.

What Corradi may lack in experience in working on a Top Fueler, Oswald makes up for dating back to his days of driving, wrenching and tuning of high quality dragsters such as the independent underdog Thomas, Oswald & Kattleman effort to the better financed Candies & Hughes ride. This season marks Oswald's return to the long skinny cars since leaving the class in 1982 for a multi-time world championship career in Funny Car.

Oswald, like Corradi, is of the belief some applications of Funny Car tuning will apply to Top Fuel dragster and this weekend during the National Time Trials, they are writing a unique logbook.

“We still haven’t made a lot of runs, but it seemed to respond to the same things as the Funny Car,” Oswald admitted. “The dragster is lighter and easy to make go. It does take some more power and we’re finding that balance. It’s a lot of fun to work on.”