Chris McGaha has his own agenda this weekend at the Dodge NHRA Nationals in Las Vegas as owner-driver of the Harlow Sammons Chevy Camaro (a/k/the Silver Bullet). Since he won in June at Norwalk, Ohio, the Odessa, Texas, racer has advanced past the second round just once. And he wants to improve from that trend. But he has a little something else on his mind.  Son Mason will be making his second testing appearance in a Pro Stock car here Monday.

The 17-year-old practiced performing burnouts this past Monday at Penwell Knights Raceway at Caprock Motorplex at Penwell, Texas.

“Mason’s current status is working up for Day 2,” Dad said. “Day 1 went super-great, as far as I’m concerned. Made burnouts, staged the car, and let the clutch out. Now, we aren’t ready to throw down, by any means, and say, ‘Hey, we got this.’ We have lots of bridges to climb and not much time to do it. A great Monday at this point would be to get to half-track. If we do, we do. If we don’t, it’s not a big deal. We just have to keep working and dragging him back up there.”

(Disclaimer: No high-schoolers have been harmed in the making of this future Pro Stock ace.)

“Depending on how Monday goes, that will dictate the next step from there,” Chris McGaha said. If Monday goes good, we are possibly staying and doing it again Thursday. We had talked about the Lucas Oil divisional [race] in Vegas and race Comp and enter the car in A/A. But this is all a laid-out plan that can change.” He said he’ll have to “see how the driver feels – and myself – about it. We don’t have to push it hard from this point and don’t need to, either.”

Pretty proud of this kid. It was only his third time trying to do a burnout. WATCH OUT! #MasonMcGaha @NHRA | #ProStock pic.twitter.com/k88jgDXpZ4

— Chris McGaha (@ChrisMcGahaPS) October 28, 2019