Perhaps it was a tempest in a Top Fuel teapot. At least Mike Kloeber, Clay Millican's crew chief, has begun to work with David Powers, Rod Fuller's team owner, in putting a  positive spin on the situation.

But call it the January Surprise, the latest in drag-racing politics.

"Monogate" hit the Firebird International Raceway scene Saturday morning with Powers' literal and figurative out-of-the-box approach to track-sanctioned preseason testing at the National Time Trials.

DPM rolled out the first modern-day monostrut-wing dragster, the Valvoline-sponsored car for driver Rod Fuller. Kloeber used the word "confused" to describe his feelings after finding out in a call two days earlier from race-car builder and longtime associate Brad Hadman that Powers had purchased the hardware -- and seeing it sitting in the pit across the aisle.

Kloeber Surprised That Powers Team Debuts New Design First

Perhaps it was a tempest in a Top Fuel teapot. At least Mike Kloeber, Clay Millican's crew chief, has begun to work with David Powers, Rod Fuller's team owner, in putting a  positive spin on the situation.

But call it the January Surprise, the latest in drag-racing politics.

"Monogate" hit the Firebird International Raceway scene Saturday morning with Powers' literal and figurative out-of-the-box approach to track-sanctioned preseason testing at the National Time Trials.

DPM rolled out the first modern-day monostrut-wing dragster, the Valvoline-sponsored car for driver Rod Fuller. Kloeber used the word "confused" to describe his feelings after finding out in a call two days earlier from race-car builder and longtime associate Brad Hadman that Powers had purchased the hardware -- and seeing it sitting in the pit across the aisle.

That effectively killed Kloeber's vision of being the first to put on the track the radical design, a product of what he claimed is "my work product, my intellectual property."  

It seemed a public slap in the face for Kloeber, who initiated research and development of the design and had worked on it closely since 2004 with Hadman, fabricator Ron Jones, and other technical experts. Werner Enterprises, his and Millican's former sponsor who funded or partially funded all six of their International Hot Road Association championships, also sank a six-figure dollar amount into the project.

For Kloeber, the culprit was not Powers, but rather the manufacturers he said told him just before Christmas that the molds weren't ready but a month later had shipped the finish product to the Houston-based team owner.
 
"David Powers didn't do anything wrong by buying this stuff," Kloeber said. "It shouldn't have been sold to him. The manufacturers who were working on those component parts for us elected to sell them to the first person who showed up with a lot of money. We were on the threshold of getting these parts delivered, but instead of getting them delivered to us, they were delivered to someone else.

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"When you do all this work and you lie awake at night for years and years, thinking about how to do this right . . . and when you're not the person driving the car, you have to make absolute certain you can send it down the race track without hurting [the driver] . . . I don't see how another team should benefit from all the work that we have put into this," he said.

Powers said, "I think Mike is a good guy. I didn't do anything to harm Mike in any way. I did it because it was safer and because it had better marketability. The way in which I did it was different than the direction Mike was going to go. I wanted the wing to be over-designed so there wouldn't be any failure out there and ruin the wing design for the future. These wings provide an additional property on the Top Fuel cars that helps bring in the revenue that offsets the rising costs of operating these cars. This is a business, not a hobby. I'm out here as a businessman."

He said had deferred to Kloeber but that Kloeber told him he planned to field the monostrut dragster by the start of the 2006 season. He indicated he thought waiting 18 months for Kloeber to complete the project was enough time to wait. "Some people can move things quicker, and some people move things slower," he said.

Powers said he understood that Kloeber's team underwent two ownership changes during that period and had other priorities. "I didn't have those same issues," he said. "

Besides, he said, he had been promising these potential sponsors that he would get the job done and decided it was time to deliver. He chose this test session because that company's representatives planned to visit Sunday's session "and seeing is believing."

Dan Olson, NHRA's director of Top Fuel and Funny Car racing, said Powers and Fuller -- or any other team that has one -- certainly are free to run the monostrut-style car in test sessions. "I'd like to see it make a few passes. If it tests well and everybody deems it's safe, then we'd probably have to take a look at it," he said.

Powers, however, said, "It's an approved deal."

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Fuller, for his part, made his first two passes with the car Saturday afternoon. The first result was a 5.011-second elapsed time at 202.73 mph. He aborted the second pass.

Before his runs Saturday, Fuller repeated his bottom-line mantra: "I get told what to do and I do it." However, he said he understands Kloeber's improved-safety motivation for the project better than many drivers. If for no other reason, he said, he was all for helping Powers move the monostrut project forward.

"Why wait another year? More power to David Powers," Fuller said. "It's not a performance advantage. It adds 40 more pounds than the other wing. It all comes down to safety. I'm the one who sits in the car, so that concerns me. I got the opportunity to be in a Top Fuel car because of Darrell Russell's death [with Chris Russell, who established the team then sold his interest in the deal to Powers]. So I'm close to that situation."

But safety wasn't why Powers has pushed for the first monostrut-wing dragster to be his and his first. It was the symbol of cutting-edge technology, a critical negotiating tool in talks with a potential new sponsor.

That, of course, begs the question of why a potential Top Fuel sponsor would want to invest money on a car design that might not, by Hadman's admission, be feasible to run in competition.

Nevertheless, Hadman said, "It was a business deal based on a business decision. David Powers wanted it, and he went about getting it from the political end. He has wanted it for a year and half. He was relentless. He has a huge sponsorship riding on that tail. He needed a picture of that car in order to seal the deal."

Kloeber said he learned of Powers' plans at Phoenix in a call from Hadman. He said the builder told him, "I haven't been able to sleep. I need to call you and tell you what's going to happen in Phoenix."

Hadman said, "Yeah, Mike and I go back a long way. I'm a nice guy in a tough situation. I don't like being involved in the middle of it. I build race cars, and people pay me to do it." He said he simply wanted to link people with like-minded colleagues to realize a goal and feared that he  will "end up being the bad guy."

He said he has invested about $30,000 in the project and Ron Jones of CLS (Composite Laminate Specialties) has kicked in $50,000-$60,000 of his own.  "A lot of people invested a lot of money," Hadman said, implying that Kloeber doesn't have exclusive rights regarding the project.

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"If the monostrut ever stands a chance," Hadman said, "there have to be two or three guys over there" in NHRA competition who want to run a monostrut-wing dragster. He added, "Powers has been working -- there's a lot of politicking going on."

Kloeber said he has no problem with any other team fielding the monostrut design. He said he wanted any Top Fuel team who wanted it to have the technology and to make sure the specialized parts were affordable for all. He simply wanted to be the first to run it down a race track.

"I see how Mike feels," Hadman said, pointing out that until Powers bought the hardware, "no money has ever changed hands. Nobody gave us any money. Nobody."

Hadman said he thinks Kloeber's passion for the project was a double-edged sword. While it spurred him to stay on task despite time and funding issues and data discoveries that meant going back to the drawing board, his enthusiasm attracted his rivals' interest.  "By being so open about promoting it, in the end, it ended up hurting him."

Kloeber indicated he would be concerned about liability issues, for the design was not SFI-approved for safety. John Boyce, assistant crew chief for Whit Bazemore, said SFI approved the design three weeks ago. Hadman said, "Technically, nobody has an SFI'd wing. Wings don't have to be SFI'd."

Kloeber said he wanted the situation to be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. "I need men to be men . . . and admit they made a mistake . . . and be honorable . . . and have some integrity. It's never too late to do the right thing."

Hadman said, "It's like being married. It'll work itself out."

Click HERE to view videos of both Mike Kloeber and David Powers, courtesy of our news-gathering partners at 1320 TV/www.1320tv.com. Videos property of Wade Productions.