What do you get when you put Scotty Cannon, Evan Knoll and an enthusiastic drag racing fan together in the men’s room at a Motley Crue and Aerosmith concert?

The answer: You get a six-time IHRA Pro Mod champion back behind the wheel of a high-powered race car.

But this time things will be different. Cannon will be driving a Top Fuel car for the first time in his career. And, he says, his experience in driving an NHRA Funny Car has taught him some things about how to approach drag racing competition. “I was a little naive the first time around,” Cannon says of his time on the NHRA Funny Car circuit, adding that he was sometimes distracted by many of the people who hang around professional drag racers.

“You have to have a plan and you have to be focused. I got off track a couple of times,” explaining that professional drivers can find themselves exposed to a lot of people who either want things from them or want to have contact with the drivers both at and away from the track. “The big difference now is that I will be keeping the mayhem away from me,” Cannon says.

How a Chance Meeting Put Scotty Cannon Back in the Drivers Seat

What do you get when you put Scotty Cannon, Evan Knoll and an enthusiastic drag racing fan together in the men’s room at a Motley Crue and Aerosmith concert?

The answer: You get a six-time IHRA Pro Mod champion back behind the wheel of a high-powered race car.

But this time things will be different. Cannon will be driving a Top Fuel car for the first time in his career. And, he says, his experience in driving an NHRA Funny Car has taught him some things about how to approach drag racing competition. “I was a little naive the first time around,” Cannon says of his time on the NHRA Funny Car circuit, adding that he was sometimes distracted by many of the people who hang around professional drag racers.

“You have to have a plan and you have to be focused. I got off track a couple of times,” explaining that professional drivers can find themselves exposed to a lot of people who either want things from them or want to have contact with the drivers both at and away from the track. “The big difference now is that I will be keeping the mayhem away from me,” Cannon says.

So, just how does a concert and men’s room fit into the picture? “I’m old friends with Evan Knoll. When we get together, we don’t talk about drag racing for more than a few minutes. Then, we start talking about other things.” When the two men got together in the fall of 2006, they decided to take in a concert featuring Motley Crue and Aerosmith, “It was the first concert I’d ever been to,” says Cannon. “I’m 44 years old and had never been to a concert before that.”

During a break in the concert, Cannon and Knoll were in the men’s room at the arena when Cannon was approached by a fan. “He came up to me and asked me if I had anything I could sign for him,” Cannon says. “I didn’t have anything, so I gave him my personal cell phone number and told him not to give the number out to anyone and to call me the next day so I could send him something.”

When the fan departed, Knoll told Cannon “I can’t believe you did that,” said Cannon. But, says Cannon, seeing how fans respond to Cannon got him thinking that the former Pro Mod champ might want to get back into driving. “He asked me if I wanted to drive his car,” Cannon says. “I told him it was something I’d be interested in.”

Cannon thought about Knoll’s offer for a while and then decided that it was time to get back into driving. “When I said I was getting back in, it was like I picked up right where I left off,” he says. Cannon’s first moves were to pull his team together and get working on his car. “We finished sixth in Funny car during our second year so I gathered all those guys up,” including Jim Ermolovich and Todd Blakely, Cannon says. Despite intense pressure to get the car together in just four weeks, everyone on the team has been working well together. “We were working until 3:00 a.m., five or six days in a row and we never even had a spat,” Cannon says. “We got the car together in four weeks. We went to extreme measures to upgrade the safety features of the car.”

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Click to visit our sponsor's website 

“One of our team rules is that if you haven’t got anything good to say, keep your mouth shut,” Cannon says, adding that that does not mean that no one is allowed to criticize the performance of the team or its members, but that it has to be done in a way that is constructive and respectful.

The 44-year old Cannon lives in Lyman, SC, with his wife Amanda. The couple has three children: Scott Jr., Brandon and Destin. Cannon won IHRA Pro Mod championships in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1998 before moving to NHRA Funny Car competition in 1999. Cannon started racing when he was 16 years old by taking his street car to a local eighth-mile drag strip. “I won a lot and it seemed that I was a natural at it,” he says. He became a professional drag racer in 1990 when IHRA made Pro Mod a professional class. During his nine years competing in that class, he won six IHRA championships, was fifth in 1990, second in 1995 and sixth in 1997. During that time span, he put together 27 IHRA national event wins and was named to the Car Craft Magazine All-Star Race Team as the Pro Modified Driver of the Year for seven consecutive years.

He made the move to the NHRA Funny Car class in 1999 and was named NHRA’s Rookie of the Year. He raced NHRA Funny Cars for six seasons before leaving in 2005 to return to the IHRA Pro Mod series with his son as the driver of his car. Even while he was working as crew chief for his son, Cannon made no effort to hide his desire to drive again.

“I didn’t really quit driving. I just took some time off,” he says.

Cannon’s Top Fuel car is owned by Knoll, who stopped driving after a nasty non-racing automobile accident a few years ago. The car will carry the name of the Seelye–Wright Auto Group as its primary sponsor for the 12-event IHRA series this year. Cannon will continue to work with his son, Scott Jr., on the younger Cannon’s Pro Mod racing efforts.

“I still own that team,” Cannon says, “But he (Scott) can handle it. “I trained him pretty well last year. And I left him some programs that he can use to do the setups. We’re going to park our trailers as close together as we can at the track.”

Even though he plans to help his son as much as he can, Cannon acknowledges that he will not be as involved with the Pro Mod effort as he was last season. “I need to stay focused (on Top Fuel) and not make any mistakes,” Cannon says “My biggest concern is to run consistently and not make any mistakes.” After his first runs in the car during testing, it appears that Cannon is well on his way to meeting that goal. “My first three runs in the car looked pretty good. Everyone who was watching said I looked pretty good,” he says.

As the 2007 racing season got underway, Cannon was not 100 percent sure of what his schedule would be. “I am definitely going to run the full IHRA circuit and we’ll add in some NHRA events that fit our schedule,” he says.   

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Click to visit our sponsor's website

While it may seem that the departure of Clay Millican from the IHRA circuit has lowered the competitiveness of the class, Cannon says that winning in IHRA’s Top Fuel division will be as tough as ever. “Three years ago, I’d have said that without Millican in there, it would be easier to win but now there are a lot of drivers who can win,” he says. “If (Doug) Foley hadn’t had his crash, he’d have been in contention all year last year.” In addition, says Cannon, Bruce Litton is always a tough competitor. “It wouldn’t surprise me if this year and next year there are a few different winners.”

Cannon says that making the switch from Pro Mod and Funny Cars to Top Fuel will not be that big a change for him. “These cars (Top Fuel) you have to finesse a bit but the driving part is not going to be that different,” he says. And unlike many newcomers to IHRA’s Top Fuel division, Cannon already has an extensive knowledge of most of the tracks on which the series is raced.

“No matter what class you run, your knowledge of the track will always flow into another class, either way,” Cannon says, adding that watching his son’s Pro Mod car or other competitors will help him set up his own Top Fuel dragster. “I’m friends with (Pro Stock driver) Robert Patrick. I know his car pretty well and I can read the track from watching his car.”

The biggest difference between Top Fuel and the other classes, Cannon explains, is that Top Fuel teams have to look at the entire track, not just the first 660 feet. “Reading the track from the halfway point on is more important in the Top Fuel class. We don’t do that in Pro Mod,” he says.

Cannon’s off track personality and distinctive hairstyle made him a fan favorite during his Pro Mod days and his days as a fuel Funny Car driver. That popularity has stayed with him over the past two seasons when he was acting a crew chief for his son’s car rather than driving in competition.

“When I got my (Top Fuel) license in Valdosta, there were a lot of fans there watching me,” he says, attributing his popularity with fans with the importance he places on maintaining his relationship with them. “One of the things we do is to make sure we take care of the fans,” he says.

As he looks forward to the coming year, Cannon says he has high hopes for the racing season. “I feel pretty good about it,” he says. “I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in. My expectations are high.”

And while Cannon will not go so far as say he will be a major competitor for the season championship, he does hope that he will be a factor in many races this year. “I hope I’m their competition,” he says of his fellow IHRA Top Fuel drivers. “I’m the newcomer. Hopefully, I’ll be a thorn in their side all season.”