Chris Holbrook knew it. His son confirmed it. 

A third generation of the Holbrook Family will hit the NHRA tour this year as 20-year-old Del Holbrook will climb behind the wheel of his dad's Mustang as a part of the Factory Stock Showdown division. 

"I'm really excited," Del confirmed. "It's definitely a big jump from NMCA tomorrow series. It's a very intimidating prospect. The sense of competition is definitely higher than what I'm used to."

But Del isn't worried. As he sees it, Chris has prepared him for this moment all his life. 

"The first big lesson is to keep calm," Del said. "You have to be smart about keeping your head and just do what you can do. I wanted to be like him when I was younger. It was always like an inspiration."

Keeping calm might be a cinch for Del, but for Dad, that might be a larger challenge, although he admits standing behind the car his son drives might end up his favorite place on the drag strip. 

"Sometimes I get more joy standing on the starting line watching him than I do in the car," Chris, the 1999 IHRA Pro Stock champion. 

Del comes into the 2023 NHRA Factory Showdown after a successful three-year stint in NMRA's Limited Street division, where he currently holds the honor of having the fastest nitrous-injected Coyote engine in the country. The road to the NMRA began with a limited engagement in Junior Dragsters, but primarily he did most of his learning behind the wheel of an adult car. 

With Chris headed into the NHRA's new Factory X division as one of the expected front-runners, it only made sense that he began schooling his son on the art of true factory hot rod racing. 

But what really cemented the notion Del was a drag racer in the making was when he was entered into his first High School Drags event and came away with the win in his first start. 

"He did really well racing over in the NMRA," Chris explained. "Seeing that, at some point, I'm going to be running Factory X, I figured, well, let's start working on our engine program with my son Del and Factory Showdown, and sooner or later, we'll have both cars at the NHRA Factory X races.

Del understood from the jump the Factory Stock Showdown cars would accelerate rapidly, and he watched from the sidelines as his dad dominated the eliminator for years. But nothing could prepare him for how fast the acceleration was from learning driver to the big stage of the NHRA.

"My thought were was like, 'Well, if we're going to make the jump to Factory Stock, might as well do it now," Del said. "It's always been the talk or at least the goal, but I didn't think it was going to happen this fast."

One would have thought in Del's studies of his dad; he would have known slow is not in the family's DNA.