Three of drag racing’s well-known nitro tuners are writing a new chapter in their racing career.

 The tuning duo of Tim and Kim Richards along with Rob Flynn have found the most unlikeliest of homes – tuning 2500 horsepower, suspended chassis race cars within the ADRL’s Pro Extreme division.

“I think this is where the future is,” said Alex Hossler, one of the ADRL’s leading Pro Extreme racers. “I think a lot of people see that and they want to jump on the bandwagon. Not knocking NHRA, but who knows where NHRA is going to be five years from now. Who knows where ADRL is going to be five years from now? This is the fastest growing motorsport that I know of and I think these guys all want to be a part of it.”

Hossler recently added Flynn as his tuner following the lead of the Al Anabi Racing team of Sheikh K.H. Al Thani who hired the Richards to cover for Frank Manzo, on the weekends when he races in the NHRA’s Top Alcohol Funny Car division.

Three Noted Nitro Tuners Find Homes in ADRL’s Pro Extreme …

Three of drag racing’s well-known nitro tuners are writing a new chapter in their racing career.

 The tuning duo of Tim and Kim Richards along with Rob Flynn have found the most unlikeliest of homes – tuning 2500 horsepower, suspended chassis race cars within the ADRL’s Pro Extreme division.

“I think this is where the future is,” said Alex Hossler, one of the ADRL’s leading Pro Extreme racers. “I think a lot of people see that and they want to jump on the bandwagon. Not knocking NHRA, but who knows where NHRA is going to be five years from now. Who knows where ADRL is going to be five years from now? This is the fastest growing motorsport that I know of and I think these guys all want to be a part of it.”

Hossler recently added Flynn as his tuner following the lead of the Al Anabi Racing team of Sheikh K.H. Al Thani who hired the Richards to cover for Frank Manzo, on the weekends when he races in the NHRA’s Top Alcohol Funny Car division.

Hossler believes the presence of more of the NHRA’s former tuners adds a level of credibility and professionalism to the ADRL’s growing movement into the drag racing mainstream.

“The biggest add is the level of professionalism he brings to the table,” confirmed Hossler of Flynn. “He tuned alcohol cars before he did nitro. It's not like he came into this blind. He has a lot of friends high up in the alcohol ranks so anything he doesn't know, quick phone call, he can find it out. The biggest thing is the level of professionalism. He has really stepped up our program in that respect.”

For Tim Richards, as in the case with Flynn, he came into the program with experience tuning alcohol engines. However, the one common denominator is the suspended chassis. This was uncharted territory for the nitro tuners.

Fuel Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters have solid mount suspensions leaving tuners with the engine and clutch as their primary responsibilities.

“Well, just getting to know the parameters as to where you can operate and where you can't,” said Richards when asked what was the toughest challenge to tuning a Pro Extreme car. “These cars are obviously way different than a fuel car. Everything that has a suspension is going to be way different. That is part of the tuning problem, the suspension of the car. That brings a whole new picture. It's complicated. The driver is not in the center of the car. He is over on one side. It all has to be taken into consideration as to what you do out on the track.

“Obviously these cars can get moving around pretty good and that is something you want to try to avoid at all costs. Anytime you’re running the car you think about that especially with a driver in his first year. It's always an issue as to how safe you need to be out there; especially with a new driver.”

Ironically, in the first race where the Richards’ assisted Manzo, Al Thani drove to his first national event victory at the ADRL Georgia Drags in Valdosta, Ga.

“What I see with the nitro cars is you have an abundance of power and you have to regulate it all with clutch,” added Flynn. “These cars, although they have a lot of power, they require a lot of wheel speed to get the ET out of it. That puts the car pretty much on the edge every run. That's obviously the appeal for the spectators; with the Pro Mod cars their unpredictable at best.”

The one thing these tuners can predict is that they are the first of the nitro tuners headed over to a new frontier.

“I can only speak at Indy when we were testing; a lot of the fuel guys that are friends and competitors they mentioned that if they weren't doing a fuel car that they next most interesting thing to them would be the Pro Mod cars because of the challenge involved – the short wheelbase and high horsepower,” explained Flynn. “Especially the ADRL cars where they have basically no rules. It's open season as far as your thinking; what you can come up with. That's an appeal to a lot of people because obviously in the fuel classes now there are a lot of rules about what you can do and can't do.”

And as Richards sees it, the current state of the economy will most assuredly fuel the migration in the coming seasons.

“The job market is so tight. I think that most people that have been out in the fuel fields for long periods of times would rather stay there because they are comfortable with that; they know it,” said Richards. “Obviously, it's opening up some jobs for people who can't find a job only because the job picture is so bad. It's a very serious situation we have in this country. You have to work where you can work.

“These cars are quite interesting. What these people have to go to get these cars to go A to B, it's a pretty good challenge. The challenge is different than it is with a fuel car in a lot of areas. Nevertheless, it's a pretty good challenge because these cars are really quick.”

It remains to be seen if the challenge can be enough to lure some of the leading tuners out of their comfort zones where some have invested decades of their lives.

“I've been racing fuel cars and that sort of thing for twenty some odd years,” said Flynn. “Basically your second family is in those ranks. This is a whole different thing. I don't know any of these people other than to see them at the races. The other people I have been around for twenty plus years. It's like starting over.

“People ask me all the time, 'would you ever go to NASCAR?' and the reality is those guys just didn't just start at the top of the pile. They had to work their way up. It's the same thing here. These guys all built their cars and they didn't start off running really quick et's to the eighth-mile. They built their way to that point. We're just starting at the top. It's good and bad because you can add some things from the concept of running fuel cars but you don't know how you got there in the first place.”

And for these tuners, therein lies the challenge of making the switch.

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