(Darr Hawthorne photo)

: Speaking of horsepower do you think that the Nitrous Pro Mod racers are at a disadvantage power-wise, and if so what should be done to "level the playing field"?

JL: Yes, and to add insult to injury, NHRA just added a cubic in rule to limit engine size to 910 cubic inches. Rickie Smith, John Hall and Dennis Radford (I think) all were running 943 cubic inch engines toward the end of the season. Pat Musi and I had talked about a 983" combination (earlier this year), but that's off now. Parity is and always will be difficult or nonexistent with three different power adders. The NHRA nitrous and blower cars are pretty close now, but the turbos are in a league of their own. They have made huge gains last season as evident by the numbers on the last four NHRA event qualifying sheets and elimination sheets. My hat is off to them.  I use the analogy that at a NHRA National Event, the top fuel and funny cars have the most HP per cubic inch. The next highest would be Competition Eliminator’s  turbo class cars. I am against adding weight from a safety standpoint because you have to stop more weight at 255 mph and it wouldn't slow them from 5.7 to 5.9 anyway. The smaller turbo size seems to be an obvious equalizer, but my friend Don Baily said if they make the turbo smaller you build a smaller engine and rev it higher and make more boost and more power. My idea is smaller turbos and a RPM limiter like on the fuel cars. ADRL has the turbo cars running with the unlimited blower cars if that gives you some idea of the performance potential.