One tuner I spoke with told me that his team would have to buy as many as a dozen pairs of heads. He said that a one-car team needs to have eight fresh pairs of cylinder heads for a race weekend. “With the 75 minutes (or less) we’re allowed to service the car between rounds for fuel cars,” he told me, “we don’t have time to fix heads.” So on race day the teams just bolt a fresh pair on after every round.

Then there is the cost involved. In order to have eight fresh sets of heads on race day a team probably has to have at least a dozen sets with four pairs being refreshed and repaired between races.

John Force Racing makes their own proprietary blocks, cylinder heads, and superchargers. Don Schumacher Racing has custom blocks built by DART machinery and superchargers built by Chuck Ford that I’m told aren’t available to any other team. I’ll bet that other teams have similar programs. 

The sport and NHRA’s problem is not just that teams making their own parts, but whether those parts give them a performance advantage. NHRA’s tech department has the difficult job of reviewing the plans for new parts submitted to them by teams/manufacturers and deciding if they should be allowed to be built.

It would appear at first glance that NHRA’s well-meaning attempt to control the R&D costs associated with nitro racing has failed. It’s hard to stop innovation and allow new and better parts to be built at the same time. Innovation is alive and well in nitro racing, if you can afford it.

So is there a viable solution? Not one that isn’t going to make someone mad as hell! I can’t see the NHRA making DSR or JFR junk all of their new parts and start buying blocks and heads from Alan Johnson Performance Engineering, who supplies those parts for a majority of the nitro teams world-wide. My view is that scenario is why the DSR and JFR teams are now making their own parts.

I have to ask again, if the NHRA management really wants to control speed and the spiraling cost, why don’t they simply reduce the maximum engine rpm using the mandatory rev-limiter? That is a question that no less of an expert than Lee Beard asked me two years ago or more at the NHRA race at Denver.

In the meantime, the horsepower genie is out of the bottle and you can bet that Alan Johnson soon will be submitting plans for AJPE heads with bigger valves -- if he hasn’t already. Race teams like the Kalittas and others are going to have to spend more money just to keep up with the competition. And the cost of starting a new nitro team will continue to rise. 

It started when Garlits went from carbs to injection and I don’t see it changing.