NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Buoyed by a successful test session two weeks ago in Indianapolis, the McIntire family and their MacAttack entry are back in the Funny Car wars this weekend, hoping to shake off the bad feelings of their DNQ at the season-opening Gatornationals.

The team returns this weekend to the site of their career-best 3.97 pass at the 201 fall Charlotte event with Tony Shortall and Aaron Brooks tuning the bright orange Toyota-bodied machine.

“We definitely didn’t meet our own expectations in Gainesville,” said driver Mike McIntire Jr. “It’s all been about getting the clutch figured out. After that 3.97 here, we’ve nowhere near that since then. The car was just undriveable, shaking and smoking. We just got off track with our clutch program, but Tony and Aaron have gotten us back on track. 

“First test pass at Indy it went 4.03 shutting it off early, so we have high hopes for this weekend. That really helped us get out confidence back.”

McIntire and family graduated from the Nostalgia Funny Car ranks in 2019, making their debut at their hometown event in Norwalk, and have qualified at most of the seven events they have run, and the second-generation racer continues to gain experience with each lap.

“The difference between this car and the nostalgia car is like night and day; it’s a lot more different than I had anticipated, from working on it to driving it, every aspect of it is tough. The best run I ever made in the nostalgia car was 5.52 at 260 mph in the quarter-mile, and now I’m going 275 mph at half-track.”

The team’s 2021 plans got a little shaken after Mike Sr. had some health issues that forced them to miss the Southern Nationals (he’s here with the team) and the NHRA Virginia Nationals were canceled due to state regulations.

“It’s definitely shortened our schedule a little bit but we’ll back in Norwalk for sure, then back here in the fall, and then probably Bristol as well. No matter what happens, we’re still having a great time in Funny Car.”