NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

After skipping the recent Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, father-and-son duo of Chris and Mason McGaha rolled into the 71^st Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals with hopes of improved results from their twin Harlow Sammons Chevrolet Camaros.

The team made what they describe as a not-so-difficult decision to stay home, as they contend their time was better spent searching for the precious horsepower to close the gap to the class leaders.

“Missing Brainerd didn’t matter to us, I’ve been trying to do this for five years and I want to win a race,” said Mason McGaha. “Championships can come later; I’m just trying to win one [race]. There are six races or so after this, and if we could get a win, I'd say that that's a good way to end of the year.”

Father Chris added, “We skipped Brainerd and worked on our engines the whole time. We thought we found something, but after Q1, I'm on the verge of scrapping that whole project. I’m just tired of getting my teeth kicked in. That’s why we elected to stay home, and more than likely, we’re probably not going to Reading, either.”

Pro Stock is not for the timid as the puzzle encompasses mastery of clutch, suspension, gearing, driving, and you need horsepower to rise to the top. The McGaha’s build their own engines and have been working hard to equal the horsepower developed by KB Titan and the cars from Elite.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is, 'Oh, I made this change, and it lost power, but maybe I need to do this, this, and this, to make it work',” Chris added. “I found you can't do that. If you do anything that hurts it, you better back up because you will start down a rabbit hole, you cannot dig yourself out of."

We asked Chris exactly where are they digging for this elusive power? 

"It’s cylinder heads, camshafts, headers, all of it," he says. "And the deal a lot of people are still chasing is the intake manifold. We ran carburetors for so long and so EFI is the big change and it’s getting the air/fuel distribution equal. I tell people all the time, the power potential is there because those guys are going as fast as what we did on carburetors.”

Mason added, “In Q1 we ran what we thought we'd run. So, I think this weekend is going to be a bit of a challenge. We’re one run off the trailer from Sonoma, so I we’ll make another hit or two and see if we can improve. It feels like there's a million things that help on the dyno, but then you get to the track it doesn't faze it. That's the frustrating part about all this, when you think you're showing up with something better and it's equal or maybe even worse.”

“In Pro Stock, winning requires the whole package and you can't give up anything, anywhere," Mason continued. "You need the power, a clutch that’s set up right, you got to make sure it's locked down and don't have it all screwed up in the gearbox or the rear end, either.”

Prior to Q1, many teams were swapping in different transmission and rear end ratios, and the McGaha’s were no different. “That was one of the things we think we may be screwed up last night,” said Mason, in reference to the rear gearing.

“We anticipated that it was better than it was and we gave it up something in the rear. And that’s critical in these cars because of the rev limiter. You want to be right up to the rev limit as it crosses the finish line,” he added.

“For today we’ll put in a fresh batch of oil and change the gear, because we maybe screwed up on that.”