[coverattach=1]CHARLOTTE, NC – Rewind just two short years ago to nearly this exact day in 2007.
Charles Carpenter was on his way to Houston for the ADRL’s season opening race, ready to put a tough offseason behind him. The never-ending search for funding and primary sponsorship had been unsuccessful once again, so Carpenter and crew loaded up the equipment they felt fortunate to have, some new but most very old, and along with their usual grit and determination made the long drive from Charlotte, NC to Houston, TX to give it a go with the toughest doorslammer competitors on the planet.
With no budget for testing, Carpenter climbed into his trusty decade-old ’55 Chevy and hoped his best shot was enough to qualify for the field.
It was more than enough.
What ensued was nothing short of poetic justice; an outhouse-to-the-penthouse tale of a man who absolutely refused to give up and let someone else tell him when it was time to quit. Carpenter would return home with the most cherished winner’s trophy of his career: an ADRL Iron Eagle that read “ADRL Dragpalooza III - Pro Nitrous Winner”. Almost as important as the trophy was a winner’s check that allowed Carpenter to make it to the next race, and the next race, and the one after that, and so on. All the way until Carpenter scored another win and big check at the Inaugural ADRL Chevy Drags in Norwalk.
Fast forward to 2009, and while some things have changed, a whole lot remains the same.
Since that time Carpenter has debuted a brand new Terry Murphy-built ’55 Chevy that appeared in two consecutive Pro Nitrous final rounds in its first two ADRL outings, extended his current ADRL-leading consecutive qualifying streak, and broken into the three-second zone.
In 2009, what remains the same is that once more, just as in 2007, Carpenter and crew will load up their equipment and head to Houston with everything riding on this one race, and with no primary funding, hoping for enough to come from this race to make it to the next one.
Carpenter has certainly been in this particular position before, but it’s not the only familiar spot he finds himself in.
Widely regarded as the “father” of what we now call Pro Modified, Carpenter enjoyed great success in the early days of the class, when homebuilt cars and parts and “seat of your pants” ingenuity reigned supreme. It was all uncharted territory. All that slowly faded away as more and more money was infused into the class and into his competition, eventually leaving Carpenter on the sidelines at the turn of the millennium. His own brainchild had passed him by.
With a resurgence around 2005, Carpenter returned to the Pro Mod scene only to find a troubling state of affairs: the supercharged entries had become dominant over his beloved nitrous-assisted competitors. Carpenter made a well-publicized call to the powers-that-be that something needed to be done. He suggested something radical and controversial - split the field; nitrous and blown. They would have none of it, but fortunately for Carpenter and a host of other nitrous racers, someone was listening.
Kenny Nowling and the ADRL had already begun to experiment with the format and Carpenter was onboard from day one, abandoning the established sanctioning body for Nowling’s upstart ADRL series and the Pro Nitrous division. Carpenter once again found himself at the forefront of a revolution and one of its most prominent figures, though it cost him the only major funding he did have to gamble on the ADRL.
Just as had happened twenty years before, Carpenter would garner early success within the new format before he would once again find himself on the verge of being sidelined, an infusion of funding everywhere but into his own operation threatening to push him out of the division he pushed so hard to promote.
“It’s not whining, crying, or anything else but a true story,” the 50-year-old auto repair center owner said of the winding road that has been his racing career. “I hate to be in this position once again, and it’s all eerily familiar, but we are keeping our heads up and continuing to move forward the best we can. I know racing is a choice and no one is forcing me to be out there, but it’s all I’ve known since I was 15 years old and I’m not ready to give up.”
It’s that desire and tireless work ethic that has kept Carpenter out there with the best when a lesser competitor would have packed it all in and called it a career.
“We’ve got the best parts and pieces we’ve ever had,” Carpenter said of his racing operation. “I feel like we have everything necessary to be competitive, and we have proven that on the track. Fortunately, we have support from guys like Pat Doherty, Paul Albino at Total Induction Tuning Solutions, the folks at MagnaFuel, Kelly Bluebaugh and WFO Racing, Buddy Johnson from Buddy’s Automotive Concepts, and Carl Sprague at Custom Autosound that has kept us out there while we audition for the primary funding we need to compete at this level. In addition, we have incredible companies like Goodridge Hose & Fittings, VP Racing Fuels, Santhuff’s Suspension Specialties, Friction Unlimited, and Holley/NOS supplying the parts and pieces that keep this ’55 moving. I can’t thank all of them enough. But at this point, we simply need a little more to keep going.”
“We haven’t done any testing or made any major changes since we ran back-to-back 3.98s in Dallas last October, so we feel confident about what the car will do when I let the clutch out in Friday’s testing,” Carpenter said. “All we did is make some small tweaks that should make the car even better, and we’ll need every bit of it to keep up with the competition in Pro Nitrous, which gets tougher and tougher every day. I feel confident though. I’m better now than I’ve ever been.”
Some things do get better with age, and Charles Carpenter is one of them. For him, dropping the hammer on his ’55 Chevy is a dream come true, and it’s a dream that he isn’t willing to wake up from just yet.
Carpenter is actively seeking primary sponsorship for 2009. For more information about Charles Carpenter Racing and the World’s Fastest ’55 Chevy, or for a copy of the team’s 2009 Marketing Partnership Guide, visit Charles Carpenter Racing.
Photo courtesy of Van Abernethy
Charles Carpenter was on his way to Houston for the ADRL’s season opening race, ready to put a tough offseason behind him. The never-ending search for funding and primary sponsorship had been unsuccessful once again, so Carpenter and crew loaded up the equipment they felt fortunate to have, some new but most very old, and along with their usual grit and determination made the long drive from Charlotte, NC to Houston, TX to give it a go with the toughest doorslammer competitors on the planet.
With no budget for testing, Carpenter climbed into his trusty decade-old ’55 Chevy and hoped his best shot was enough to qualify for the field.
It was more than enough.
What ensued was nothing short of poetic justice; an outhouse-to-the-penthouse tale of a man who absolutely refused to give up and let someone else tell him when it was time to quit. Carpenter would return home with the most cherished winner’s trophy of his career: an ADRL Iron Eagle that read “ADRL Dragpalooza III - Pro Nitrous Winner”. Almost as important as the trophy was a winner’s check that allowed Carpenter to make it to the next race, and the next race, and the one after that, and so on. All the way until Carpenter scored another win and big check at the Inaugural ADRL Chevy Drags in Norwalk.
Fast forward to 2009, and while some things have changed, a whole lot remains the same.
Since that time Carpenter has debuted a brand new Terry Murphy-built ’55 Chevy that appeared in two consecutive Pro Nitrous final rounds in its first two ADRL outings, extended his current ADRL-leading consecutive qualifying streak, and broken into the three-second zone.
In 2009, what remains the same is that once more, just as in 2007, Carpenter and crew will load up their equipment and head to Houston with everything riding on this one race, and with no primary funding, hoping for enough to come from this race to make it to the next one.
Carpenter has certainly been in this particular position before, but it’s not the only familiar spot he finds himself in.
Widely regarded as the “father” of what we now call Pro Modified, Carpenter enjoyed great success in the early days of the class, when homebuilt cars and parts and “seat of your pants” ingenuity reigned supreme. It was all uncharted territory. All that slowly faded away as more and more money was infused into the class and into his competition, eventually leaving Carpenter on the sidelines at the turn of the millennium. His own brainchild had passed him by.
With a resurgence around 2005, Carpenter returned to the Pro Mod scene only to find a troubling state of affairs: the supercharged entries had become dominant over his beloved nitrous-assisted competitors. Carpenter made a well-publicized call to the powers-that-be that something needed to be done. He suggested something radical and controversial - split the field; nitrous and blown. They would have none of it, but fortunately for Carpenter and a host of other nitrous racers, someone was listening.
Kenny Nowling and the ADRL had already begun to experiment with the format and Carpenter was onboard from day one, abandoning the established sanctioning body for Nowling’s upstart ADRL series and the Pro Nitrous division. Carpenter once again found himself at the forefront of a revolution and one of its most prominent figures, though it cost him the only major funding he did have to gamble on the ADRL.
Just as had happened twenty years before, Carpenter would garner early success within the new format before he would once again find himself on the verge of being sidelined, an infusion of funding everywhere but into his own operation threatening to push him out of the division he pushed so hard to promote.
“It’s not whining, crying, or anything else but a true story,” the 50-year-old auto repair center owner said of the winding road that has been his racing career. “I hate to be in this position once again, and it’s all eerily familiar, but we are keeping our heads up and continuing to move forward the best we can. I know racing is a choice and no one is forcing me to be out there, but it’s all I’ve known since I was 15 years old and I’m not ready to give up.”
It’s that desire and tireless work ethic that has kept Carpenter out there with the best when a lesser competitor would have packed it all in and called it a career.
“We’ve got the best parts and pieces we’ve ever had,” Carpenter said of his racing operation. “I feel like we have everything necessary to be competitive, and we have proven that on the track. Fortunately, we have support from guys like Pat Doherty, Paul Albino at Total Induction Tuning Solutions, the folks at MagnaFuel, Kelly Bluebaugh and WFO Racing, Buddy Johnson from Buddy’s Automotive Concepts, and Carl Sprague at Custom Autosound that has kept us out there while we audition for the primary funding we need to compete at this level. In addition, we have incredible companies like Goodridge Hose & Fittings, VP Racing Fuels, Santhuff’s Suspension Specialties, Friction Unlimited, and Holley/NOS supplying the parts and pieces that keep this ’55 moving. I can’t thank all of them enough. But at this point, we simply need a little more to keep going.”
“We haven’t done any testing or made any major changes since we ran back-to-back 3.98s in Dallas last October, so we feel confident about what the car will do when I let the clutch out in Friday’s testing,” Carpenter said. “All we did is make some small tweaks that should make the car even better, and we’ll need every bit of it to keep up with the competition in Pro Nitrous, which gets tougher and tougher every day. I feel confident though. I’m better now than I’ve ever been.”
Some things do get better with age, and Charles Carpenter is one of them. For him, dropping the hammer on his ’55 Chevy is a dream come true, and it’s a dream that he isn’t willing to wake up from just yet.
Carpenter is actively seeking primary sponsorship for 2009. For more information about Charles Carpenter Racing and the World’s Fastest ’55 Chevy, or for a copy of the team’s 2009 Marketing Partnership Guide, visit Charles Carpenter Racing.
Photo courtesy of Van Abernethy
