Faria earns Top Fuel license
Faria earns Top Fuel license, added to Winternationals field
|
|
Twenty years after he made history as the first Top Alcohol Dragster driver to record a five-second elapsed time and more than eight years since his last competitive lap in any race car, Steve Faria is especially looking forward to this year’s Kragen O’Reilly NHRA Winternationals after earning his Top Fuel license at the NAPA National Time Trials in
Faria, who won the Fram Autolite NHRA Nationals in Sonoma in 2000 driving for Jerry Darien, has been piecing together his Top Fuel dreams for the last five years a part at a time, hoping to finally fulfill a 15-year dream of competing in NHRA’s premier category.
Faria, whose barrier-busting 5.99 occurred at Infineon Raceway in May 1989, made easy runs of 4.37, 4.47, and 4.52 with speeds of 264.91 and 258.22 to easily meet the requirements to cross-grade his alcohol license, and now he’s ready for his shot at the fuel ranks with the first of what will be a six-event get-his-feet-wet campaign in 2009.
“I’ve been working on this car since 2003, but we’ve had to update the car when the chassis rules started changing to keep up with it,” he said. “We ran the car once last year to shake out the bugs and probably could have run a few races, but we decided it was better to wait.”
Faria has gained some experience with nitro while tuning Brad Thompson’s nostalgia Top Fueler, which helped him hit the ground running.
“I’ve learned a lot there,” he said. “It’s different than this car, but it helps. I’ve learned a lot about what to do with the clutch, but the way this motor runs is not the same as the nostalgia car.”
 |
Faria is the latest former sand drag racer to transition into the alcohol classes before moving into the nitro ranks, joining Alan and Blaine Johnson, Gary Scelzi, Larry Minor, Rick Henkelman, and many others.
“I’m good friends with both Alan and Gary,” he said. “We all raced sand together; I actually was racing in the sand before Alan and Blaine were. Back then, there were a bunch of cars on the sand and everyone hauled ass, but the whole scene just kind of imploded, and everyone came here.”
Faria earned his first NHRA Wally at the 1995
Although like every racer he plays to win, he has no illusions of similar success in Top Fuel, but that doesn’t really bother him.
“I just wanted to do this before I got too old,” he admitted. “I’m doing this for fun, and I’m doing it the way I want to. I don’t have the money to buy all of the parts that everyone else has. I have a different idea, and I want to see if it works.”
Faria’s other plan is a tune-up that’s easier on parts than the big cam/high-volume full-time teams, relying on a little bigger bore and a little shorter stroke that will save crankshaft wear.
“We’re just working within our budget,” he said. “We’ve got nice parts, a nice car, a good crew that came over from the nostalgia car. We’re just a bunch of guys trying to have fun.”
After a couple of false starts in Phoenix – the engine broke a main stud on the burnout of his first burnout, sending it exiting through the bottom of the pan and hurting precious little else, and his second run went up immediately in tire smoke after the air bottle was not turned on (”Lack of experience, plain and simple,” he confessed.) – Faria busted off the necessary license runs and, perhaps most impressive to bystanders, performed flawless burnouts without the aid of the de rigueur throttle stop. (”It’s not so much I wanted to do it myself, but I didn’t know where to set the throttle stop,” he admitted.)
“We’re going to take what we learned in
Faria, who owns filter manufacturer System 1, is supported by his company, backing from JV Trucking, Milanesio Farms, Pigialiano Farms, Clarkland Farms, BR Motorsports, and Stone Chevy as well as profits from the 1/3-mile dirt track he owns in his Tulare, Calif., hometown.
