ProFile: Chip Horton

Story and photos by Dale Wilson

Chip Horton figures it's the best $10 he's ever spent.

For that 10-spot, Horton, a printing shop owner from Jesup, Georgia who has raced Footbrake through three decades, won money and prizes that exceeded $165,000. The loot is part of Summit Racing's SuperSeries of IHRA bracket racing, and Horton was declared the series winner after tallying a 91-percent win record at home track Hinesville Raceway Park, an eighth-mile track off Highway 84 on the Liberty-Long county line, about an hour's drive from his home.

"I feel great, ecstatic," Horton said. "It really feels good for this 47-year-old man to beat all those kids out there." Horton was declared the Summit SuperSeries world champ after his win record was counted. The SuperSeries is a series of bracket races for IHRA-member tracks that determined the winningest racer entered in the series. It was open for competitors in IHRA's Top, Mod, Comp and Motorcycle bracket classes in the April through September 2002 season, and it awarded the grand prize of $110,000 in cash from Summit Racing to the winner.

Horton received not only that, but also a new 40th anniversary Pontiac Grand Prix GTP, a 555 cubic inch racing engine from Reher-Morrison Racing of Texas, a gold ring plus a Buell Blast Sport motorcycle. It is the biggest win of his long bracket racing career.

Remarkable, yes -- that's one of the biggest purses we've ever heard about in either bracket OR drag racing -- but what is more remarkable is that Horton lost his left leg in a motorcycle accident when he was a teenager. He races solely with his right foot on the brake and gas pedals, and without the luxury of a tachometer shift light or any rev limiters. "I have two pedals in my car and a shifter, and that's it," he says.

Horton likes to say that he has won track championships through four decades, at five different tracks, in four different classes and through two different states, with 700 wins to his credit. Now he counts this Summit SuperSeries as his first world win.

"I feel lucky. Lucky and happy," he told us. The $10 he spent in April at Hinesville was to sign up for the SuperSeries, as many other competitors all over the country did. With that entry fee, Horton was assigned a special series number -- his was HX97, the "H" for Hinesville and the "X" for the SuperSeries -- and he competed in the Footbrake class at Hinesville for the season. He figures he won 12 times, which gave him a 91-percent win average at the track. That was good enough to win the world points series in all of IHRA-land.

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