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In our salute to John Force's 86th career NHRA national
event win, it was also mentioned that we DRO-ites thought Pat Austin
was the heir apparent in eventual career wins what with his 71 trophies
(we actually said 70) at the tender age of 35. Jennifer Chestnut recently
interviewed the most successful Sportsman racer of all-time as he
prepared for the upcoming NHRA Pontiac Excitement Nationals in Columbus,
Ohio, and we learned a great deal about his viewpoint, stand, and
method on all things drag racing. While it was not the thrust of the
interview, we learned he may be the heir apparent. It developed that
there are admirable things in Pat's life that make a record quest
like that a seemingly secondary consideration. First and foremost
is his family, which is the most successful family drag racing effort
other than the Gliddens, and everything else just falls into second
place or lower.
We at DRO normally don't run, for lack of a better term, "press
release" copy, but Ms. Chestnut did such a fine job of beaming in
on one of a handful of truly great natural drivers (not to mention
championship teams) in drag racing history that we thought it was
worth your checking out. Soooo.. check it out.
- CM
During the last month you won your 70th and 71st career national event
victories. How big of a boost is that going into the second half of
2000?
"The year started out good with the first race we went to in Phoenix
when we won there. We felt the ProMax Pontiac Firebird had been running
really well since the middle of last season, at the end of last year
and coming into this season. We felt things were starting to come
together, but it takes a little bit of chemistry to be able to keep
that momentum and confidence going. What I mean by that is when we
come back in between qualifying and eliminations, there are guys on
the team that know what they're supposed to do. We help each other
out in certain areas and everything just clicks together. It's a good
experience when you have it that way. You can lose races by things
falling off your car, by things not being right, and the preparation
not being as good as it needs to be. I'm telling you, in between rounds
in qualifying and eliminations things are just bang, bang, bang, bang.
The decisions we have to make to get the car to go a little faster
or quicker are easier when you have more time, and more focus on being
able to look at how to make it go faster or quicker. When you get
your work done faster, and everything is clicking, it makes it that
much more enjoyable."
And that keeps you more focused as well when you go up to the starting
line. "Absolutely. We have the confidence in each other that if somebody
gets tied up with a job that isn't going right in between rounds (when
we're subject to 75 minute rounds now), that another guy can come
in and pick up on what he should be doing when he is stuck on a problem.
Terry Major, Joe Severance, Rick Gratzer and my brother are the crew.
They do an outstanding job and it gives us a lot of confidence. When
the car runs good, the confidence just continues to build and build.
When you go up to race the next competitor you have confidence in
what you are doing and driving, and that makes it enjoyable."
Do you feel like you struggled a little bit last year in that respect?
"No, I think to be quite honest with you when we went to the two-car
team, which is the Top Fuel Car and the Federal Mogul Funny Car, it
broke up the chemistry between my father, my brother and me. Honestly,
it wasn't back until probably the beginning of last year. Towards
the middle of the year it was back and it continues to build. My father
(Walt Austin), and brother and I have raced together for 16 years,
have won a lot of races and have had a lot of help along the way with
other crew members. Mike (brother) is capable of doing anything on
the car. But right now he doesn't have to do that and is helping out
in other ways such as reading the track conditions, and analyzing
the competition's cars. My dad does anything the team asks him to
do. But he is more at an overseeing stage, and makes all the tuning
decisions. He's the ambassador of the team and has been known as being
one of the top alcohol tuners in NHRA history. When that got all broken
up and we went to the two-car team, we each had to branch out - I
went to the Fuel Car with Mike and Dad stayed with the Alcohol car.
We had to hire extra people which we never had to do before. The conversations
weren't there anymore between the three of us. I compare it to Joe
Montana, Jerry Rice and Roger Craig-they clicked when they were together,
but when they went to different teams they weren't as effective. We're
trying to get that back. Fortunately we're young, and in a sport that
we can race for a long period of time, and I think we will be fine.
Do to the overwhelming schedule, and the way we run the cars today,
it takes more than just the three of us. It takes two or three other
crew members now and we're fortunate to have Rick Gratzer, who is
full time and does the maintenance part of it. We also have two other
guys (Terry Major, Joe Severance) that have full-time jobs that fly
in to help us on weekends and they do a great job. They're very good
at what they do, and we all get along great."
That all goes back to the chemistry factor as well. "Absolutely,
and it's all of us wanting to be there and having the same goals.
You know you have a good crew when you lose and they aren't happy.
They start thinking about what we could've done better, so when you
see them get upset, as a driver, you know you have a good crew."
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