Dale Wilson is a bracket racing "retiree" who was editor of Bracket Racing USA from 1991 to its demise in 1998. His latest dream is to return to racing in either a front-engine dragster, a slow motorcycle or the family Mazda wagon. Everything else he has is for sale.

GET A WAGON!

By Dale Wilson

Finally, after all that preaching I've done over the attributes of racing a station wagon, someone listens!

That someone is Chip Johnson of Fayetteville, North Carolina, nicknamed "the Legend" for his exploits in several Footbrake cars, to wit, his Cheerwine Soft Drinks-sponsored '68 Nova in which he won the B&M Racer Appreciation Series Footbrake crown in 1999 and the IHRA world bracket finals in 2001, plus nine track championships spread between his home track, Fayetteville Drag Strip, Rockingham Dragway and others.

Johnson, a father four times over and son of a racer (Art Johnson, his dad, passed away on the day Chip won the IHRA crown) has always had his heart set on a Stock Eliminator car, and if the truth be known, his heart was really into his Nova, a darn good bracket car but one that would have to be considerably reworked for the Stocker wars.

"Get a wagon," I'd tell Johnson, basing my belief that a station wagon would make the best Footbraker around, and that included Stock and Super Stock eliminators. "Think of all that overhang on the back end. Think of all those windows. Think of all the fun you'll have when you show up in a station wagon."

Dale Wilson has been racing his own station wagon for a while. Now he has company.

Johnson went out and got his wagon.

Specifically, it's a '79 Malibu wagon that once belonged to Stock racer Cliff Smallwood, who ran it in IHRA Crate Motor Stock the last couple of years in the H/ and I/ classes. Johnson talked things over with his father-in-law, Frank Celentano of Tracy, California (talk about a long-range partnership!), who agreed to put up some money for the wagon and leave all the driving to Chip. Not that Celentano doesn't really know what straightline racing is all about. "He raced in the 1960s," Johnson said. "When he comes here to visit, he usually takes his rental car to the track and races Trophy Street."

Why a wagon? "To be honest, I wanted another Nova, but there were none out there, so we found this car, and Cliff had won a national event with it last year, so we knew it was a competitive car," Johnson said. "But since buying it, I don't understand why I never wanted one before. The car is awesome. It will hook in a car wash. Everybody will complain about 60-foot times being inconsistent, but this one is deadly every pass. It's mainly because of the weight transfer. We've had a little problem racing quarter-mile, and we were attributing it to the weather, the wind and all, but the last quarter-mile race we went to, the car varied four-thousandths at 60 feet, eight at 330 and a hundredth at the eighth-mile in four passes. It's there."

The Malibu wagon fits perfectly into IHRA's I/Crate Motor Stock, but it will also go in H/ as well. It has a 330-horse 350 GM crate motor bought in the crate from Bobby Murray Chevrolet in Raleigh, with help from dealership tech man Scott Tilley, who recommended the pair change only the camshaft to a Lunati grind. With it, Johnson has won a Stock/Super Stock combo race at Moorsville Dragway at an IHRA points race in late July, plus two or three local bracket races.

Johnson and wife Lara recently went to the IHRA Empire Nationals in New York, which was a big enough trip for two bracket racers from North Carolina. And yes, it would be nice to report that they did great up there, but they didn't. "I got beat first round because the air changed so drastically and I didn't dial up because, stupid me, I'm still living in an eighth-mile world and having to relearn this quarter-mile racing. I had him (his competitor) beat on the tree but was nine numbers off the dial in."

He has had some stupid stuff happen to him, like a starter breaking before first round and a rocker arm stud breaking in the water box. "I've been to three national events and got beat first round at every one. Now I'm tenth in our division, with one race to go, and I feel like I can move up to fifth or sixth, and I have three national events to go to. I feel like we can get a top 10 in the nation," Johnson said. His own company, Pocket Change Vending of Fayetteville, plus Cheerwine, help sponsor the wagon. It has gone a best of 11.81, about six-tenths under the "I" index.

Johnson is now sold on IHRA Crate Motor Stock. " I love it. It's the best thing they've done since they had the .90 classes years ago, because it lets a guy like me to be able to afford to race," he said.

He ran Stock Eliminator years ago with his dad, and it's something that he has always wanted to get back into but never had the opportunity. When he won the IHRA bracket finals, he got a gold card, "and I said it's a shame to have it and not be able to use it," he told his father-in-law. "So we kicked around the idea of Stock and Hot Rod, but I didn't want to run electronics. I'm a footbrake racer. I wanted to stay in Footbrake, but I wanted to do something different." A wagon was it.

One dilemma remains: what to call it. "I want to paint it red and put 'Little Red Wagon' on the side because my daddy had an Opel wagon Stocker in the 1970s named that. Lara doesn't want to paint it red, so we'll put something else on it. I had a Monza named 'Nuts & Bolts,' but my kids now call it the 'Draggin' Wagon.' We were at Dunn-Benson Drag Strip one night and the announcer started calling it that. So who knows what we're going to call it," Johnson said.

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