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Pat Musi

Words by Ian Tocher
Photos by Jeff Burk and Ian Tocher

With several Pro Street world championships to his credit and as owner of Pat Musi Performance in Carteret, NJ, Pat Musi is one of the most intimidating and influential doorslammer racers in the country.

Musi began his driving career straight out of high school as an 18-year-old street racer on Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, driving a 427-equipped '69 Corvette. He soon took to the strip at Englishtown, NJ, and ran B-Modified for a couple of years before deciding in 1974 that he wanted to go heads-up racing in Pro Stock. He won three times in IHRA Pro Stock competition, but never did manage an NHRA win. His best season there came in 1981 when he finished fourth in points.

By the mid-'80s, Musi says it just got too expensive to keep up in Pro Stock without major sponsorship, so he quit racing full-time to build up his business. In 1996, he entered the growing organized street car racing scene and started making history.

This year, after suffering a serious crash in the first event of the season,
Musi has already clinched the NSCA/NMCA Pro Street championship and appears poised to do the same in the new PRO Fastest Street Car series. Late in August, he spoke with DRO about his career, his competitors, and his future.

DRO: What's the appeal of Pro Street for you? Is it just the best fit for your business?

PM: Well, it is the best for my business, but I'm the kind of guy who's not going to go out shorthanded. In other words, if I don't have the budget to do as well as we can do, I'm not going to attempt it. I mean, I think we're capable of running NHRA Pro Stock. That is, I think I can crew chief a car and drive a car as well as anyone out there and we can do whatever we need to do, provided we had the budget. But I'm not going to go out there handicapped by budget, it's just not my way of racing. If I'm going to race, I have to know that we have enough to go out there and be competitive. I refuse to handicap myself with financing.

DRO: Do you maintain any kind of active search for sponsorship to run Pro Stock again?

PM: Not really, because that would take a whole different approach. I mean,
I would pretty much have to give up my business because it would take a full-time crew. It's just so blown out of proportion now that it would take a whole different way of thinking and we're not thinking that far ahead.

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