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SEEKING RESPECT – AND A TITLE
McSwain Looks to Represent West in AirWerks Pro Street Class in Texas
By DHRAOnline.com staff
Pat McSwain has a couple of goals for the weekend of October 13-14.
One is a national title.
The other is a little respect for the West Coast.
No better way to attain the second, McSwain figures, than to accomplish the first – to win the Diesel Hot Rod Association’s DieselPower! Additives Drag Racing series’ AirWerks Pro Street class national championship, which will be decided in a playoff-style format during the Texas Diesel Nationals at Houston Raceway Park in Baytown, Texas, October 13-14.
McSwain races out of Norco, Cal. He was the 2007 Pro Street West class champion.
He is experienced. He is fast.
And is he looking forward to a chance for the title.
Mostly, he is confident. Very confident.
“We’re going to win,” McSwain told DHRAonline.com recently when discussing the Pro Street run-off at the Texas Diesel Nationals.
McSwain laughed after he said it, but said he does believe he has a solid chance at the national title in October.
“I have a real serious shot at it,” McSwain said. “I have a lot of serious seat time in this truck.”
McSwain ran in two of three events in the West series, winning the AirWerks Pro Street event in Denver.
On Saturday, October 13, he will square off against East runner-up Jimmy Smith in one Pro Street semifinal at the Texas Diesel Nationals. The Smith-McSwain winner will face the winner of another semifinal – featuring East champion Philip Palmer and West runner-up Chris Calkins – in the championship round.
A victory will make Palmer and Stuckey the first team to win back-to-back DHRA Pro Street titles.
This is the first season the DHRA has been divided into East and West divisions, with the organization expanding into the West this season.
“Let’s get honest,” McSwain said. “The West is not exactly the hotbed of diesel activity. The Midwest and the South is really where most of the stuff’s going on. We’re trying to get the addiction to catch on in California.”
Not, McSwain said, an easy task.
“The truth of it is, most of them would rather drink cappuccino and act like their beemers are paid for,” McSwain said.
McSwain, who earned the West title in part because of a victory at Bandimere Speedway in Colorado on July 21, bought his Duramax in 2005 in Las Vegas, and won the DHRA West Coast street drag with it.
In 2006, McSwain said there was no organized diesel competition in the Western United States.
“It was a canceled year,” McSwain said. “Our local track didn’t want to support it. The mechanism wasn’t in place.”
This season, with an opportunity to run diesel on the West Coast, McSwain took full advantage.
McSwain said his fastest time this season was a 10.95-second pass in Bakersfield, Cal., on fuel. He has since made changes on the truck, he said.
“We fully expected to hit by 10.5 by now, which is the index for the class,” McSwain said. “It’s our rookie season with this truck. It’s the heaviest truck in the field. We’ve got to get our ducks in a row.
“One thing about Pro Street watching last year and the year before is it’s every bit as important to survive the race as it is to run fast. Survivors do every bit as well as fast trucks do. If you stretch your truck past its limits and it breaks, you lose. Run your truck close to the limit without breaking – that’s how you win.
“I fully expect to win. We need to run at 10.5, and we will do what’s necessary to do that without – hopefully – breaking parts to do it.”
McSwain’s Duramax, which he runs as a daily driver, has increased power and speed steadily the last two years. It ran in the 16s two years ago, and has gradually increased to where it now runs in the 10s.
The goal is to be fast enough for the Texas Diesel Nationals.
McSwain said it’s an attainable goal.
“Now, we’re going to run 10.5 with it,” McSwain said. “I don’t think we’re going to have any problems running the index. . . . It will be interesting. I’ll be curious to see if anybody else is actually going to drive their truck to the event. Our truck’s going to across country in a trailer, because we have kids. In Colorado, we drove it to the track and back to the hotel even in the pouring rain.
“The truck is actually a daily driver grocery-getter. Everyone on the internet seems to be aiming for Pro Street being a Trailer Queen Class. I don’t own a trailer queen. Everything I have has a purpose to it.
“Even if this truck is faster than a normal delivery truck, it is still primary a delivery truck. It will sit in idle. It will carry heavy weights. It gets 23 miles per gallon. It will not pollute an intersection. It doesn’t make my ears bleed when I rev it up.
“The ticket to win in Pro Street would be to take an S-10, back half it and put a huge freaking nitrous engine it. You’d clobber everybody, but that wouldn’t be me.
“I’d rather do it with 3/4-ton truck.”
Doing that in October could mean a national title, a victory that McSwain said would be more than a personal victory.
“California was the birth place of drag racing back in the 1950s,” McSwain said. “The first organized drag race was in Santa Ana, California. That’s where drag racing started. It’s kind of an honor thing to represent the West against the East because damn it, we started the whole thing.
“We really need to get inclusion for the West and 2007 is a key year for that. We had our first real DHRA event out west, which was the Vegas event.
“We want to make sure the West Coast gets included for future years.”
McSwain Looks to Represent West in AirWerks Pro Street Class in Texas
By DHRAOnline.com staff
Pat McSwain has a couple of goals for the weekend of October 13-14.
One is a national title.
The other is a little respect for the West Coast.
No better way to attain the second, McSwain figures, than to accomplish the first – to win the Diesel Hot Rod Association’s DieselPower! Additives Drag Racing series’ AirWerks Pro Street class national championship, which will be decided in a playoff-style format during the Texas Diesel Nationals at Houston Raceway Park in Baytown, Texas, October 13-14.
McSwain races out of Norco, Cal. He was the 2007 Pro Street West class champion.
He is experienced. He is fast.
And is he looking forward to a chance for the title.
Mostly, he is confident. Very confident.
“We’re going to win,” McSwain told DHRAonline.com recently when discussing the Pro Street run-off at the Texas Diesel Nationals.
McSwain laughed after he said it, but said he does believe he has a solid chance at the national title in October.
“I have a real serious shot at it,” McSwain said. “I have a lot of serious seat time in this truck.”
McSwain ran in two of three events in the West series, winning the AirWerks Pro Street event in Denver.
On Saturday, October 13, he will square off against East runner-up Jimmy Smith in one Pro Street semifinal at the Texas Diesel Nationals. The Smith-McSwain winner will face the winner of another semifinal – featuring East champion Philip Palmer and West runner-up Chris Calkins – in the championship round.
A victory will make Palmer and Stuckey the first team to win back-to-back DHRA Pro Street titles.
This is the first season the DHRA has been divided into East and West divisions, with the organization expanding into the West this season.
“Let’s get honest,” McSwain said. “The West is not exactly the hotbed of diesel activity. The Midwest and the South is really where most of the stuff’s going on. We’re trying to get the addiction to catch on in California.”
Not, McSwain said, an easy task.
“The truth of it is, most of them would rather drink cappuccino and act like their beemers are paid for,” McSwain said.
McSwain, who earned the West title in part because of a victory at Bandimere Speedway in Colorado on July 21, bought his Duramax in 2005 in Las Vegas, and won the DHRA West Coast street drag with it.
In 2006, McSwain said there was no organized diesel competition in the Western United States.
“It was a canceled year,” McSwain said. “Our local track didn’t want to support it. The mechanism wasn’t in place.”
This season, with an opportunity to run diesel on the West Coast, McSwain took full advantage.
McSwain said his fastest time this season was a 10.95-second pass in Bakersfield, Cal., on fuel. He has since made changes on the truck, he said.
“We fully expected to hit by 10.5 by now, which is the index for the class,” McSwain said. “It’s our rookie season with this truck. It’s the heaviest truck in the field. We’ve got to get our ducks in a row.
“One thing about Pro Street watching last year and the year before is it’s every bit as important to survive the race as it is to run fast. Survivors do every bit as well as fast trucks do. If you stretch your truck past its limits and it breaks, you lose. Run your truck close to the limit without breaking – that’s how you win.
“I fully expect to win. We need to run at 10.5, and we will do what’s necessary to do that without – hopefully – breaking parts to do it.”
McSwain’s Duramax, which he runs as a daily driver, has increased power and speed steadily the last two years. It ran in the 16s two years ago, and has gradually increased to where it now runs in the 10s.
The goal is to be fast enough for the Texas Diesel Nationals.
McSwain said it’s an attainable goal.
“Now, we’re going to run 10.5 with it,” McSwain said. “I don’t think we’re going to have any problems running the index. . . . It will be interesting. I’ll be curious to see if anybody else is actually going to drive their truck to the event. Our truck’s going to across country in a trailer, because we have kids. In Colorado, we drove it to the track and back to the hotel even in the pouring rain.
“The truck is actually a daily driver grocery-getter. Everyone on the internet seems to be aiming for Pro Street being a Trailer Queen Class. I don’t own a trailer queen. Everything I have has a purpose to it.
“Even if this truck is faster than a normal delivery truck, it is still primary a delivery truck. It will sit in idle. It will carry heavy weights. It gets 23 miles per gallon. It will not pollute an intersection. It doesn’t make my ears bleed when I rev it up.
“The ticket to win in Pro Street would be to take an S-10, back half it and put a huge freaking nitrous engine it. You’d clobber everybody, but that wouldn’t be me.
“I’d rather do it with 3/4-ton truck.”
Doing that in October could mean a national title, a victory that McSwain said would be more than a personal victory.
“California was the birth place of drag racing back in the 1950s,” McSwain said. “The first organized drag race was in Santa Ana, California. That’s where drag racing started. It’s kind of an honor thing to represent the West against the East because damn it, we started the whole thing.
“We really need to get inclusion for the West and 2007 is a key year for that. We had our first real DHRA event out west, which was the Vegas event.
“We want to make sure the West Coast gets included for future years.”
