went to the grudge racing scene because everybody ’ s slower and I couldn ’ t keep up in class racing . We ended up winning the event – think I went like a 4.16 with ‘ Apocalypse ’. It wasn ’ t for a lot of money . I think it only paid like five or six grand , but the biggest reason we did it was to prove to people that we belong anywhere .
There ’ s a lot of haters out there , a lot of people who don ’ t give us credit , but we stay doing what we gotta do , and that ’ s all it takes . I don ’ t have to hire a tuner to come in and tune my stuff . Dad don ’ t have to hire a driver to come in and do it . If we want to get up and go racing , I don ’ t have to
May 2018
MIDNIGHT OIL
Primetime grudge races across the Southeast often mean late-night maintenance and celebrations in the Swanstrom pit area . call nobody and make sure I ’ m able to do anything or get permission to do something . Whenever I ’ m ready , I ’ m ready .
Is tuning something that interests you , or do you leave that to your dad ?
I help out a little bit , but he really handles that part . Whenever the car needs to come into the pit , I do all the servicing . I do have a crew : Joey Willard , Sean Burton , Dennis Rogers , Roderick Gregg , Tyler ( Swanstrom ) and my main man , our little crew chief , Bryan Geisler . They ’ ve been with me since the start . I keep my team nice and small . Whenever the car comes into the pits , we turn it all around while Dad goes inside the motorhome and goes over the tuneup . I ’ ve gotten to the point now where I can set them guys loose and they can turn the car around and I go up in the motorhome with Dad and we just talk about what we ’ re going to do for the next outing or next race . We come up with a solution and I go out there and make the changes and that ’ s it . Both of our inputs are put in before we go out there and make a deal .
Another area where you work closely with you dad is in organizing the No-Time Shootouts at Duck X Productions ’ Lights Out and No Mercy races at South Georgia Motorsports Park in Valdosta , Georgia . How did all of that start ?
We ’ ve always talked about throwing our own race , but I ’ ve always told Dad as much as we work and as much as we race , it would be hard to do our own race . I always go to Lights Out just to watch the race because I like to watch the Radial vs . the World guys . Donald Long , he lives 2 miles from my house – him and my dad grew up together . Me and Dad were talking about doing our own race and we decided to ask Donald if he ’ d be alright if we brought a 29 / 315 Extreme No-
Time class , meaning there ’ s only a couple rules to it . There ’ s No-Time cars only , any chassis you want as long as it ’ s got doors and it ’ s on a 315 tire or smaller . He thought about it for a couple days , called us back and we told him we could get him 16 cars . We got 16 cars to commit . Actually , 18 cars but the two alternates weren ’ t able to race . We ran the first race . Donald actually put five grand of his own money on top of the pot , so I think the pot was for $ 37,000 . We ran right behind Radial vs . the World . I tell everybody , the grudge game ain ’ t no slouch . Those are Radial vs . the World-caliber cars with no time on the board . We ran the first race and everybody seemed to like it .
Within one hour after the race being over with , we had a guy from RPM Transmissions , he called Donald and said he wanted to sponsor five grand for the following race in February . Donald called us , we called the racers and they all said they wanted to do it again , so we went ahead and put the race on at Lights Out . Then Donald came and asked us if we wanted to run a Sweet 16 No-Time Shootout at his Sweet 16 race for Radial vs . the World . We only got 12 cars to sign up for that , but we were still able to run at the Sweet 16 .
What is it about no-time racing and the Lights Out spectacle that works so well together ?
The reason we were able to get 16 cars in the No-Time thing and it was so successful is because of the environment . That race is so big that everyone wants to be there . Everybody wants to be a part of it . That ’ s why it wasn ’ t that hard to get 16 cars . Hell , we had 16 people with $ 2,000 deposits put up within 24 hours . And we ’ re going to continue to do it . We ’ re going to have another shootout at No Mercy in October . Same rules , same $ 2,000 buy-in .
DragIllustrated . com | Drag Illustrated | 77