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Pat
Musi’s Rise to Dominance in Pro Mod Competition
PITTSBORO, N.C. January 21, 2015: If Pat Musi Racing
Engines wasn’t a household name among racers before
2014, it certainly is now. Although Musi has been a
successful businessman and racer for decades, racking
up a slew of awards and championships, 2014 may have
been the greatest standout year of his career. Pat
Musi Racing Engines won championships in nearly every
major professional Pro Mod organization. Jason Harris
had a dominating year in the new Professional Drag
Racers Association, storming Pro Nitrous and securing
his first Pro Mod Championship. Tommy Franklin
finished second to Harris in PN points with the PDRA,
but was not to be outdone with the Extreme Outlaw Pro
Mods, winning four events in 2014 en route to being
crowned EOPM Champ. Finally, Rickie Smith went
back-to-back, coming out on top for the second year in
a row as NHRA Pro Mod Champion.
Pat Musi’s rise to dominance as the elite Pro Mod
engine builder hasn’t been an overnight success. He
admits that had he not stepped out of the driver’s
seat his company may have never reached this level. He
first opened his speed shop in 1970 in New Jersey. His
engines were put to the test in his own streetcars
where he accumulated eight Pro Street championships
“I was racing a lot my whole career so it was tough to
concentrate on business. I came [to North Carolina]
and decided to take a whole different approach and
focus just on the business,” Musi remembered. His shop
has now been based out of Mooresville, NC for two
years, a move that has been good for business. Musi
also credits his decision to hang up his helmet and
focus solely on his customers as a major component in
the recent years’ successes.
“We’ve really concentrated hard on getting the
business up and going and getting the engine program
to where it is today. I think it’s paid off. I guess
last year was probably our best season ever. I’ve had
way better seasons in my career personally, winning
races, but we’ve never had a career where we’ve
dominated Pro Mod in almost every organization out
there.
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“Sheikh Abdul from Bahrain had this
building here in a three year lease,”
Musi continued, relating how his move
to North Carolina came to be. “They
wanted to get out of it because after
two years it was tough for him to
manage it. We happened to be talking
one day. He knew we’d been wanting to
move to North Carolina for a long
time. He wanted us to take over the
lease, but we wanted to work out a
long term deal. I needed something
solid to be able to make a move like
that. So we worked out a long term
lease, reorganized and moved
everything and here we are.
“I should have done it ten years ago.
The job pool here is better to pick
from. There are so many places to get
parts built. We do everything in house
now except for crankshafts and the
hard parts. The manifolds are built
here and all the work is done here.
The assembly is done here, all the
fabrication. We’re one of the few that
don’t outsource nitrous.”
While most of the work is done in
house at Musi Engines, he is also
quick to credit those with whom he’s
collaborated over the years. “Danny
Jesel with our valve trains- we work
closely together. Richard Maskins now
at Dart builds our cylinder head
program. Edelbrock and the whole deal
with our fuel injection program
deserves mention. It’s come a long
way. Guys are having to put it on now.
They’ve realized it. It’s been key
having people like this involved
throughout the years.”
Although Musi himself has focused
solely on his engine program, his name
is being carried on in competition
through his daughters. Lizzy Musi
earned PDRA Rookie of the Year honors
this season for her remarkable
performance in Pro Nitrous. A
successful driver in her own right,
Lizzy is also President of Musi
Enterprises and the plan is for her to
one day take the reins of running
day-to-day business. Younger sister
Tricia will be stepping into the
spotlight this season as well, getting
her feet wet in Top Sportsman.
“I’m content because I can focus on
the customers,” Musi said of no longer
driving himself. “Tricia will start
out this year and I’m sure she’ll do
well. Lizzy has done a great job, to
place third in just her rookie year
and earn Rookie of the Year. Even
though she’s my daughter, I can say
she earned it. We’ve got good drivers
and that’s a lot of the success of our
engine shop. If you don’t have good
drivers, you can give them an engine,
but if the team is incapable of
winning it can be very frustrating.
We’ve really got a good group of guys
running our stuff. I think at one time
we had 6 out of the top 8 qualifiers
in PDRA.
“The other advantage I think we had is
that I ran fuel injection from ‘96 in
the streetcar days. So I had a leg up
on fuel injection. They all kinda
laughed at us, but now nearly every
team out there has put fuel injection
on. Fuel injection made a hard move
last year. I don’t want to sound like
I’m bragging about it, but I think a
lot of it was because of us and what
we’re doing in Pro Mod. There aren’t
many carburetors left. They’ve had to
make the switch. But I think what we
and Edelbrock want to see is getting
it into the sportsman ranks. Those
guys are a little leary of it, but now
they’re seeing there are no problems
or issues if you get the correct deal.
I expect to see it more and more now
in the sportsman ranks.
“We kinda forced [the Pro Mods] into
fuel injection. But I just sit back
and let my cars do the talking and not
my mouth. That said, I think they did
the talking this year.”
The cars running Musi power certainly
did do a lot of talking in 2014 and
one can be sure they aren’t going
silent anytime soon. “I’ve been quiet
over the winter. My engine competitors
have been out there advertising
engines and doing what they do, but
all I’ve got to say is we’ve been
working all winter. We’re still
working today. We’ll be working on the
weekends. I hope they did their
homework, because if they think we’re
going to start where we left off,
they’re mistaken. We’re not letting
up. I learned that from my NHRA days.
You can’t let up. When you have an
edge, you lose it. It’s real hard to
keep. So we’re constantly working on
it.
“You have to offer a good product. We
can sell someone an engine that with
the right combination will go 3.70s.
Some guys work their whole career and
can’t go 3.70s. So we’re pretty proud
of that. We can give our customers the
best product possible. Everybody gets
the same engine. Some people may think
that Lizzy or other customers get
something better than everybody else,
but we give everybody the same
opportunities and they have to work on
the rest of their combination.”
As Musi Engine competitors fight to
defend their championships in 2015,
Musi continues to look at what it will
take to not only set the competition
bar, but what needs to happen for the
industry as a whole to thrive. He
believes that organizations like the
PDRA are on the right track.
“Sometimes you wonder about [the
future of racing] because you hear of
some of these big teams quitting, but
the doorslammer deal is a big deal,”
he stated. “What I like about the
class is that average guys can compete
against the guys that maybe have a
little more budget. I think this
doorslammer deal is strong. We get
accused of being a high dollar team,
but we’re not. We have a couple of
sponsors that help us and we’re
careful not to take money out of the
business. But if you do it right you
can compete.
“We need to focus and not get caught
up in the drama of what other
organizations do. I really think the
PDRA, for their first year, did a
killer job. Everybody got paid when
they left unlike other deals that
happened. They’ve done everything
right so far.
“I would like to see some rivalries
started,” Musi stressed. “[Other
organizations] kinda miss the boat on
that with this politically correct
stuff, but we’re drag racing. We’re
not being political. I was told that a
long time ago by probably one of the
best promoters - that was Vinny Napp
that owned Englishtown. He died about
ten years ago; we were really pretty
good friends. He told me he’d hire me
to come match race strictly because of
my attitude and antics on the starting
line and what goes on behind the
scene. You need rivalries. Fans want
to see that. They don’t just want two
cars to pull up there, burnout, stage
and go down the track. They want to
hear smack talk and all that.
Unfortunately some of the drivers take
it to heart a little too much. We’re
drag racing - we’re not going to
basket weaving. I think rivalries are
a really good tool to use. I know
they’re my daughters and I’ll probably
catch heat for this, but Lizzy and
Tricia are girls, they’re young, they
have a following. Use that as a
rivalry. These guys are flipping out
when they get beat by a girl.”
Musi’s advice is not untested. The
early years of drag racing saw great
rivalries that exist to this day.
Bringing back that element may have
just the effect Musi and other
business owners are hoping for in the
industry. The best rivalries always
stem from the highest competition and
there’s no doubt that if a rivalry is
to be found in professional eighth
mile competition, Musi Engines will be
right in the thick of it.
For more on the world’s premier eighth
mile drag racing organization visit
www.pdra660.com.
Follow the PDRA:
Facebook,
Twitter,
Instagram,
YouTube.
Photo: Gary Rowe (RaceWorks.com)
(PDRA660.com)
PRESS CONTACT: Lisa Collier
Professional Drag Racers Association
lisa@pdra660.com
704.692.4636
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