From Exotic to Traditional, Ric Fleck has the Experience to be a Pro Boost Hitter

 PITTSBORO, N.C. May 15, 2015: When the world was introduced to Pro Modified competition back in 1990, the 1941 Willys immediately became a cornerstone of the class.

Top racers such as Scotty Cannon, Tommy Mauney, Shannon Jenkins, Mike Ashley, Alan Pittman and many others made their bones behind the wheel of a Willys, and now, a quarter of a century later, the trend continues unabated.

Enter Columbia, South Carolina’s Ric Fleck, who has brought a beautiful example of the classic Willys Pro Mod machine to the PDRA and the Precision Turbo Pro Boost class.

Fleck, 50, is the owner of a steel fabrication and machine shop business in Columbia called LaserForm & Machine, Inc. Although he admits that the business keeps him real busy and is “wide open all the time,” Ric still makes time for his family; wife Donna, daughter Brittni and grandchildren Damian, 8 and Leo, 7.

Fleck also makes time for the other passion in his life, drag racing. He got his start in a rather unusual way, negotiating some uncharted waters on his way to the Pro Mod ranks.
 

“I remember seeing Mike Ashley race a number of years ago with his Gotham City-themed Pro Mod cars and I just loved that. I thought it was the greatest thing. I just had a street car at the time that was equipped with a ProCharger, but I knew that I wanted more. In 2004 I decided to take a step up the ladder and I bought an old Pro Stock car, a Camaro that Don Ness had built. We again went with a ProCharger combination, and we did pretty well around the Southeast with it.

“I progressed from there to a newer chassis built by Mike Floyd Race Cars in Manning, South Carolina, with a Corvette body on it. For that car we went off in a totally different direction. We developed the only, to my knowledge, compounded ProCharger setup where we ran one ProCharger into another. It made really, really good boost but unfortunately it was all R&D at that point. We wanted to be the first to go into the three-second zone in the eighth-mile with a ProCharger-equipped car, which we eventually did, but it was all new technology and we spent lots of time and money on the project, hurting a lot of parts in the process. Since we had accomplished our goal of running in the threes we eventually switched to a Roots blower combination.”

Fleck did the majority of his racing with the Quick 8 Outlaws group, which he was president of at one time. He also won the group’s championship in 2012 on the strength of 11 final round appearances in 13 races.

Unfortunately, Fleck’s Corvette would come to an untimely end a few years after he won the title, as he explained.

“I wrecked the Corvette at Greer Dragway in South Carolina in July of 2014. At that point, with the Quick 8 Outlaws closing down and the realization that the smaller tracks in the Southeast just weren’t able to accommodate today’s really fast cars, I decided to make some major changes.

 “The first thing I did was start to shop around for a replacement for the Corvette. I heard that Kevin Mayer had the ‘Pirate Ship’ ’41 Willys for sale, so I gave him a call. He said that he was getting out of racing, so we made a deal. I took the car to Tommy Mauney in Spartanburg, South Carolina, who originally built the car, and had him drop in a Brad Anderson Hemi with a Chuck Ford blower on it. The combination is actually pretty standard, and that’s the way I planned it; I wanted to go with a setup that had proven to be reliable and strong. A lot of other teams run the same equipment, so if you have a situation at a race when you need a part chances are someone else in the pits will be able to help you out.

“From there we set our sights on the PDRA, because in my opinion there’s just no better place to race. The way the schedule is set up, the tracks they race at and the track prep, well, it’s second to none.

“We went to a couple of PDRA races at the end of last season, just to get our feet wet, because it’s a lot different than the outlaw racing I was used to. This year we got things started in Texas, where we had a couple of minor problems. We have things sorted out now, or at least we feel we’re getting them sorted out, and we’re looking forward to a successful season.”

At the recent PDRA Cajun Nationals, the third race of the 2015 season, Fleck qualified No. 8 with a best pass of 3.903-seconds at 190.83 mph and went to the quarterfinals on race day.

As so many racers are, Fleck is primarily self-funded, but he has a solid support team around him, including his family and crew.

“I do most of this out of my own pocket, but I have a lot of help. Darrell Makins, owner of Under Pressure Performance in Spartanburg, South Carolina, has been with me since 2007. He did our entire motor program and he did all the tuning as well up until a couple of years ago. He still supports us in a big way.

“My crew chief is my brother-in-law Devon Barrick, and I have to say that ninety per cent of the car is him as far as the maintenance and tuning goes. The other guys on the crew are Doug Price and Chris Krug, and together I believe we have a strong team capable of putting a winning car on the track just about every weekend.

“Thanks to them all for everything they do, and thanks to the PDRA for giving us such a great place to race.”

ABOUT THE PDRA
Based in Pittsboro, North Carolina, the Professional Drag Racers Association is the top sanctioning body in the United States for the sport of eighth-mile drag racing. The PDRA’s professional categories include Pro Extreme, Pro Nitrous, Pro Boost, and Pro Extreme Motorcycle along with Top Sportsman, Top Dragster, Pro Jr. Dragster, and Top Jr. Dragster. The 2015 PDRA schedule consists of ten national events. For more on the world’s premier eighth mile drag racing organization visit www.pdra660.com. Follow the PDRA: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.


Article by Brian Wood


 Photo: Gary Rowe / RaceWorks.com / PDRA660.com


PRESS CONTACT: Lisa Collier
Professional Drag Racers Association
lisa@pdra660.com