April 10, 2014
FRANKIE TAYLOR ROCKS DOORSLAMMER WORLD WITH EPIC BLAST
Just imagine what Frankie Taylor could do with new equipment.

Taylor, he of the unruly hair and infectious grin, has earned the well-deserved nickname of “Madman” because of his hard-charging, never-say-lift driving style. Despite the fact that he doesn’t have the kind of budget many of his peers in the Pro Mod ranks have, Taylor has achieved enviable results throughout his career, depending on family and friends to help him with all aspects of his racing program.
Undoubtedly his greatest achievement came during the recent PDRA Spring Open, the new organization’s inaugural event, which was hosted by North Carolina’s historic Rockingham Dragway. During the last qualifying session for the NAS Pro Extreme category Saturday Taylor traversed the eighth-mile distance in a mind-blowing 3.48 seconds at 216.97 mph, the pass shattering the vaunted four-second barrier for the first time in
doorslammer history.
 
As amazing as the feat was, and it truly was amazing, the fact that Taylor accomplished it behind the wheel of a five-year-old car running on second-hand slicks and propelled by a basically untested back-up engine takes his accomplishment to a whole new level.
“Yeah – it was a pretty cool deal,” said Taylor in his soft Texas drawl, proving that not only can he drive the wheels off a race car but he’s also a master of the understatement.
“We were actually running a back-up engine that had been upgraded over the winter,” Taylor said. “By the end of the weekend we still only had six passes on it. We ran the PDRA’s first 50 with a pass of 3.599 during Friday night’s first qualifying session, and then we sat out the two early sessions Saturday. We knew we had to step it up for the last session, and I guess it worked out pretty good. My brother Paul, who is my crew chief, got pretty aggressive with the tune-up and it took everything we threw at it. The good news is that there was still a lot left; it looks like it could have gone quicker than that 3.48.”

Again, more understatement, and some scary news for the competition as well as the 2014 season unfolds
“One of the big changes we made was to put Noonan heads on both of our engines – the one we ran in North Carolina and the new one that’s sitting in our shop,” said Taylor by way of analyzing his tremendous performance at Rockingham. “I’m not saying that was all it was, but it sure woke things up quite a bit, you know what I’m saying? They helped our program in different areas. They sure fixed a lot of stuff.”
Another piece of high-tech gear incorporated by Taylor is the new Profiler Wheel Speed Management System from Davis Technologies. In addition to contributing to the quickest run in eighth-mile doorslammer history, the Davis Profiler was also instrumental in another record-setting achievement, the quickest pass in quarter-mile doorslammer competition laid down by John Stanley when he tripped the timers in 5.64 seconds last fall at the Street Car Super Nationals.
True to form, Taylor commented on the new traction control system by simply stating that “It seems to help quite a bit, you know what I’m saying?” Well, Frankie, it’s a safe bet that a whole lot of people know what you’re saying about now.
As for the second-hand slicks, that’s a story all on its own.
“I asked the Hoosier guys if they had any used tires and they said they didn’t have anything at all. Luckily, Mike Recchia heard that I was looking for some used slicks and he said he had a set he had taken off his car and they only had four or five runs on them. I thought they sounded pretty darn good to me, so we made a deal. Heck, they were just like new, but they had been on his car all winter and he wanted to replace them. After we ran the 3.48 he came over to me and said ‘Well, I guess they weren’t too bad after all!”
All this and a well-seasoned hot rod to boot.
“Our car is a 2005 Corvette C5 that Larry Jeffers Race Cars built back in 2010,” said Taylor. “It has quite a few seasons on it but it has been a real good car. We won an ADRL championship with it the first year we had it out, and we were runners-up twice for the Arabian Drag Racing League championship in Qatar. We did do some updates to it over the winter, putting new heim joints in it and having the chassis powdercoated.”
In addition to what he was able to accomplish with less-than-spanking-new equipment, the story of Taylor’s remarkable weekend had plenty of other interesting subplots, too. One of these was the fact that he only ran two of the allotted four qualifying sessions in an attempt to conserve parts. He made the most of his two attempts, however, becoming the first PDRA competitor in the 3.5-second zone with his Friday night elapsed time mark of 3.599 before Saturday’s memorable event.
“I guess that wasn’t too shabby. We were first to the .50s with the PDRA and now we're first to the .40s," Taylor said. "I had a feeling we were on to something Saturday night, so I let everyone else run ahead of me in that last qualifying session. I figured that way if we did run a .40 the others would have had a chance to do it before us. We thought that if it did work then the others couldn’t say I cheated them out of a shot to be the first to do it. We let them have their shot at it and then we went out and luckily made it happen.”
Among the highs Taylor and his crew experienced at Rockingham there was also a low as he went out in the first round of eliminations against the No. 16 qualifier, Kuwait-based Anthony DiSomma.
“We hated going out in the first round,” Taylor said. “We calmed the engine down a little bit and it didn’t let the motor jump up like we needed it to. It brought the tire speed up and it just went out there and tried to shake. The traction control tried to catch it but it just couldn’t. It was just one of them things. DiSomma did what he had to do in the other lane and he laid down a good pass. We just didn’t live up to our part of the bargain. The car was trying to go quicker than the .48 but we calmed it down and it just wasn’t having it.”
All in all, however, Taylor and his crew were thrilled with the entire Rockingham experience.
“It was a fantastic event. I have to say truthfully that is was a lot more than I expected,” Taylor said. “Most all of the classes were full and the competition was phenomenal. There were lots of records set and career best runs made and we were really happy to be a part of it.
“We can’t wait to get to Georgia now for the next race because we want to test our new engine there. It has the NRE heads, a PSI screw blower just like the one we ran at Rockingham, a newly designed camshaft and state-of-the-art pistons. We’re looking to get another 100 to 150 horsepower out of it, so should be able to run quicker than 3.48 under good conditions.
“We’re going to do our best to make it to all eight of the races,” Taylor said. “We’ll keep going until the money runs out and then we’ll play it by ear after that. Right now most of our racing comes out of our own pockets, but we do get quite a bit of help from Stupid Fast, Snap-On and Process Manufacturing. Lots of thanks have to go to my wife Cindy, my brother Paul, Benji Lapp, Andrew Alepa, Robert Reider, Todd Moyer and Mike Recchia.

“I think this is a great series and we want to support it as much as we can, The people behind it are the best in the business, you know what I’m saying, but I have to admit that it sure was fun stealing their thunder when we ran that 40. I love racing Jason Scruggs because he’s one bad dude, and I really get a kick out of messing with him.”

There isn’t much doubt that Frankie “Madman” Taylor is going to mess with a whole lot of people before the 2014 season is over.

 Photo: Gary Rowe / RaceWorks.com