From there he knew just what to do – he qualified No.3 with a best pass of 3.58-seconds at 211.10 mph to set the stage for what was to be a real big weekend. During eliminations Snider extracted a measure of revenge in the first round as he took out Randell Reid, the man who took the win a month earlier at Martin, Michigan. Following wins over Terry Leggett and Badir Ahli, Snider found himself facing No. 4 qualifier Tommy D'Aprile. After posting nearly identical reaction times, D'Aprile ran 3.60 at 208.30 mph, but it was Snider's 3.56 at 209.95 that took the win home to Alabama.
It was a fitting result for the 39-year-old heating and cooling business owner, a man who knew his way around an engine bay and a tool box long before he ever started to drive.

“I started working with my grandfather, who was an auto mechanic, when I was about eight-years-old,” Snider said. “He taught me a lot of tricks of the trade, and I always enjoyed being with him and learning everything that I could. I always remembered that he told me to work smarter, not harder, and that has stuck with me all of my life. My dad messed around a lot with cars, too, so I guess I just came by it naturally.”

Snider served with the U.S. Army between 1993 and 1999, but he found time near the end of his hitch to kick off his drag-racing career.

“Around 1996 I started doing a little grudge racing, and from there I graduated to faster cars,” he said. “By the time I got out of the Army I had an ex-Pro Stock car, and in 2001 I built my first Pro Mod car. Once I got into Pro Modified it just got worse and worse, and I kept going faster and faster to get to where we are today with the PDRA.”

The car that he wheels today certainly fits into the “faster and faster” category. His 1963 Corvette, which was built by friend and fellow competitor Joey Martin, is a car that has an interesting background.

“I sold my former car to a guy in Sweden, and while I was trying to figure out what I wanted to build next I found out that Joey was going to build a new lightweight version of Toney Russell’s LowMad ’55 Chevy Nomad,” Snider said. “I decided to sit out a season to see how the lightweight LowMad was going to work. The car ended up working real good, so we took some ideas off of it and went ahead and built the Corvette during the 2011-2012 offseason. It ended up being so light that the whole 2012 season we struggled with it. I only went to two ADRL races that year, and spent a lot of time moving the weight around in the car to try to get it to settle down.

“Fortunately, it started to pick up last year, and it just got more and more consistent as we slowly figured out what it needed. The big breakthrough came last winter when I got a call from Sheikh Khalid Al Bin Hamad Thani inviting me to take part in the six-race Arabian Drag League Series in Dohar, Qatar. I took the opportunity to do that because I saw it as a way to get things sorted out in the perfect air and perfect track conditions in Qatar. You can test six days a week down there – it’s unbelievable. It paid off big time because I found a lot of things on the car that I needed to change.”

Making the changes paid off in other ways, too, as Snider broke Alex Hossler’s winning Pro Extreme streak during the third race of the Arabian series, qualifying No. 1 with a mark of 3.561. In the final, Snider outperformed Hossler with an .028-initiated 3.580, 212.26 pass to Hossler’s mark of .090 3.587, 211.46.

In PDRA action, Snider’s well-sorted-out Corvette has been there all season long, as mentioned, taking a runner-up in Michigan and the big win in Virginia in two consecutive races.

“The car has been running 3.50s all year, and has been in contention at every event,” Snider said. “We knew we just had to make some minor tweaks, and doing that paid off with the win in Virginia.”

Motivational power under the hood of Snider’s ‘Vette comes from a 521-cubic-inch Brad Anderson Hemi with NRE heads, which come out of Australia, and a PSI screw blower. A Lencodrive transmission and Neal Chance converter take care of getting the power to the pavement.

As so many racers know these days this is not an inexpensive sport, and going it alone is just not an option for the many of them, Snider included.
“I have to say that these days it’s just hard to run a business and run a race car at the level everybody is running at if you don’t have sponsorship,” he said. “Fortunately I have had a couple of people come on board this year to help out, and I sure appreciate them. Neal Wantye has been a major backer through his Flagship Transportation company, and Ken Juszczyk from Motorsports Unlimited has supplied valve train parts, springs, retainers, and a lot more. Marty Chance, from Neal Chance converters, has been with me since 2007 and is a great supporter, as is Paul Sieli of STT Safety Equipment, who provides seat belts and chutes for me.

“Even with all of the help these folks give me it’s still tough to come up with the thousands and thousands of dollars it takes to be competitive at that level,” Snider said. “My goal this season was to do well and be consistent on a race-by-race basis and show potential sponsors that we were able to go out there and win races. Hopefully by doing that, I will be able to hit the 2015 season with more sponsor names on the car.

"I know that without a doubt the only way I can get to that point is to have the best possible help in the pits, and I know for sure that that’s just what I have,” Snider said. “Jimmy Crenshaw, Michael Elsberry and Steve Holloway are the guys who make the car go down the track each and every time, and they are the most important members of the team. They work real hard and get little recognition. They get the car turned around between rounds and that allows me to study the data on the computer to see what changes I might have to make. Having them there takes a lot off my mind because I have total faith that the job is being done right. These guys do what they have to do and I just drive the car. I have the easy job."

Photo Credits: Gary Rowe / RaceWorks.com / PDRA66.com
Article by: Brian Wood