Phil Hutchison Drag Racing Action Online

Images Geoff Sculley and Phil Hutchison

After years of planning, Fuel Altered Chaos made its debut at Tucson Dragway November 14-15. The original track, southeast of Tucson had a history of featuring some of the biggest Fuel Altered shows in the country and the newer Tucson Dragway was the perfect venue for the inaugural event.

CHAOS founder and president Chris Graves said, “We’ve wanted to do Fuel Altered Chaos for years, we just needed the right partner and venue. We found that in Jim Hughes and Tucson Dragway. His facility is perfect for CHAOS and the location is perfect.”

And the cars and fans showed up. The stands were packed all weekend with over three dozen of the errant Altereds on the grounds. And to keep the fans on their feet, after each run, the cars and drivers towed back to the pits pulling their cars down in front of the stands to add a touch of nostalgia to the event.

Fuel  Altereds, unlike their Fuel Funny car brethren, are a pure throwback to 70’s drag racing with unique car names, long smokey and sideways burnouts along with back up girls (BUGs) adding to the show.

After three rounds of qualifying on Friday, the fields were set for Saturday’s action. The race, modeled  after the Funny Car Chaos style of setting the fields with the quickest eight cars in the ‘A’ field and the next 16 cars going into the ‘B’ and ‘C’ fields. The remaining cars made up the ‘D’ field which ran Chicago style with the quickest two coming back to determine the ‘D’ winner.

Qualifying #1 in the CP-Carrillo  ‘A’ field was the ’23 T “SheepHerder” with Las Vegas driver Kyle Hough behind the wheel. Hough grabbed the top spot with a quick 3.81 @ 202 MPH.

Right behind Hough was longtime Chaos veteran Lyle Greenberg’s “Cone Hunter’s” 3.852.

The entire ‘A’ field was solidly in the three second range with Jim Maroney in the “Blind Faith” car 8th with a 3.995.

Crowd favorite and recent Bakersfield winner, Johnny West had his “Plan A” car in the #4 spot with a 3.937. With his history in the Fuel Altered wars, West was also chosen Grand Marshall of the event.

Qualifying, of course wouldn’t be without sideways and errant cars throughout all three rounds. The only major mishap of the weekend was Tom Padilla driving the “Mob” car from Washington State tagging the wall during Friday’s night session that totaled the beautiful car and sent Padilla to the hospital with broken ribs and a concussion. Padilla was released and was back at the track for Saturday’s finals.

The   CP Carrillo ‘A’ Field first round had its share of upsets with low qualifier Hough losing to Jimmy Kelso in the Speed Sport car. Hough had a troubled five second pass as Kelso sped to a 3.945 win.

Also making an early exit was Johnny West who lost on a hole shot with a better 3.941 losing to the 3.993 of Maroney in the Blind Faith car. Maroney might have won the battle but lost the war as on the top end, Maroney’s car had a huge engine explosion after dropping a valve taking the blower off the motor and putting the Phoenix driver out of action.

Greenberg, who set Low ET of the event at a 3.798 in his win over Colin Thomas’ Twister Sister in R1 along with Kelso and Donnie Massey’s “Showtime” moved on to R2 with Greenberg getting a bye due to Maroney’s not being able to return.

The finals had Kelso up against Greenberg with Kelso’s mid four second pass losing to Greenberg’s consistent 3.964.

After his historic win at the inaugural event, Greenberg said, “Everybody that knows me knows I am a drag race history geek. Even though I wasn’t racing fuel altereds at the time the old Tucson track had the Fuel Altered Nationals in the mid-1970s, I was a huge fan of the Winged Express, Rat Trap, Magnificent 7, Nasty Benjamin and many others.”

“When I decided to build a nitro car in 2017, the plan was always to set it up as a fuel altered to fulfill my dream of running one. To win the A Field at the largest fuel altered race ever held fulfills a dream that only hit my radar when Chris and Tera Graves and Jim Hughes created this event.”

Greenberg adds, “I truly feel like the luckiest guy in the world, having won the March Meet twice, the A Field at the Funny Car Classic at Ennis and now the A Field at Fuel Altered Chaos!”

“We came to the race with a plan to race the track and let the chips fall where they may. My crew was flawless all weekend and we made some good tune-up and tactical calls. We only had the heads off once all weekend (after qualifying) and only scuffed one piston. What a dream weekend!!!”

While the ‘A’ field was heads up with no index, the Western Differential ‘B’ field had a 3.80 second index keeping competition even.

After two rounds of competition, the finals went down to the ’32 Bantam “Rust Bucket” of Mitch Bowen from Flagstaff AZ. against the “Complete Chaos”  ’48 Fiat of Kurt Duckworth who towed out west all the way from West Virginia.

Duckworth, who had won in competition at the Funny Car Chaos at Maryland International in the past had been in the high three second bracket throughout eliminations and had the edge going into the finals against Bowen. At the green Bowen got the better light and sped to a 4.246 as Duckworth’s blown Fiat crossed the centerline in the loss despite a better 4.183 run.

After his ‘B’ win Bowen said, “Our team suffered the loss of a crew chief two years back. Rick Monn was my partner on the car as well as our friend. We entered our first Chaos with the intention of putting a trophy on the wall.

“Since then, the team has struggled to get its footing and now, together we won our first Chaos event. All of us couldn’t be happier. Thanks to Chris and Tera plus all the support our team has received from all.”

The Driven Oil ‘C’ featured some of most competitive racing of the weekend with the “Krazy T” of Reed Taylor from Las Vegas up against the Joacim Ljunberg from Vallakra Sweden in the finals.

Ljunberg and his Raw Valley Motorsport car got the better light but his 4.495 was no match to Taylor’s 4.169.

“I’ve always wanted to participate in this style of racing with my car,” Taylor said.  “There’s not a lot of options out west to run the blown alcohol combination. Fuel Altered Chaos and Tucson Dragway gave us a great race to see how we stacked up.”

“We’re very happy that we were able to come out of there with a win. This is something that my wife Terrie Taylor and I along with my dad Bruce Taylor have been working on for a while. I also want to thank Bob DeVore for all the great advice. Couldn’t do this without all of them.”

Finally, it was time for the Oliver & Miller Racing ‘D’ Field Shootout final. In an anticlimactic final it was a solo for Shane Blanton and the “Texas Joker” as his competition, Ray Stringer in his “Blown Centless” was a no show.

“First time at this track I really didn’t know what to expect and how to negotiate a tune for the lack of air,” Blanton said.  “I played it safe and struggled with the track all three qualifiers. With a fresh start on race day, we pulled timing out and hoped for the best.”

“We made our fastest lap with a 4.10 E.T. I didn’t know where that would land us in the D field, but we were happy with the results. I found out later the Mr. Stringer had run the second fastest which paired us for the Chicago style shootout final. He later came to me and told me that he had broken. I was heartbroken for him and nor do I want to take a win like that”

“So, all I had to do was take the beam and we had one. But I was there to put in a show for the fans so I hopped it up to see if we could improve in our previous time. No such luck it went up in smoke. 

“All in all, it was an awesome event and the facility, staff, fans were amazing.”

“I want to thank my crew; Pops, Clay Tiffany, Chubb, Sonja, Denver, Jaclynn and my beautiful wife Cassie who also won the award for the best  Back Up Girl (BUG) at the event.”

“Also, a big thank you to the D field sponsor Oliver and Miller Racing”

And if the biggest Fuel Altered show ever wasn’t enough for the fans, Scott Arriaga had his Wicked Sinsation jet dragster on hand making passes to close out the racing action both nights.

Chris Graves said after the event, “Tucson Dragway was perfect for a big turnout of fuel altereds. The support from the racers and fans was absolutely spectacular and what a show they got! This one had it all and we’ve confirmed the date of November 6-7 for next year.”