Fast and fiery cars coming to N. F. Motorplex this weekend

Among other things, the North Florida Motorplex is set to host some drag racing between half a dozen Nostalgia Nitro Methane Funny Cars.
Published: Jun. 28, 2022 at 10:52 PM CDT

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) -it is going to be a very big weekend ahead for the folks at the North Florida Motorplex in Fountain. They are calling Saturday’s schedule “Night of Fire”

And that’s because they will be bringing in half a dozen Nostalgia Nitro Funny Cars to race. And these cars are known to throw out some fire when zipping down the track at speeds of more than 200 miles an hour. One of those Nitro teams coming down from Indiana, the car dubbed “Mad Max” driven by Dave Hill. His son Ryan is the crew chief for Mad Max and I spoke with him via Zoom tonight. And we talked about how it’s appropriate to have these Nitro-Methane cars heating up the track on the Fourth of July weekend!

”Like for us, I’ll describe it some ways, we have some guys that will run smaller fuel pumps.” Hill told me. “So they will go fast but they won’t produce a huge header flame because the car is more efficient. For us we run a little bit bigger fuel pump. So we actually have a little bit of excess fuel that gets lit in the pipe. And that is what actually creates the large header flames. And for us it just makes for awesome shots to have. So we always kill for our night time runs because those are the good ones. Those are the ones that are poster worthy shots!”

Ryan implies the Nitro Methane cars have a “mood” to them, and the crew and driver can sense when their car is happy!

“And I mean there are some people that run them so on the heavy side of fuel that their entire pit will turn like a hazy green. Because that’s just raw nitro coming out of the exhaust. It’s the un-burnt stuff. And for us it’s just like, that’s the stuff that gets us all giddy. That’s the stuff we like doing it. And you can tell when the car is happy. It’s on the stand and it’s not smooth. Nitro cars are not smooth to idle. They sit there they pop and they bang and they look like they’re getting ready to come off the stand. But that’s where we know the car is happy and likes where it’s at.”

Hill adds for fans coming to the track Saturday, they should feel free to come by and mix with the crew since they don’t tape off their pit as they work on the car. That’s because they want fans to keep coming back and to truly feel welcome.

“And so but we’ve just been, we’ve always been very inviting people.” Hill told me. “I’ll just tell you a quick story real quick. So we raced in a Eddyville, Iowa, it must’ve been about a month ago now. And we had some people that came up and said ‘hey do you guys have any spare parts? Do you guys have anything that you give away?’ I said no not right now. They were like ‘OK will come back and see you at the next race.’ They showed up to a race that was 100 miles in the other direction that they live. To come and get parts and pieces that I told them that I had. We made fans just like that. And I gave them all rods and pistons that were all signed by my dad and stuff like that, so it was cool. "

Here’s the schedule for Friday and Saturday, gates open at 2 pm tomorrow with test n tune at 4 and the 128 shootout at 6. Saturday gates open at 8 am with different racing at 4, 5:30 7:30 9 and 10 with some fireworks just before the Pro Mod finals at ten.

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