There’s Still Time to ‘Ask the Pros’

PITTSBORO, NC – The PDRA Live Feed, produced by Motor Mania TV, has been one of the most well received features of the organization since its inception. Live side-by-side racing could be, and regularly has been, viewed around the world. When Quarter-Max began presenting Starting Line and Top End Zones featuring live interviews with racers, those watching on computers, tablets, and phones were given the inside scoop straight from the horse’s mouth.

This year, Musi Racing Engines added the ‘Musi Minute’ with Pro Nitrous driver Lizzy and Andy McCoy Race Cars (AMRC) brought fans the ‘Ask the Pros’ segment. Both have had a great response this year, allowing fans more interaction, both at home and at events. In the ‘Musi Minute’ Lizzy picks a fan at the event to interview and give them their minute of Live Feed fame. For ‘Ask the Pros’ Andy McCoy, along with the Pee Dee Fleet Pro Boost team owned by Russell Miller, answer fan questions submitted online.

“We’ve really had a lot of fun with the ‘Ask the Pros’ segment,” stated McCoy. “When PDRA posts the ‘Ask the Pros’ segment, it’s not uncommon to have a couple hundred new likes on our Facebook page, just because of that video. Hopefully we continue it on next year. The fans love getting involved in it.”

For the last two events, Andy McCoy Race Cars is upping the ante by providing AMRC gear to the fan whose question is chosen.

“It’s fun to hear from people who don’t have the same experience we have, as far as playing with these race cars on a daily basis,” agreed Tylor Miller, driver of the Pee Dee Fleet Chevelle. “It’s cool to hear the questions, because it can test us, too, to dig deep about what we do know and how to relay that to the average fan. Some of the questions have multiple answers, depending on the application, car or class. We don’t want to mislead anybody, so we try to think of answers beyond what just pertains to our car. We thoroughly enjoy it. As a team, it gives us the opportunity to help PDRA grow bigger, because we like eighth mile racing. For Pro Mods, that’s where it’s at.”

The Pee Dee Fleet team has a lot of brainpower to answer the questions posed by fans. With Andy McCoy handling chassis setup, Mike Kopchick from Rage Fuel Systems managing the engine, partnered with the experience and knowledge from the rest of the team, Pee Dee Fleet has a great deal of knowledge to share.

Tylor Miller admits his program did not make the progress the team had hoped to see over the off season. So after the PDRA Spring Nationals in Rockingham, he and the entire Pee Dee Fleet team took a break to regroup and do some intense R&D before coming back to competition. The time off proved incredibly fruitful. Since returning to to PDRA competition, Miller has been in every GALOT Motorsports Pro Boost final. Despite only attending four races this season, Miller sits just 105 points out of third place.

“We’ve been using our time off to figure out how to get down every track with go to with minimum effort,” Miller said, explaining the team’s strategy during their absence. “And then whenever we get on a really good track, to be able to put the numbers up that are hard to beat. To be able to come off the trailer and know for sure we’re able to run consistent mid to low .80s all the time. We pretty much vowed to ourselves we weren’t coming to a PDRA until we knew we had a chance to win one.”

Although the team’s strategy has already paid big dividends, Miller asserts that they aren’t done yet. “We’re going to do a lot of dyno-ing over the winter. We’re looking to find another 200 horsepower this year and we will. The little bit of time we’ve been able to spend on the dyno this year, we found 480 horsepower from last year.

“Will Butler makes a lot of this happen for us,” thanked Miller, who also emphasized that his team is actively seeking partners for their race operation. “He’s a real key factor in this car. Will is the only person that’s ever assembled a motor that’s gone in this Chevelle. Mike Kopchick is the brains of our engine program. Will and Mike bounce a lot of ideas off each other. MBE is a big help for us. Matt Bieneman [owner, MBE] was one of the big horsepower gains that we added recently. Andy [McCoy] is always there for us at PDRA and even for some of our testing. If we ask him to come, he’ll show up. He’s a straight up guy. He takes a lot of pride in his stuff. He’s got so much pride in his cars, it’s hard not to notice. He’s been really good to us.”

Andy McCoy Race Cars is also making many changes to its program, including a new hire, new website, and new body style. The new website is slated to launch in early or mid October and has trick new features. “It will have an online catalog on it that you can buy all the parts and pieces that go on the race cars here at the shop,” McCoy said of the new site. “One of the really neat features of our new website will be the ‘Build Your Own Race Car’ section. If a customer wants to have a race car built, he can go there online and ‘build’ everything online according to how he wants it. At the bottom it will have a total. It will automatically give him a budget on where he’s at with building this race car. If it’s too much, he can subtract, or if there’s still room in the budget, he can add to it. They can submit that to us and we’ll go over it with him. They know exactly where they’re going to be.”

McCoy says the new website will be compatible across mobile devices and will feature all the latest and greatest in technology. Behind the new website is AMRC’s newest team member, Steven Maxwell. “We’re excited to have Steven with us,” stated McCoy. “He’s handling all our Facebook stuff, website stuff, all the day to day stuff in the parts room.

“We’re also very excited about our new body style. We’re getting ready to debut a brand new ‘79 ‘Vette. We’re pretty excited about that. The molds are almost done. We’re almost ready to start producing bodies. Tylor will have the first new car for next year. We’re looking forward to that.

“I’m grateful for Tylor, Russell, and Dee Dee,” McCoy said of the Miller family. “Mike Kopchick has been just an absolute joy to work with this year, he really has. We just have an excellent working relationship. Going into Budds Creek we were 22nd in points. When we left there we were 9th in points. Leaving Memphis we moved up to 7th in points. After GALOT, we’re now only 100 points, one round, out of 3rd place. We’ve only been to four races this year. We’re pretty excited about that.”

AMRC customers have also been doing well in many areas this year. Terry Coil has been undefeated in Outlaw Pro Mod competition. Top Sportsman racer Justin Sowders has been going rounds in his AMRC ‘69 Camaro and Doug Winters has been running well in NHRA Pro Mod competition.

“God has blessed us this year, not only on the race team, but in my business as well,” McCoy emphasized. “I always thank my dad, Stan, and my shop foreman Scott Winemore. Without the guys in the shop, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today, doing what we’re able to do.”

There are only two events left to submit questions for the AMRC ‘Ask the Pros’ segment. Click on the ‘Ask the Pros’ button on www.pdra660.com or email them straight to Will@PDRA660.com for a chance at having a question answered on air and scoring AMRC gear.