Volume IX, Issue 10, Page 59

DRO Mini InnerView: Mitchell Scruggs

The man behind the machinery that propelled Jason Scruggs to the first 200-plus-mph pass in a doorslammer over an eighth mile is his father, Mitchell. He also spoke with DRO about their record-setting day last month at Rockingham Dragway.

Are you surprised at all by your results?
M. Scruggs: No, I really wasn’t shocked that much because I knew we had the car to run those numbers. I was somewhat surprised that it came as quick as it did, but everything was here to do it, a real good racetrack, the air was good and it just ran real well. It was a major accomplishment, but we’re finding better combinations and we rolled in here with a new combination that we knew was real strong.
I like Rockingham, but ADRL has got so many good racetracks. They’re really committed to bringing all these fast doorcars together and they’re picking out good facilities and tracks to showcase these events and it makes it a lot easier to run fast and set records and put on good shows.

How special is it to help your son set records like this?
M. Scruggs: I’m really proud of Jason, but I started racing when I was 14 years old and Jason started racing when he was 14 years old, so we’ve got a lifetime in it. It’s something that we can do as a family and we both love it. I do the engine and rearend and Jason does the clutch and transmission, so we both have our own parts of the car, but we work together to make everything work together and we just have a big time doing it. We love to do it. I mean, we’re hobby racers, but ADRL allows us to be hobby racers but still participate at the highest level of competition and in front of huge crowds of fans.

Is there a secret to your success?
M. Scruggs: It’s hard work and taking our time in creeping up on things. We try to be real methodical in making changes. All the guys out here, we’ve all got basically the same equipment. Most all of us are running Hemis and a big part of us are running screw blowers, so it’s just different combinations and how we set them up that determines how fast we go down the track. Everything has to be right to run fast, but the whole field is stepping up.

What can you tell us about your combination?
M. Scruggs: We’re running a 526 Brad Anderson Hemi with a PSI screw blower that we’re running 100 (percent) over. Our motor is actually an old Hemi, it’s about five years old, so it’s got the Brad 5 heads where most of these guys out here have the Brad 6 heads. Our new motor that’s coming we’ve got some different heads on it; they’re not Brad heads, they’re off-the-wall heads that we think are going to be real good. We’ve got a three-speed Lenco in it. Everything is pretty standard, just the same as everybody out here has got.

Why do you think ADRL racing has caught on so fast with the fans?
M. Scruggs: I think all the spectators can relate to doorslammers because that’s what they’re driving every day. They love to see these cars because they’re wild and they’re fast and it really makes for a great event.
(At Rockingham) we had an all three-second field and that’s unheard of for 16 doorslammers. But it’s been happening all along with ADRL, the cars are getting faster and faster as we’ve been running on better racetracks and as time goes on I think the spectators have got a lot to look forward to with ADRL.

I know you were disappointed with not winning at Rockingham after the blower belt broke in the final, but was that a winning pass based on the early incrementals?
Scruggs: The 60-foot time was a .96, which was my second best of the night, but we were a little bit too aggressive. We didn’t change anything, but I think the track got a little colder and we were probably making a bit more power because the air got a little cooler, too. So we were close and I would’ve made a race of it, but he (Hernandez) ran really good, too; my hat’s off to his team to run a .78 because that’s a really good number, too. I had a little on the tree, so it woulda’ took about an .81 to win and I think we could’ve done that if the belt hadn’t broke, but he made a good run.

How do you explain your huge gains in one day at the extreme top end of the speed spectrum?
Scruggs: Well, the truth is we’d actually found some stuff to run more mile an hour and we changed some stuff on the car from what we had last year and the car we had early in the year. We kind of backed into something there and the car would run more mile per hour and basically, you know, we knew that the car was going to go fast. At Norwalk, I ran 199 in 3,350 feet of air with a headwind, so really, the car should’ve easily gone 202 at Norwalk.
Going into Rockingham I honestly believed the car could go 201, 202, maybe even 203 on a real good run, but the 205, that did surprise me a little bit. I think that was a deal of the conditions coming to me and a little bit of luck in being at the right place at the right time.

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You mentioned at the time that the 3.70 E.T. record may actually be much more difficult to repeat than the speed mark. In fact, you said you actually wished the .73 would’ve been the record since it’d be a lot easier to match.
Scruggs: Yeah, that right there, if you want the truth; that surprised me even more than the 205 mile per hour because I knew I could go 203 based on what I’d already done at the race before, but if you told me I would’ve gone 3.70-flat, I wouldn’t have believed you. I thought I might do something in the mid- to high-.70s range, but I never dreamed I’d almost get into the .60s. I mean, that was about half luck there with everything just coming together at the right time; the air was getting better and better and the track was taking whatever we were putting to it.

Scruggs's record pass at Rockingham, NC


The biggest thing that most people don’t realize is that most of these records that I’ve set, as far as ADRL eighth-mile racing goes, have been done in less than ideal conditions. When I set the record at 3.81 at Rockingham last year, the air was well into the 2,000s and the sun was still out on the track. This was really the first time that I was racing in mineshaft conditions and that’s what I think contributed that extra five hundredths that I didn’t know I could run; it was just that conditions were extremely, extremely good.