2/8/2007
Austin Coil’s position as the premier tuner of nitro funny cars is unquestioned. His accomplishments as John Force’s crew chief and tuner alone qualifies him for that honor, but Austin Coil made his mark as a fuel coupe tuner and car owner way before his career with John Force. He was the tuner of the legendary Chi-Town Hustler and part of the Farkonas-Coil-Minick troika that campaigned the Chicago-based funny car. The team won an IHRA World Championship in the early 1970’s with Ron Colson driving. The Chi-Town Hustler team with Frank Hawley between the pipes opened the 1982 season by winning the first three NHRA races of the year and went on to win the Winston World Championship and the Big Bud Shootout at the U.S. Nationals in 1982. Theyopened the 1983 season with three straight victories and went on to win the Winston World Championship that year.
Coil’s career has including driving his own Super Stock Mopar as well as a driving the Chi-Town Hustler at a couple of races. His long association with John Force has resulted in absolute domination of the Funny Car class for over 15 years and he shows no signs of slowing down. DRO editor Jeff Burk sat down with Austin Coil at the John Force shops in Yorba Linda, CA, for this candid and entertaining interview.
Give us a little history about your career: How you got started in drag racing, the first car you had and the first race you want to.
Austin Coil: Well, let's see. I was a dealer mechanic back in the '60s. The first time I can remember going to a drag strip was shortly after I'd gotten my driver's license and had a car and a weekend with nothing to do. I drove out to the drag strip (Union Grove, WI) near Chicago and looked at the racing going on and I came to find out that it was the last Sunday of the year the track was open before closing for the winter. But I thought, This looks like this would be
really fun.
So, over the winter I put a car together. It was a '55 Chevy with a 348 big block Chevy in it and it ran in C-Gas. I went to the drag strip with it most Sundays the next year and just got creamed. I had no idea what I was doing and running in C/G was a pretty tough bill. After a year of that I have to admit I learned quite a bit and picked the pace of the car up nearly 2 seconds from when I started with it. During the following couple of years (1964-65) I ran a variety of “N.A.D.S.” , (National Association of Drag Strips) stocker classes which were somewhat modified cars and also ran Stock eliminator. I won a room full of trophies and had a little fun. Then in 1966 I bought myself a stick shift Hemi Mopar to run in AFX class.
: What brand of car was it?
AC: It was a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere four-speed car. I drove it home from the dealer; I worked there for awhile -- Park Chrysler Plymouth -- and put fiberglass doors and front end on it and ripped the motor out of it (and hopped it up).
