When did you first race a Top Fuel car?
CK: When NHRA changed to fuel (nitro) instead of gas (in Top Eliminator). Yeah, I think I switched the car to fuel in 1962 at Bakersfield My engine had the compression for burning gas, so I think I could run the car on about 25% nitro.
How long are you going to keep drag racing?
CK: 'Till I stop having fun.
Have you had fun doing this all along?
CK: (Laughing) I'm still here!
You've raced for the original president of every major sanctioning body NHRA, IHRA, and AHRA. Which was your favorite?
CK: And NASCAR.
Of those guys, Wally Parks, Jim Tice, Larry Carrier and Bill France, which one do you think had the most influence on your racing career?
CK: Wally Parks … and actually there isn’t a whole lot I remember about any of them. Some racers are socializers but that isn't me, I’m more of a nuts and bolts kind of person. I like working on the car, that's where I was and where I want to be.
Has there been anyone in drag racing who has been a big influence to you?
CK: Not really, I've been my own person my whole life.
You consider yourself a racer first and not a politician?
CK: Yeah, but I am involved with the PRO (Professional Racers Association). I’m very active there. It's a political arena that professional racers have to be involved with today,especially with the proposed acquisition by this HDP group.
ADVERTISEMENT
Well, since you brought it up, are the major team owners, like yourself, Bernstein, Prudhomme, Force, and Schumacher thinking about getting together as a unit to represent yourself to determine what HDP has in mind for you?
CK: Well, there's a lot of stuff that's already been done, I'm really not privy to say, but there's been a lot of research dumped into it. When we first heard about it and that it was a 120-million-dollar deal, what came out of research was that 100 million dollars of the price goes to the sportsman racing. The money is put in a trust and if the sportsman thing goes away the money goes to charity.
That's pretty interesting information. Is it solid? Are you sure?
CK: Yeah, it is. There are a lot of people involved.
The questions we have been getting is how the 9.5 million shares of HDP the NHRA received as part of the deal will be distributed and who will get it? We can’t seem to get any answers.
CK: The reason you can't is because (the deal) is not chiseled in stone. The thing with the whole transaction is there's going to be some smell tests. This thing has to go through the SEC (for approval), the Attorney General of California and on the federal side too there are a lot of smell tests. I think there will probably be something in place by December 2007, but I think before it really goes to bed it will be April-May of next year.
As a businessman, don't you think the sale of the NHRA Pro assets for 121 million dollars was a bargain, considering the fact that the NHRA sold their headquarters property and all four of their race tracks? Doesn't that seem a little undervalued?
CK: I don't know because I don't know what the appraisal is of the properties was. What they (HDP) have bought is basically everything, except the sportsman series and it's how they deal with that. They’re businessmen. In the discussions I've had about the sale, I've said, let it come on down, let's see what happens, it's fresh blood (for the NHRA series). That's what my take is on it.
