FEATURE - From the Tower by Bob Frey

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Thu, 23 Oct 2003, 09:07 PM

Hey, Have You Heard? Rod Fuller Wants To Turn Pro!!!

By Bob Frey
Photo by:Auto Imagery, Inc.

“Hot Rod” Fuller

Ok, now let me see if I’ve got this straight. Tony Pedregon is leaving the John Force team to join his brother, Cruz, in a two-car team. Gary Densham is not going to be with John next year because he’s going to start his own team. Every driver in the country and some from overseas have sent resumes to John in an effort to get the job. Then, a certain dragster driver is going to leave his team to drive for John and “Hot Rod” Fuller is going to step in and take over for that aforementioned dragster driver because everyone knows that Rod wants to go fuel racing. Now, having said all of that, the only thing that we know for a fact in that entire paragraph is that “Hot Rod” Fuller wants to go pro racing. The rest of it, well, you can take it for what it’ s worth.

“Hot Rod” Fuller is one of the most accomplished sportsman racers in the country and everything that he has done he has done well. For example, in high school, Rod competed in baseball, football, track and soccer. “I was really good at baseball, in fact, that was my best sport, but I didn’t really have a passion for it. I loved football, but my best sport was soccer. Go figure.” He was so good at soccer that he was named as one of the eighteen best players in the country in his senior year at Rogers High School in Arkansas in 1988 and, as a reward, he was named to the McDonald’s High School All American team. After that he went to college and was looking forward to possibly playing in the Olympics until he blew out his knee. “Once you do that they look at you like you have the plague,” he said. “I knew then that I needed to find something to do. Racing was that “something.”

Fuller's Super Gas
Racing was always in Rod’s background since he had some uncles who used to race Top Fuel back in the 60’s. Steven and Pat Boyle, Rod’s mom’s brothers, ran TF in the days when they were called “slingshots,” and because of the family’s involvement in the sport, Rod was always aware of what was going on, so the jump into the sport wasn’t that far-fetched for the former All American. “I entered my first race in Gainesville in the early 90’s and did pretty well. While I was there I met Mike Gruber and a couple of the other folks from Valvoline and that turned out to be really good for me,” Rod said in a gross understatement. You see, when the Valvoline folks found out that Rod was from Arkansas and that he knew some people who worked with Wal-Mart in Arkansas, the headquarters for that company, they asked Rod if he could make a few inquiries about how Valvoline could get their new Pyroil product into Wal-Mart. Rod did, they did and the Valvoline name has been on the side of his race cars ever since.

When Rod began racing he decided on the Super classes for a very simple reason. “I watched Edmond and Scotty Richardson race, I saw how they approached the sport and I figured that was the way to do it.” For the next few years Rod ran at both national and the divisional races and he did very well, winning at all levels. In the mid 90’s he actually drove a Top Fuel car for about a dozen races. It was the car of John Mitchell and it gave Rod a little taste of fuel and that’s all he needed to know that this is what he wanted to do with his racing career. “I pitted next to John’s team at a race in Kansas City and then we both went to Spokane, Washington to try to win the AHRA World Championship. Then, the next year I got a call from John and he asked me if I wanted to drive a Top Fuel car. I thought it was a joke.” Well it wasn’t and the team went to several races in ’95 and ’96 and they actually qualified for a couple of fields. “I had Clayton Harris as a crew chief the first time I drove the car and he didn’t tell me what to do. He just said that if I’m a driver I’ll know how to handle it.” Rod then said that he heard later that Clayton said “the kid would go about 100 feet and that would be it.” Rod went about three hundred feet but still showed Clayton and John enough that they offered him the ride.

Fuller's Super Comp
Fast forward to a few weeks ago when Rod had had an interview with John Force and he hopes that he is under further consideration for a driving job with the team. “During the rain delay in Maple Grove I had a couple of sportsman racers who came up to me and said that John Force was looking for me. I thought that was a joke, too. Or I figured that he wanted to talk to me about Ashley’s Super Comp car.” But he didn’t, he wanted to know if Rod was interested in driving a Funny Car. “It was interesting because John must have said about ten times during our conversation that he only wanted to talk if I was interested in driving. I finally had to interrupt him and say, ‘John, I’m interested.’ It was fun.” Well, since no one really knows how that will turn out, Rod said that he is at least pleased that the interview went well. “I was introduced to the team and the crew chiefs and had a nice talk with them and they were the ones who had to tell John that I had driven a Top Fuel car. Until then he thought that all I had done was race in the Super classes.”

As much as Rod would love to get the job with John, if he doesn’t it’s not the end of the world. He has had a few other interviews with some teams and seems destined to be in a fuel car before too very long. His wife, Tammy, whom he met at a points race in Boise, Idaho a few years ago, is a real estate sales executive with the Prudential American Group in Las Vegas and she fully supports Rod’s passion for the sport. “I feel bad,” he said, “that since we got married two years ago she had to quit driving so I can pursue my dream. She’s really a good driver and she loves racing, but she’s also good at what she does in the business world. I couldn’t do this without her support.”

The entire Fuller family is into racing and we’d like to congratulate Rod’s brother, Tony, who recently won the IHRA World Championship in the Hot Rod class. “Ironic, isn’t it,” Rod said. “I’ m talking about running a fuel car and my brother’s the world champion.” As long as John Force doesn’t hear about that, Rod, I think you’ll be OK.