Mon, 11 Oct 2004, 08:35 PM Bob Book….The Warren Johnson Of Competition Eliminator.

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2004 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Richard Bourke at Chicago

The recently completed CARQUEST Auto Parts Nationals at Rt. 66 Raceway in Joliet will go down in the record books as one of the most sensational races of all time, especially from a performance standpoint. And while most fans were in awe of the numbers that were produced in the professional classes, most notably the Funny Car and Pro Stock records, a lot of the hard core fans also took notice of what was going on in the sportsman ranks, especially in Competition Eliminator. There, a couple of teams distinguished themselves with stunning performances and career best efforts, and among that group was the A/Dragster that is owned by Robert and Suzanne Book and that is driven by Richard Bourke. All that team did was run 6.410 at over 211 miles per hour, numbers never before seen in that class. To those who have watched the class and this car for a while the performance shouldn’t come as any big surprise, after all, it was only a few weeks ago at the Lucas Oil event in Iowa where the car went 6.520 at 208 mph and then came a 6.524 pass at the Division 3 race in Columbus. Yes, the Book Racing A/D is a bad hot rod but it certainly is no overnight sensation.

Bob Book is forty-six years old and he has been married to Suzanne for twenty-six years. The fact that the two met at a gas station should have been a dead give away that they would, eventually, end up doing something in the automotive field. “She was managing the station when she was only seventeen years old and I came on as a mechanic and I guess you could say the rest is history,” Bob said. They have two children, Bob Jr. who works on the car at the races and a daughter, Kristen, who runs her own cleaning business. “We’ve been blessed with a couple of really good children and I’m very fortunate to have a wife who is as much into racing as I am. It sure does make life easier.” Suzanne is not only into racing but she virtually runs the family business, Book Racing Enterprises, which makes carburetors and racing engines. “The biggest part of our business is the carburetors and we sell them to most of the top Pro Stock teams in NHRA and IHRA,” Bob said. “We also do some Top Sportsman stuff as well as selling complete engines, but I’d have to say that the carbs are our mainstay and what we’ve become well known for.” Of course, when you have a 212 mile per hour rolling test laboratory it makes it easy to take your products out for a test drive. Ironically, though, Bob isn’t the one who usually does the driving. For the past few seasons, New Jersey’s Richard Bourke has wheeled the family car and before that it was Ed Bennett, and while Bob does still drives occasionally he says that is not his main goal at the races. “I’m kind of like Warren Johnson who always says that he gets the most enjoyment out of seeing his stuff go fast,” Bob said. “Driving isn’t the big thing for Warren and it really isn’t for me. I love the mechanical aspect of racing, you can ’t beat that part.” Having said that Bob is the guy who made the fast runs in Iowa and he has gone down the quarter mile quicker than most guys in the sport. But, in a perfect world, he would have Richard drive the car all the time and that would free him up to figure out ways to make the car go quicker. That alone is a frightening thought, especially if you run in Comp Eliminator.

Ed Bennett III at St. Louis 2000.

Bob Book got into racing after spending sometime as a mechanic at the gas station where he met Suzanne and he followed that with a stint at the J.C. Penney auto center which later became a Firestone store. Then, in 1993, he opened his own general automotive repair center and that has now expanded into an operation that has seven bays and four full time mechanics. The same location also features a full machine shop and a flow bench and that’s where most of the racing magic takes place. After racing an econo-dragster for a few seasons, Bob had to quit in order to make the business grow. Today he spends time juggling his three favorite things, the shop, the racing business and competing at the track. “Because I have so many customers at the track I sometimes don’t get to spend as much time in my own pit area as I would like. Fortunately my son has taken over the task of doing most of the work on the car at the track. I kind of do the Austin Coil deal, you know, think about what has to get done and then he goes and does it. He does the engine assembly and all the hard work and he’s become really good at it.” When I asked Bob if his son would like to drive he said that he doesn’t have a real desire right now. Like father like son, I guess. And then he added that he is going to build a second car, a test vehicle, during the off season and that maybe Bob Jr. will drive that next year. One thing you know, whoever drives it, it will be fast. Really fast.

Bob put off getting into racing until he knew that he could financially afford to compete at the highest level. “I absolutely love Competition Eliminator and I knew that this is where I wanted to race. Comp is what drag racing is all about. It’s your car and your ideas and there really are no limits. You have big block V-8’s, turbos, V-6’s and four cylinder cars racing against each other. If I had all the money in the world Comp is right where I would want to be. Even though I have a lot of customers in the Pro Stock class and a lot of them came from Comp, I have no desire to move up. I absolutely love what I’m doing.” What he’s doing is re-writing the record books in one of the sport’s toughest classes and he’s doing it with a driver who lives in a different time zone.

Santo Volpe at Atlanta 2002.

When Bob Book started racing he knew that he would make and use his own carburetors. “About six or seven years ago I did a set of carburetors and I took them to Steve Schmidt’s shop and they worked better than what he was using at the time. Steve and I have worked together ever since. While his meeting with Steve was planned, his association with the drivers came about almost by chance. He met Ed Bennett at the races a few years ago and when Ed was running for the championship back in 1999 Bob offered to let Ed drive his car at the points race out west and then at Pomona. “You don’t get too many chances to win the championship and Ed was so close so I let him drive my car. He’d been in fast cars before so this wasn’t a big jump for him. My son went with him and they did very well.” Ed also took the car to two national event final rounds in 2000, losing to a couple of those cars that Bob referred to, the exotic six cylinder car of Steve Ambrose and the unique Subaru-powered entry of Frank Aragona. Then, after talking with Richard Bourke on the phone for a long period of time, they became close friends and when Bob offered to let Richard drive the car it didn’t take long for the New Jersey resident to say yes. “He’s a great driver and he’s become my best friend,” Bob said. “If we could both work it out he ’d drive my car all the time.”

As well as the car ran at Joliet it wasn’t able to answer the bell for the first round. “We sheared the bolts off the front of the camshaft and we tried all night to fix it and put one in that would do the job. In the end we weren’t happy with the replacement so we decided not to run. And it’s probably a good thing too, because the way that track was we might have gone into the “30’s” and as much fun as that would have been it would have hurt us down the line. Still, I ’m ecstatic at the way it ran.” When I asked Bob if he knew that the 6.41 was that good when he was looking at it he said yes. “When I saw Richie drive it out of the tire shake and when I saw it get up on the tires in second gear I knew it was good. Besides, it disappeared really fast.” Indeed it did. “The incremental numbers were so much better than the ones in Iowa and that was a good run,” he added. Bob is also quick to point out that the car itself, which was built by the Pro Start Chassis folks in New Jersey, is absolutely flawless. “This is by far the best car that I’ve ever had. Any problems we had with it before were because I just wasn’t making the right calls.” Gee, seems like I’ve head Warren Johnson say that same thing over the years.

As much publicity as the pro cars get, I would like to give you a tip for the next time you visit the races. Check the entry list and see if the Bob Book Racing A/Dragster is in the house. If it is, stick around in the stands when Competition Eliminator comes up because you’ll be in for a real treat. And who knows, you just might see a little bit of drag racing history….

Book Racing Enterprises in located at 216 Industry Avenue in Frankfort, Illinois. They can be reached at 815-464-7200.They do competition engines, classic car engines and hi-performance engines. They specialize in competition and professional drag race carburetors and have a complete machine shop and dyno service.

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