Fri, 28 Jul 2006, 01:27 PM It's Christmas In July

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2006 Auto Imagery, Inc. & Eagle Eye Photography

Richard Putz

I always enjoy going to the races, or reading about races on DragRaceCentral.com, and discovering racers who aren't exactly household names. Last year I found Richard Putz, a guy who has been racing for a while but never really hit the radar screen until he started putting up big numbers in his Top Alcohol Dragster. Richard recently won the Division 5 race in Denver and he continues to be among the top alky dragster drivers in the country. Just a few weeks ago I was checking out the race results from the Division 3 race in Joliet when I came upon the name of Dave Heitzman. I have to admit that the name didn't ring a bell right away and when I saw that he ran a strong 5.44 in the Top Alcohol Dragster class it really got my attention. A day later I was told that Dave used to run on the Prostar drag bike circuit and that he did very well over there. Now he is one of the many drivers with sponsorship and help from Evan Knoll and the Torco folks. With numbers like he put up in Joliet Dave has to be considered a threat wherever he shows up from now on. And more recently, at the Schucks Nationals in Seattle, I was stunned when I saw that Jim Peters had run a solid 5.879 at almost 240 miles per hour. Stunned because Jim had never gone quicker than six seconds before, and now, here he was qualifying for a very tough field. Jim got my attention again when he beat Dennis Taylor in the first round to advance to the Sunday eliminations program. Add to the fact that he was doing it with a Chevrolet Beretta body on the car that was once owned by Tom McEwen and his accomplishments became even more impressive.

Jim Peters

Jim Peters is a forty-five year old man who has been drag racing for quite a while. "I began racing back in 1979 and until I got this car about ten years ago I had always been in a dragster. It took me another four years to fix it up and we've been doing some match racing for a while. This was my first national event and we had a great time. It was so good that we didn't even want to go home after the race." The good things that happened to Jim and his wife, Tina, began when they added Mike Robeck to the team. "I met Mike through Steve Federlin and I asked him if Mike might like to give us a hand." Mike, who has worked for some of the top alcohol class racers in the country, including Jay Payne and Steve Federlin, readily accepted on the condition that he didn't have to do it full time. "He came in and has gradually upgraded our car and he's one of the reasons why we ran so well this weekend," Jim said. The team made their first run in the five-second zone during qualifying and then upset Dennis Taylor in a wild run in the first round. "It was ironic," Jim said, "because the engine block that we had in the car was one we got from Dennis. I've known him for a while and I get most of my safety equipment from him so it was funny that we won our first round by beating Dennis." A mechanical problem in round two sidelined the team for the weekend but not before they had their most successful outing ever. "Just being able to compete and meet all of the great people in this sport would be enough," Jim said. "But to go out and run well and win a round was more than we could have asked for. When we won that round it felt like we had won the event." I also want to thank Don Houser and his wife, Jody, for their help. They are good friends who volunteer to help us and that means a lot to us." Well, if the team continues to make progress like they did this past weekend, they'll be winning a lot more rounds and races before too long. "We don't have a lot of money and Mike upgraded a lot of the parts we had on the car including putting a new supercharger on it. Now we want to upgrade the body and get some more parts so we can run a little bigger schedule next year."

Peters launches hard.

In addition to the obvious fact that the car was running with a Beretta body, which automatically dates it as an older car, when I asked Jim about the chassis he told me that it, too, has been around for a while. "This was the last car that was built for Tom McEwen and I was told that he actually ran it a couple of times before selling it." The car than went through a litany of teams including Mike Gordon, who got it from the "Mongoose" and who replaced the Corvette body with the Beretta. Then it was sold to Randy Parker who sold it to Greg Cork and then, eventually, it made its way to Jim. "Even though I campaigned a dragster for a while," Jim said, "I always knew that I wanted to race a Funny Car. I used to follow the Funny Cars around when they raced up here. I would go to the big thirty-two and sixty-four car races and just be amazed at what the cars did." Like so many drivers, Jim stayed with his dream and then made it a reality when he got this car and now, with the support of his wife, Tina, and help from Mike he has a car that can compete with the other big names in the class. "I'm very fortunate to have Tina's support, she loves this sport as much as I do," Jim said. "And my primary sponsor, Latus Motors Harley-Davidson, has been so helpful. In fact they're going to help us get a new body and then we'll be even more competitive." That new body will be mounted on a chassis that Mike is building at his shop, Robeck Custom Fabrication. "I also would like to thank Gage Auto Sales, Borg Construction, Big Meadow Realty, Performance Northwest, and Molalla Chevrolet." And if you look closely at the Chevy Beretta, you will also see the name of Tina's Style and Cuts on the car. "That's Tina's business and it keeps her pretty busy," Jim said. And Jim's business, JTP Tree Company keeps him busy when he's not racing. "I raise Christmas trees and I've been doing it for a long time. My dad got me started in the business and right now we've growing trees on about one hundred acres. We'll start harvesting around the first of November and we'll ship trees all over the world." And if all goes according to plan, when Jim wakes up on Christmas morning he just might find a new car under the tree. Or possibly a "Wally" trophy. Then when he shows up at a race in the future, it won't be a surprise to anyone when Jim Peters qualifies and goes rounds. It especially won't be a surprise to me.