Stivers looking for Payoff in St. Louis

MADISON, Ill. - For Pro Mod drag racers, back-to-back events presents a challenge that extends far beyond the track: it encompasses logistics and family as well as forcing allowances at the drivers and team-members' "day jobs." Rick Stivers, owner of Stivers HVAC in Lexington, Ky., and driver of the jet-black '67 Camaro Pro Mod knows all too well the costs as well as the payoffs of racing, and this weekend, he's hoping the payoff will be big.

Stivers and his crew are competing in the fourth event of the AMS Staff Leasing Pro Mod Challenge presented by Tindle Enterprises, Inc. at the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals in Madison, Ill., just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Mo. After announcing last week that his team will be working with Chuck Ford and the Tim Tindle TARE team, Stivers has been working non-stop trying to get his car into what he calls "competition ready condition."

"I'm the kind of person that, when I jump into something, I throw my entire self into it, and getting Chuck and Tim to agree to help was all I needed to get things to the next level," Stivers said.

"After we started working on things last week in Atlanta, Chuck and I decided that we should stay over on Monday and do some testing to see what we needed to work on," he said.

According to Stivers, they found several things that should drastically improve their performance this weekend.

"Chuck said he underestimated the track in Atlanta, but after we got to looking at it, it wasn't that at all. We figured out a lot from making laps, and I really am looking forward to this weekend - we really should have something special," Stivers predicted.

Qualifying for the fourth of ten events in the AMS Staff Leasing Pro Mod Challenge is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, May 4th and 5th, and eliminations are scheduled to be run as part of the NHRA eliminations on Sunday, May 6.