Jim Filipowski has been racing something for more than 20-years, and in that time he’s developed the reputation as hard-nosed, at times controversial and most certainly a stubborn racer. A drag radial racer at heart, the 39 year-old has become one of the more recognizable faces in a class, which is struggling to find a permanent identity on the drag racing landscape. “Powski,” as his friends call him, comes from a street racing background, which has helped galvanize his opinion that while rules are needed to control any class, they really need to be as simple and straight-forward as possible. In this interview with FSC Editor Scott Sparrow, Filipowski discusses his background, the class he helped define and the future of drag radial.

FSC: How long have you been involved in drag racing?

Filipowski: “Ever since high school. I’d skip out at lunch and go street race. My first car was a 1970 Buick Skylark with a big-block Chevy in it, but it didn’t last long. I ended up crashing it while I was racing. I was only 16 at the time. I was racing a guy in a Trans Am, there was a car coming the other way and the guy driving it was drunk. He crossed the yellow line and hit me nearly head-on, and that was it. Everyone ended up okay, but had it been a couple of inches in another direction, it would have been bad, real bad.”

FSC: Did that mark the end of your street racing?

Filipowski: “Nah. I continued to race for several more years, but I made sure I wasn’t as reckless and did it in places where there wasn’t as high of a risk.”

FSC: What was the most money you ever made street racing?

Filipowski: “That’s hard to say, but I do know I raced and won for several thousand dollars on more than one occasion.”

FSC: What were you racing then? Did you rebuild the Skylark?

Filipowski: “I actually raced the Nova, the same one I have now. I’ve had it since ’87. That car is what I’ve done most of my racing in. I actually ran that car on true BFGoodrich T/A radials – it would go in the 10.60’s. I really didn’t know how fast it would go until I finally took it to the track. None of us who raced back then really knew how fast the cars were because we only raced them on the street. We’d go to different towns and get one race in and then go to another, but never to the track.”

FSC: What stopped the street racing for you?

Filipowski: “Cell phones. People would come from all over and we’d race all night, but cell phones put an end to that. Plus, it really got too fast, which made it really dangerous. At first we were going 10 and 11-seconds, but it didn’t take too long before we were running a lot faster; it really became unsafe. That’s when I decided to start racing at the track.”

FSC: When was that?

Filipowski: “I guess it was ’94. I went to Memphis with Kyle Davis and crewed for him on his Super Street car. After that, I began to race the Nova in Hot Street in the Hot Rod deal and I also ran another similar class when Popular Hot Rodding had their deal. I did pretty well. I think in Hot Street I finished fifth or sixth in points, which wasn’t too bad.”

FSC: You’ve carved your niche in drag radial racing over the past few years. How did that evolve?

Filiposwki: “I built a car for Brian Odoms and we raced the NSCA deal with a small-block nitrous combination in his car, but we were five-tenths off the pace of the big-blocks. That’s when I decided to build a combination for the Nova. It was a small-block ProCharger set-up with a blow-through carb. I did it to prove a point and I guess it worked.”

FSC: In your Camaro, you switched to a turbo set-up, though. What was your reasoning for that?

Filipowski: “The turbo offers more free horsepower than the belt-driven blower. I knew I could gain a couple hundred horsepower, which is why I went with a turbo when I built the new car. It seems that everybody who is setting records these days is running a turbo, which means there must be a reason why.”

FSC: Did you run into any complications when you began working with a turbo combination?

Filipowski: “I really didn’t have any trouble at all with it. The blower was belt-driven so it would ramp the boost in, which is very similar to what a turbo does. The change was actually no problem for me whatsoever.”

FSC: Are classes for drag radial racing still viable or do you think that the concept has been left behind in the wake of the explosive popularity of outlaw racing?

Filipowksi: “A lot of organizations have a class for drag radial, but they are very restrictive. Then you have the outlaw-style races like Memphis and Orlando. There’s the race up in Canada that is an outlaw event as well. I think that’s a problem. We have organizations that have restrictive rules, which force racers to build restrictive cars, which, makes it hard to compete in the outlaw stuff. I know that tire-development may have actually hurt the class because before we got these great tires, it was a tuner’s class, which made racing tough. Now, though, with the new Mickey Thompson tire, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of racing because it is so forgiving. Of course, many organizations have banned that tire because it is so good and I don’t necessarily agree with that.”

FSC: Is part of the problem that there are many different interpretations of how the rules for the class should be written?

Filipowski: “The common thread is stock suspension, but from there you begin to see different concepts. The NSCA had a lot of engine restrictions in their class, but the outlaw stuff really only restricts you to the tire and suspension. I think if this type of racing will ever find a permanent home in an organization, the rules need to be very limited.”

FSC: Wait a second, even with the restricted rules in the NSCA, you went out and ran one hell of a number at their season-opener this year, which caused quite a stir.

Filipowski: “Yeah I guess I did. I ran a 7.91, but it was in really good air. The closest guy to me ran in the 8.60’s. I was pretty fast. They didn’t like that at all.”

FSC: Gee, I wonder why? Perhaps that wasn’t the greatest of ideas. Why on earth would you show your hand that much, so soon?

Filipowski: “I guess you can say I was proving a point.”

FSC: Is there a future for drag radial racing in any organization or do you believe it will be relegated to a few big outlaw races a year?

Filipowski: “I think there is (a future). The rules, though, need to be more in line with the outlaw rules like the NMCA has in Memphis. Limit it to 3,300 pounds on stock suspension with a tire rule and run whatever combination you want to. That’s all. Let the class evolve from there. There is the safety concern, though. SFI has addressed these fast, heavy cars with new specs, but I still think a 3,300 or 3,400-pound car, going 180 mph is not too safe. I’d like to see the cars lighter, but I think the Mustangs and Camaros are the only cars you can get lighter without much problem, which may cause problems for the guys that want to run older cars. It’s a tough situation to be able to balance everything to make everybody happy.”

FSC: You and Chris Singleton are teaming up next year, what can expect from you guys?

Filipowski: “We’re going to build a 4th generation Camaro for Xtreme Street.
We’re still not sure what power-adder we’ll use; we’ll wait until we see the new rules before we make that decision.”

FSC: And who will drive it?

Filipowski: “I guess we’ll go to the first race and flip a coin for it.”

FSC: And what will become of your Camaro and the Nova?

Filipowski: “I’ll keep racing the Camaro in drag radial stuff when I can. I’m putting a new engine in the Nova which will again allow me to run it on the street.”