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As a young boy, Chris Holbrook learned the sport of drag racing through the guiding hands, eyes, and mind of his father, legendary Ford Super Stock drag racer Carl Holbrook. Carl started racing dirt modified cars in 1963 — just three years before Chris was born – and as soon as he was able to hold a wrench, the indoctrination into the racing world began for the youngster.
Carl’s racing career continued through the 1960’s, and by 1968 he was racing a Cobra Jet Mustang in NHRA Super Stock, earning many national records and event wins, along with the name “Captain Cobra Jet”. By 1973, Carl started building engines for other racers, and ten years later Chris took the seat in a 1963 428-powered Galaxie and began making laps at Detroit Dragway. IHRA Top Sportsman and Pro Stock became a place for him to set more records, culminating in the achievement of the 1999 IHRA Pro Stock Championship.
The current day has Holbrook building upon his racing legacy, expanding it by leaps and bounds.
The lessons learned as a young boy translated into Chris building his Holbrook Racing Engines business in Livonia, Michigan, and leveraging some of the partnerships formed over decades of racing into opportunities that have allowed him to continue to excel both in business and on the track with exploits in NHRA Stock and Super Stock Eliminator competition, where he carries the Holbrook name into the record books quite often.
“My business is what keeps me involved at this level – it’s the old ‘Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday’ concept. It just seems like the better we do on the weekend, or the faster we run, the phone rings off the hook the following week,” says Holbrook.
A partnership with Ford Racing Parts stemming from the crate engine program and Cobra Jet program have Holbrook using the CJ platform as his rolling testbed of sorts.
“We do a lot of work with Ford Racing Parts, research and development work mostly with their crate engines. When Ford first came out with the Cobra Jets with the pushrod engines [ed note. – the 352 and 428CI engines] back in 2010, we originally designed and built those engines for Ford Racing. They built the cars, and then the engines went into the guide for NHRA to be factored for Stock and Super Stock competition. We purchased a Cobra Jet at that time to stay involved, and figured if we were doing the engines we might as well get a car and campaign it,” he explains.
In fact, Holbrook tells us that this very Cobra Jet is the single car that was built with a 352 cubic inch engine in the 2010 CJ run. That’s correct – it’s a one-of-one car for the current-body Cobra Jet, and a piece of history if we’ve ever seen one. Initially the 352 was in the car, but he subsequently changed the engine out for a 5.4L Whipple-supercharged engine, and today it wears 2013 livery with the Coyote supercharged combination installed. All changes have been made to perform best under Stock Eliminator rules for each racing season.
While you purists might frown upon the fact that he’s messing with history, he’s assured us that every single piece that was removed from the car for its current drivetrain combination is sitting on the shelf at Holbrook Racing Engines in the event that some collector wants to pay him a handsome price for the car at some point in the distant future.
This car is the quickest and fastest Stock Eliminator car on the planet – an 8.50 at 161.88 MPH achieved on his way to an event win at last season’s NMRA Cobra Jet Showdown in Florida earned him that title; he won the NHRA Factory Stock Showdown title just after the NMRA event at the Gatornationals last season as well. This year he’s also started off the season right, by qualifying at the top of the field for the NMRA’s Cobra Jet Showdown along with another event win there over Mike Skinner with a sweet 8.505 at 158.25 mph.
Stock Eliminator runs on an index – this combination is factored in the AAA/SA class, but NHRA has three events where they also run the Factory Stock class, which is contested in a heads-up format.
“In Factory Stock, they run all of the supercharged cars heads-up, with the first one to the finish line as the winner, and they do the same thing with the naturally-aspirated cars like the COPO Camaro and Challenger. The winner of the two different classes then run in the final off an index with a staggered start. My index was 10.10 in those events, and I think the naturally-aspirated cars have a 10.40 index,” he says.
The Factory Stock races have no penalty for a racer running as quick as possible, but in typical Stock Eliminator competition the opposite holds true – a racer is penalized with weight if the NHRA re-factors their engine after a quick pass. “It’s hard, because you want to go out there and go fast because you want to show your engine horsepower, but then you get people pissed off at you because the next race they have to go out there and add weight if they are running the same combination. We’re throwing weight in the car and taking timing out to adjust the car to try to get number one qualifier without hammering the index,” he explains.
The car is currently factored with a 9.70 index, and Holbrook attempts to run an 8.51 at every event. A racer is typically permitted to run 1.19 seconds quicker than the index without penalty; run 1.20 seconds quicker or more under the index and the horsepower factor automatically changes by a percentage on Monday when NHRA resets them.
This means that the racer will have to carry more weight for the next race. Once a racer has proven to have the ability to run so much quicker than the index, they are forced to carry that weight for that combination forever. In AAA/SA, the cars are forced to run six pounds per horsepower (from the factor), putting Holbrook’s race weight at 3,550 pounds.
“You’re only allowed to carry so much ballast in the car, so you can really push the car right out of a certain class if you run too quickly. It’s pretty difficult to walk that fine line,” says Holbrook.
Holbrook’s weapon of choice in Stock Eliminator is this 2013 Ford Mustang Cobra Jet platform. The car, like all Cobra Jets, specs out around a Watson Racing rollcage that’s legal to 8.50 elapsed times. In Holbrook’s case, Watson Racing also happens to be a sponsor, not only of this car but also his brand-new Super Stocker, which we’ll show you in an upcoming article.
As might be expected, Holbrook Racing Engines is responsible for assembling the 5.0L Coyote engine. In a Stock Eliminator application, racers are limited to using the factory block, although they can open the bore up .080-inch over stock, which in this case necessitates custom iron sleeves. The crankshaft must also be a stock piece, although the engine builder is permitted to add .015-inch to the throws.
Holbrook uses Oliver billet connecting rods and Mahle pistons to complete the rotating assembly, then tunes up the factory cylinder heads to Stock Eliminator specs and tops them off with a quarter of Holbrook Racing Engines custom camshafts. The power in a Stock Eliminator combination is all in the induction system – with the limits placed upon the racers to maintain the stock parts, working their magic on the airflow components is where performance increases come from.
Sitting on top of the engine is a Cobra Jet intake manifold topped with a 2.9L Whipple supercharger. The fuel system is from Aeromotive and the exhaust is handled by a set of American Racing Headers’ finest long tube headers.
Another place where more power is available to the racer is through the use of an aftermarket fuel injection system; Holbrook uses BigStuff3 to control both the tuneup and the ignition, and there are substantial gains to be made here.
Transmission duties in this record-setting machine are handled by a C4 transmission built by none other than legendary transmission builder Joel’s On Joy, and the torque converter is a custom piece from A-1 Performance in Vancouver, Washington.
A Ford 9-inch rearend using 4.56:1 gearing is underneath the back of the car, stuffed with Strange Engineering’s axles and spool assembled by Tommy Lee Performance. Strange Engineering brakes are at all four corners.
The front suspension is all factory Cobra Jet, while the rear suspension uses factory Cobra Jet pieces along with some massaging from Watson Racing. Mickey Thompson wheels and tires have proven themselves in competition for Holbrook.
No race team is complete without the help of a solid group of sponsors and crewmembers – Holbrook has Varsity Ford Ann Arbor on board along with Watson Racing. Dan Day, Tom Klien, and Holly, Sabrina, and Del Holbrook wear the crew shirts and make things happen on race day. Holbrook, too. Because the only way to run at the front of the pack is to get yourself dirty and figure out the things that the competition hasn’t – and he’s proven to be a master of doing so.
