{"id":13207,"date":"2015-03-13T09:13:47","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T16:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=13207"},"modified":"2015-03-16T14:15:13","modified_gmt":"2015-03-16T21:15:13","slug":"chad-head-has-his-sights-set-on-gatornationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/chad-head-has-his-sights-set-on-gatornationals\/","title":{"rendered":"Chad Head Sets Sights on Gatornationals"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This year\u2019s Amalie Oil Gatornationals at the Auto Plus Raceway will mark Chad Head\u2019s third year of competition and the Columbus, Ohio resident\u2019s career is just now beginning to surge.<\/p>\n

He just came off his best race at Phoenix and although it was just a quarterfinals finish, it marked a significant quest to be consistent and his Head, Inc. Toyota team couldn\u2019t be any more pumped up.<\/p>\n

At the Phoenix race in session one, he collected a center-line cone, but from that point on, Head recorded times of 4.078, 4.077 and 4.043 and started No. 11 against Ron Capps where he ran the second quickest elapsed time of the first round. This was his best of the weekend of 4.023 seconds while Capps lost traction.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Against his good friend and nemesis, Del Worsham, Head again made a race out of it but his 4.078 was bested by Worsham\u2019s 4.047 seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for my screw up in the first session, our car theoretically would have made it six out of six times,\u201d said a determined Chad Head.\u00a0 \u201cWithout a doubt, that is awesome.\u00a0 It kind of reminds me of the nostalgia car.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping we\u2019re on to something and I know all the guys, John Boyce and John Davis and all the guys in the shop are just absolutely busting their butts with our new car and the new 2015 Toyota body.\u00a0 Obviously, going to Gainesville, how can you not feel great?\u00a0 Although, we don\u2019t want to get ahead of ourselves, it\u2019s just one race.\u00a0 There are a lot of good cars out there. \u00a0Our run in Phoenix was definitely neat, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only do I get to drive a great race car, I get to drive a race car with my dad being the crew chief.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have too many free weekends anymore between racing and the construction company.\u00a0 Going to races is like a competitive weekend off.\u00a0 We\u2019re very fortunate to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s his dad who makes the wheels turn and Chad is fortunate to have six-time nitro winner, Jim Head as the leader of this team.\u00a0 The veteran driver turned tuner, is only getting better with age and Chad has him to discuss any situation that may come up.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe really doesn\u2019t say too much and he\u2019s been really good,\u201d said Head.\u00a0 \u201cHe tries to help me with tips of keeping it in the groove, trying to stay ahead of the car.\u00a0 I still need to work on that quite a bit.\u00a0 Sometimes the car still gets ahead of me, instead of me being ahead of it.\u00a0 So, it\u2019s a balance.\u00a0 He tries to help me with that and we go over the video and he actually has been really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now after a run, it\u2019s a careful study of what the car is doing, feeling and feedback Chad has during the run and lately all that diligence is paying off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll sit with Dave Laheah and we\u2019ll look at the video and look to see to make sure that I\u2019m not deep staging.\u00a0 We\u2019re just trying to analyze the run.\u00a0 I try to do that before dad gets back to the pits.\u00a0 Of course, shutting the car off at the appropriate time, not at 1,010 feet, not 990 feet, he expects that car to be shut off at 1,000 feet. \u00a0So I try to be very aware of where I am on the racetrack and try not to drive it to 1,100 feet.\u00a0 You have to be cautious and you gotta to know of where you are.<\/p>\n

Head has worn many hats in his motorsports career, including working summers for Dad\u2019s team as a teenager and later included a stint at John Force Racing, the NHRA, the IndyCar series and was Director of Racing Operations at Alan Johnson racing before a family Thanksgiving vacation in 2012 that changed that all around.\u00a0 After talking with his father and the encouragement he got from family he joined Head, Inc. and is now taking an active part in the construction business.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, I was very, very happy working at Alan Johnson Racing,\u201d said a smiling Head.\u00a0 \u201cI really wasn\u2019t looking at making a move.\u00a0 It took a vacation in both dad and I talking to each other.\u00a0 It was time to try to get into the family business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now his schedule is totally full, hitting the road for Head, Inc. at their different job sites and is slowly learning the business.\u00a0 He leaves the track and is right back to work on Monday to the construction site.<\/p>\n

\u201cLately, I\u2019ve been going right to New Orleans,\u201d stated Head.\u00a0 \u201cWe have a project there in Belle Chasse and we started that project back in August and my main responsibility was trucking.\u00a0 I was trying to figure out how to mind the trucking and it\u2019s about a two-hour round trip from the asphalt plant to the military base.\u00a0 I\u2019ve pretty much been on-site just about every day that we\u2019ve paved asphalt.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had to manage the tonnage, manage what\u2019s going on on-site, deal with security issues, deal with badging, just a lot of on-site issues.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great learning experience. I basically go from racetrack to the job site, back to the racetrack, and back to the job site and every now and then, I get to come home.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore coming on board, I had never been involved the construction business until well over two years ago.\u00a0\u00a0 Just because it was my father, Jim Head of Head, Inc., the family business, I had never had anything to do with it.\u00a0 Everything is new to me.\u00a0 We have an amazing staff and everyone is very patient.\u00a0 All the project managers, superintendants, and the quality control people have worked with me in trying to get me up to speed.\u00a0 Hey, I\u2019m 41 years-old and I have a long way to go.\u00a0 I\u2019m basically starting a new career at 40.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Head, Inc. Toyota team knows the price to run a Funny Car is in the millions and for the first two races had TaylorMade Golf and WSM Auctioneers sponsorship; Chad is always looking for sponsors and the additional funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you can have somebody on the car, it\u2019s a positive,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cWe were very fortunate to be contacted by an advertising agency on the TaylorMade deal.\u00a0 It was a great opportunity to be hooked up with a big company and do some of the neat things that we got to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, getting back with WSM Auctioneers and John Cadzow was good for us last year in Phoenix.\u00a0 He wanted to do it again in 2015. I think that\u2019s a great relationship we\u2019ve formed.\u00a0 Hopefully, next year, we\u2019ll have a full-time sponsorship and can bring them on as an associate sponsor.\u00a0 He\u2019s very excited and is talking about doing something possibly at Las Vegas and maybe even Pomona.\u00a0 He\u2019s seen the value and what we can bring to his company.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gainesville is coming up on the schedule and is one of NHRA\u2019s bigger events of the season. \u00a0Head Racing is very much in the Funny Car mix right now and the possibility of a win could be the right up they consistent way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of cars capable of running up and down the dragstrip in Gainesville,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cYou can\u2019t take any of the credit away from what we accomplished in Phoenix.\u00a0 It\u2019s only one race and we know that.\u00a0 We need to continue to do that.\u00a0 If we continue to go up and down the racetrack even if we\u2019re not the quickest, I still believe that\u2019s how you win rounds.\u00a0 That\u2019s how you get people to screw up against you.\u00a0 If your opponent knows they are facing a car that is capable of running nearly 70 to 80 percent chance of going down the racetrack, they are going to tune their car up a little different.\u00a0 The more consistent you can be, the quicker you can go.\u00a0 You have to walk before you can run and we\u2019re doing a lot of walking right now.\u00a0 Later, I\u2019ll be looking forward to doing a lot of running.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, it\u2019s all about family and Chad getting to spend time with his dad. It\u2019s something he really enjoys.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spend time together at the racetrack, spend time together at the office,\u201d said Chad.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s a love\/hate relationship sometimes, just like any other father\/son.\u00a0 I still have a lot to learn from him and he\u2019s learning how to deal with me.\u00a0 Overall, I think we\u2019ve both done a very good job. I feel that there are some things, I could do better and he\u2019s thinking there are things he could do better on the car.\u00a0 I think we\u2019ve both have come a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DSC07377\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s Amalie Oil Gatornationals at the Auto Plus Raceway will mark Chad Head\u2019s third year of competition and the Columbus, Ohio resident\u2019s career is just now beginning to surge.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,3399],"tags":[2188,2185,2187,2189,1689,606,38,593,2184,2183,2186,516],"class_list":["post-13207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-nhra","tag-2015-amalie-oil-gatornationals","tag-2015-nhra-gatornationals","tag-amalie-oil","tag-auto-plus-raceway","tag-biography","tag-chad-head","tag-funny-car","tag-gatornationals","tag-head-inc-toyota","tag-head-toyota","tag-jim-head","tag-toyota"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/DSC07453-feat.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-3r1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13207"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13268,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207\/revisions\/13268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}