Chris Holbrook, who competed in the inaugural season of the NHRA’s Factory X drag racing class, is bringing out a newly-revamped machine for the 2024 season. Holbrook and Ford Performance this week unveiled Holbrook’s 2024 contender, which now wears 2024 Mustang GT Dark Horse bodywork and a lively scheme from Ford Performance.
“They want the newest cars out there possible,” Holbrook says of the NHRA’s initial concept for the Factory X class. “I tried to make it a 650 at the beginning, but they didn’t have the body parts.”
Factory X rules state that the body components must be of stock dimensions, but can be made out of carbon-fiber. Extra factory steel parts were initially hard to come by as the S650 platform was still very new, and no one had been able to make a mold of them.
As the Cobra Jet has not been greenlighted for the S650 Mustang platform, racers looking to have the newest Mustang body for their racing program will have to build their own cars — that is, unless they opt for the new Ford Performance body parts that Holbrook’s Mustang now wears.
“They want to come back and concentrate more on drag racing,” Holbrook tells us of Ford’s involvement.
Around November of 2023, Ford Performance met with Holbrook, who has been involved with the parts and racing division for most of his life, and whose father was, as well. “I think it’s awesome,” Holbrook says. “Anything you can do with Ford Performance and with the Ford Motor company is great. My father was a true diehard Ford guy, so am I, and so is my son. I am very excited about it. My dad was in Hot Rod in 1975 and they named him Captain Cobra Jet.
We were at U.S. Nationals with the first and only Ford in Factory X. I was in my motorhome working on my computer on the next round’s tune and my crew guy said there was someone outside wanting to talk to me. It was Mark Rushbrook, a big corporate Ford Racing guy. The NHRA was debuting the new Factory X class at that event and it was very cool for him to personally walk over and check out our program. He was asking me at that time if there was anything he could do to help. Acknowledging our program meant a lot.”
Holbrook stayed in contact with Ford Performance’s Brian Novak to continue the conversation about cutting up his brand new car to rebody it as a 2024 Mustang GT.
“I think the biggest thing is that Pro Stock was kind of stale. A new class like Factory X that represents an actual car that they sell really excited them and got them back in drag racing in the NHRA,” Holbrook says.
Once Ford Performance had the body components, Holbrook had friend Mike Szalay at Mike’s Collision in New Boston, Michigan, perform the installation, and the Mustang was then adorned with a new wrap for the 2024 Ford Performance season launch event.
“Everything had to be changed except the roof,” Holbrook explains of the modifications. “Their objective is to offer the body parts to make it simpler for someone building a Factory X car.”
The 2023 season was certainly one of firsts for Holbrook, as he not only debuted his new Factory X Mustang, but also helped his son Del in his first season in the Factory Stock Showdown category.
“I think it went pretty well. With Del, I think it went really good for his first year in NHRA Factory Showdown,” he says. “We had a couple number one qualifiers. We didn’t get the big win, but it will come. We ended up sixth in the points. Hopefully, we get a win this year and even a championship.”
Regarding his inaugural season on Factory X, Holbrook says, “We only went to two events and both events we went to the finals, beating [Geoff] Turk at Indy and [Greg] Stanfield in the first round at St. Louis. With learning a new car, I didn’t think that was too bad, especially looking at the balance of the pulleys last year. The Mopar and the COPO combos had a better advantage over the Ford.
“Bickel did a great job on our chassis,” Chris Holbrook continues. “The car worked really well and everyone is getting used to the rules as far as tire size and the way the car is set up. It’s so new, trying to get the clutch and gearing right with the transmission, and that changes from racing in the heat, to cool air, to new engine performance. It’s constant change, which hurts the budget. At the beginning of the year, there was a lot of unanswered questions about what was legal and not legal. With the recent pulley changes for 2024, I think the parity will be more even and we should be able to compete in a level playing field.”
In addition to the change in his Mustang’s exterior, Holbrook has been hard at work at his Holbrook Racing Engines company tweaking his supercharged 5.0-liter Coyote engine program.
“I’ve been in the engine shop trying to find more power, especially as they hit the combinations. This year coming up, so far they have left the Ford FX alone and are bringing the COPO and Dodge to where the parity should be better.”