Like pretty much every racer out there, Chris Tuten is a hard worker. You can’t be a lazy racer, you won’t last. The only thing that could even be remotely lazy about Tuten is if for some reason his car has a “lazy” pass, which doesn’t happen often.

Unfortunately, during the off-season Tuten didn’t have the luxury of being lazy. After back-to-back incidents to end 2014, he had a lot of work to do. Tuten blew a tire at 178 mph, and then a week later he broke a driveshaft, which in turn ripped up parts of the car’s floor pan, broke the transmission off the back of the block, broke 2 connecting rods, broke the crankshaft, and broke the block.

Chris Tuten says even though it’s same old car he’s had for years, it feels like a new car to him.

“Needless to say, we ended the year in grand fashion,” Tuten says. Therefore, Tuten needed a new 481X engine, but this engine has some differences that he has yet to test. The transmission was repaired, and new axles were added since his existing axles were bent. Then he made the change to Chris Alston’s Varishock out back, as well.

However, the biggest learning curve for Tuten and his crew will be the changeover to Bullseye Power twin turbochargers from ‘Wild’ Bill Devine. “That may be our steepest learning curve to figure out,” Tuten says, “but I’m confident they have a product we can compete with.” Tuten also says it’s great to work with a former racer like Devine who understands the real racing side of things.

After 4 months of work, even though it looks the same, the car is almost new to Tuten. “Initial passes went well and the car felt extremely stable again,” he says. With the good signs from the initial testing, Tuten feels the team can move forward to put themselves in a winning position again.

Tuten will continue to rely on TeamZ Motorsports for his suspension. TeamZ has continued to prove they have the science down of small tire drag racing, with cars like Tuten’s pulling off some of the fastest 60 foot times in the sport. TeamZ of course contributed some support as well in the effort to repair the car and get it ready for the 2015 racing season.

For getting the car back up together, Tuten would like to thank Cameron’s Torque Converter Service, Team Z Motorsports, Bullseye Power, Chris Alston’s Chassis Works, Strange Engineering, Davis Plumbing, The Muffler Shop of Columbia, Mac Fab Performance Beadlocks, and “my family and friends for the support.”