When the NMRA‘s Drag Radial class went the way of the dodo bird at the end of the 2012 racing season, New Jersey’s Ronnie Diaz decided to take a step back and look at his racing program with an eye on improving it moving forward. He had damaged the engine a number of times trying to determine the limits of the parts he was using — at one point destroying it so badly that the only part to be salvaged were the cam covers.

During the year away from NMRA racing, Diaz and crew chief Richard Robinson of ModFather Racing focused their efforts on running X275 at the local tracks, including Cecil County Dragway and Maryland International Raceway, and did so with quite a bit of success.

At the World Cup Finals at MIR in November using a DGR Performance-assembled, UCF Machine Shop-machined 358 cube bullet based on a GT Supercar block and GT500 heads tuned up by a gear-driven ProCharger F-1X supercharger, tuner Craig Pachar of Triangle Speed Shop helped Diaz to knock down a wicked 7.13 at 198 MPH, ending the year as the quickest and fastest supercharged, Modular-powered door car in the world.

“After the great outing we had at MIR, I was hooked back on quarter-mile racing and we were ready to come back to the NMRA,” he explains.

The car was dropped off at Acors Performance in Virginia to have a pile of offseason upgrades done with an eye on taking home the championship in NMRA’s Street Outlaw class in 2014. “The engine and transmission are the same, but everything else has been upgraded over this offseason. Chris Acors did a brand-new 25.3 chassis and custom rear suspension for us, we’ve got a Schoneck Composites ’03 Cobra front end and cowl hood, Hairy Glass doors, Optic Armor composite windows, and other modifications performed to help the chassis be as light as it can be. Chris has been a huge asset to our program,” says Diaz.

In addition to the chassis upgrades, Diaz has landed a long list of sponsors that have been instrumental in securing the parts and pieces he needs to compete at this level. UCF Machine Shop, Triangle Speed Shop, DGR Performance, Acors Performance, Mod Motor Mustangs, Salvato Designs, RedTide Motorsports, TDC Customs, Hubbard Racing Inc., and UPR have all stepped up to the plate to help ModFather Racing get into the winner’s circle in the tough Street Outlaw class. 

“With Craig Pachar tuning it, DGR and UCF engine work and the Chris Acors Performance chassis, I think I have found the perfect trifecta to achieve my lofty goals this season. Failure is not an option and anything short of the championship will be a disappointment,” he says.