DP: How much power does the Green Truck make?RD: It's hard to say. If you really did the calculated figures, like everyone in drag racing does, you're looking at about 1,200 hp to the wheels. Everyone says, 'Well, that's a little far-fetched.' I can't tell you if it is or not. I can tell you our setup does not like a dyno, and I do not like a dyno. If you get up there and you have wheel speed and your truck's not at the peak of performance whenever he calls for the load to hit the tires, you're not going to put out a good number. I've argued this point over and over and over, and you can watch people who have dyno tested once a week or once a month, and they can throw out better numbers than a person who just gets out there and dynos. I understand the dyno apparatus, but I don't know how consistent it is. We dyno'd last February, and we didn't put out but like 900 hp. Maybe that's true, but unless it will carry you down the track, it really doesn't matter-to me, anyway.
DP: There's a story around about the Chunchit Valve. This is sort of your secret weapon, is it not?RD: (Laughing) I don't know if we need to go off the record for this or not. People take this stuff way too seriously. Don't get me wrong, we don't get too relaxed at the track, but you have to have times that you keep people just guessing. When we got to where we thought we were halfway decently fast, rumors got started. Back 15 years ago, I had torn a transmission apart, a 16-speed John Deere. The customer walked into the shop and said, 'Did you find out what was wrong with it?' I hated to tell the man I had $30,000 torn apart that I didn't have no earthly idea what was wrong with. I looked at him, and I don't know where it came from, but I said, 'The Chunchit Valve is bad.' You know what? He turned around and walked off. He was perfectly happy. I'd given him an explanation he wanted to hear. I kept kind of using that term and then the muffler bearing came up. Everybody picked up their little thing. When we started racing, and we got to where we were consistently where we were at, everybody asked us, 'Why are you all so fast? Why are you all doing this? Why are you all changing turbos?' It's all related back to the Chunchit Valve. What's the Chunchit Valve? It's when you don't have no earthly idea. There are one or two racers who think we've carried it a little too far, but I actually have a Chunchit Valve with a pedaling wheel and all in it in the trailer. What is it? It's something someone can look at.
DP: It really sounds like your whole team has a perspective that this is fun.RD: Don't get me wrong. There have been stressful rides back in the truck when we didn't do well. We're not going to point fingers. When we don't get down the track, it doesn't matter who screws up. It's a team effort that put us there, and it's a team effort that brings us home. That's where we get all the fun out of it.
DP: What are the goals now with this thing?RD: We want to be the fastest Pro Street truck ever. The only problem I have goes to the issue of power-adders. Nitrous versus water. Is water a power-adder? Some people say, 'Water isn't a power-adder because it's used for coolant.' I can buy that to a certain amount, but it does create horsepower, because if it didn't, how does a steam engine run? You're throwing water in a hot motor. It basically becomes a steam motor. How much water you can burn depends on how much horsepower can be generated.