Having captured wins in every series he’s raced in, Chris Rini found victory to be an elusive temptress in the PDRA. Rini raced with the sanctioning body since its inception in 2014 to no avail. It finally all came together for him only recently as he picked up his first-ever win – and then earned a second back-to-back success story at the following race.
The 51-year-old New York native and entrepreneur has never been afraid of hard work and knows it can often take years for things to come to fruition. With lots of wins already under his belt behind the wheel of Bryant Marriner’s gray 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS in various classes, including Piedmont Dragway’s famous Big Dog Shootout, Rini decided to go all-in and commissioned Jerry Bickel Race Cars to build a silver clone of the Camaro.
However, when it became apparent that Rini’s ride wouldn’t be finished in time for the 2022 season due to Covid-19 supply chain difficulties, he put together a Plan B. “I talked with Bryant [Marriner] about the rules changes in Big Dog that allowed in Hemis and bigger 5.3-inch bore space engines. We were running a 5-inch bore space combination with two stages of nitrous and no-lockup, and we didn’t want to change the engine program to be competitive,” noted Rini.
Instead, the men decided to target PDRA Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous. Rini took the go-fast bits he had ready for his silver Camaro –a 959 cubic inch platform from Buck Racing Engines equipped with a hefty dose of Switzer Dynamics nitrous oxide – and placed it between the frame rails of Marriner’s ATI Performance Products-backed Chevy.
ATI has been instrumental in providing me with the latest and greatest innovations to help eliminate weak links and failure points. – Chris Rini
Over the winter, Bickel outfitted the Camaro to accept the new combination and installed the hood scoop and headers, then trimmed the front end to accommodate the larger engine. Rini, who splits his time between his new home in North Carolina and his businesses up North, didn’t have time to go testing prior to the start of the 2022 PDRA season in April, but he still went into it with a clear head.
“We didn’t have a lot of data early in the year, so we were competitive but not quite where we wanted to be,” shared the man who qualified consistently well with passes in the 3.6- and 3.7-second range, but wasn’t going rounds in eliminations as expected. “It made it tougher to get the bugs worked out. We…
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