When it Rains

California’s John Rains seemingly drew first blood within the highly anticipated SS/AH HEMI® class wars for this season.

California’s John Rains seemingly drew first blood within the highly anticipated SS/AH HEMI® class wars for this season. Driving his spectacular 1968 HEMI Dart, the relative newcomer to the category gathered much attention when he reset the national elapsed time record for the SS/AH class during NHRA’s early season National Open event held at Las Vegas.

Rains sped to an 8.75 secs, which when altitude corrected is 8.54 secs. He successfully backed the mark up within the required NHRA percentage. For Rains, who began racing his car four years ago, it is the first time he has held the prestigious and sought after standard.

“The record is exciting for us because we really were not thinking about it or expecting it when we entered the event,” Rains admitted. “There has been a lot of hard work leading up to the record. We have a new Charlie Westcott HEMI engine program and that was our first race with that motor. It has all the latest and greatest HEMI engine technology and obviously we have the power to run right at the top of this class.”

At (uncorrected) sea level, Rains had previously run as quick as 8.67 secs and the best speed in the car so far is a rapid 154 mph. He is confident that both those numbers will also improve this season.

“This car was built specifically for Mopar® HEMI Shootout racing,” added John. “Gary Hansen built the car and he is also our crew chief.”

Rains, who owns a very successful business that overhauls helicopter turbine engines, confirmed that his very potent Heli-HEMI Racing team (which also includes crewmembers Mike Cabacious and Tim Richards) will make a “full pull” this season with numerous scheduled Mopar HEMI Challenge event stops.