Waging A Hemi® Challenge War

Words: Roger Meiners

Charlie Westcott Sr.’s 426 HEMI® engine barked a staccato symphony of ear-splitting sound as he positioned his 1968 Plymouth Barracuda for a bye run into the finals of the 2009 Mopar® Hemi Challenge at the NHRA U.S. Nationals. With nobody in the other lane Charlie would win, but a fast run would give him lane choice for the final. He launched perfectly, no worries about the lights. First gear, then second in the four speed box. Hurtling down the track in the HEMI Barracuda. One of the fastest Super Stockers in NHRA history was on its way.

Charlie Westcott Sr. is one of a dominant two-person wrecking crew in NHRA’s Super Stock A HEMI class. The other team member is his son, Charlie Jr., a master engine builder and three time Nationals winner. In fact, the Westcott team, self-dubbed the HEMI Militia, has fourteen Mopar HEMI Challenge wins since 2004. Nobody else comes close, unless he’s named Barton. The past few years have been a war between Ray Barton-built engines and those of the Westcott’s team.

“It’s always been a war,” says Westcott Sr. “You pick whose team you want to be on. You are either on Westcott’s team or Barton’s team.”

Charlie Jr. was into cars in high school in Parma, Mich. He still lives in the house in which he grew up. “I hated school. I learned to read and write, of course, and I learned math on my own. But school should teach you how to work and how to be productive.” He learned that from his father, who has a drywall business in Parma. “My senior year I went co-op and worked with dad,” he says.

“I wasn’t into the social part of high school,” said Westcott Jr. “All I wanted to do is work on my race cars. My dad tried to steer me away from that. ‘You’ll never make any money,’ he said. But if it was just racing, he would be right, but selling stuff pays for racing both of our cars.” Charlie makes parts he can’t buy anywhere. He makes his own special tools, piston, oil pump and even the timing pointer. “Everything I do must be simple, easy to work on and functional,” he says.

Westcott Sr.’s Barracuda, now at 300 feet on its bye run, would line him up against David Barton in the finals. Now he went for third gear and suddenly the car slowed. No power. Smoke in his mirror. The dream faded. He coasted across the line in 13 seconds and parked it. A broken valve. He knew it was the same thing that sidelined his son’s usually-reliable 426 HEMI in the first round.

Back in the pits, Charlie Sr. went to change out of his racing gear. Charlie Jr.’s girlfriend Missy [Melissa Wensley] asked him, “Why don’t you put the spare in?” Charlie Jr. began to think and calculate. “I looked at the schedule and saw Alcohol Funny Car and Pro Mod. Those classes are always good for about three crashes and blow ups and we might have more time than we thought. John Rains had a spare motor I had built for him. I said to my dad, ‘Let’s change the motor.’ I got my extra oil pan and asked Missy to take it to Rains and tell him to get that motor ready.”

That’s when the thrash started. Jim De Frank cleared his pit area to get ready for the swap as Westcott and his friends from Michigan pushed the car over to pull the engine and hoist it out. Then something happened. A bunch of other Super Stock AH racers rushed over and dove into the job. Mike Roth, a chassis builder who supplies Westcott’s competitors, was under the car. Brian Olson, an IHRA announcer was under there, too, as was Gary Hanson, who builds Rains’ cars. Olson was getting metal filings in his eyes as Charlie Jr. chipped away on a clutch stand he damaged in the rush to change the engine. Evan Knowles helped and Darryl Marvel handed out tools he got from De Frank. Another chassis guy, Gary Jennings was there, too. A crowd of people gathered around De Frank’s pit.

Meanwhile fellow HEMI Challenge runner Don Bales was up in the tower pleading unsuccessfully with the NHRA about delaying the next round.

Meanwhile the thrash continued, “I had a problem getting the clutch to set up right,” said Westcott Jr. “I boogered up this one clutch stand and I spent probably an extra ten minutes fixing that. And people were saying, ‘you ain’t got time’ and I’m thinking, ‘yeah, I ought to give up,’ but that’s not fair to all these people. We were so close that I decided to go until they run the other car down the track.”

The impromptu team got the job done in ninety minutes. Everybody cheered as the engine was fired and Charlie Sr. drove away to the staging lanes. He arrived with five minutes to spare. David Barton waited there stoically as his sure-thing bye run to the championship and $10,000 in Mopar money started 
to fade.

As the two HEMI Mopars staged, people wondered whether Westcott’s car would hold together. The answer came as he cut a .013 light, leaving Barton stuck on the line with a .498 reaction time. Westcott went through with an ET of 8.826 seconds while Barton recorded a faster 8.802, losing because of his late start, caused by a malfunction.

They went to the next race at Columbus and qualified behind Barton-powered Jim Daniels before the race was rained out. Then they worked on the engine problem, which cost time, so they missed the season-ending event at Maple Grove. Daniels won again and his Barton engine took away Charlie Jr.’s record. After that, Westcott corrected the valvetrain problem.

Back in Parma, the Westcotts regrouped. “I know Barton has the record, so I have another goal. 
It keeps me going.” He’s now testing various new components. Once he finishes the test program he will build a new engine with the good stuff and start dialing it in for what looks to be a real battle with Barton this season.

The success at Indy is still fresh in Charlie Jr.’s mind. He said, “The best thing about it was the community effort. There were so many people. That means a lot. That says a lot about the class.” He added, “None of those people had ever touched a wrench to our cars. The only ones that ever work on these cars are me and dad. It was unreal.”

Roth said, “Westcott put his pride aside. That’s a step forward for him. Never before would you get to look at his car. It was the coolest racing thing I have ever been involved in.”

Some may think Westcott Jr. reserved and too private, but Mel Warford, HEMI Challenge competitor Randy Warford’s dad, disagrees and says, “Charlie doesn’t tolerate people who don’t work as hard as 
he does.” In other words, Charlie doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

Charlie is definitely on his own road to the winner’s circle and he won’t be detoured by anybody.