NMRAPaul
02-17-2006, 06:23 PM
Race Pages Interview:
Chris Beningo
This is a portion of a complete interview that will appear in the June 2006 issue of Race Pages. Check out the printed version for the full story.
http://www.promediapub.com/vbulletinimg/nmra/beningo.jpg
The man has had his paws on more T-Top NMRA champion machines than anyone else.
Who is he> Data reviewin’, head scratchin’, knob turnin’, button pushin’ guy.
Why should you care> A former “Crew Chief of the Year”, Chris Beningo has worked on everything from a Real Streeter to a Super Street Outlaw machine
Written by> the bald guy written on> 2 Feb 2006 photos> NMRA lenshounds
Quiet, reserved, yet always smiling, Chris Beningo is somewhat of a mystery. A part of the NMRA scene basically since day one, Beningo began with the series helping out Hot Streeter Sammy LaManna way back in 1999 in the NMRA’s inaugural season. Progressing on to form a team with current SSO and former Hot Street champ Billy Laskowsky for five seasons, he then spent 2005 as an adviser/crew chief with Uncle Robin Racing, and is moving on to new projects of his own for ‘06.
The 38-year-old from Morgantown, Pennsylvania, credits much of his success to being in the right place at the right time. Having been involved with cars basically from the moment he could drive, and constantly modifying and “upgrading” everything he owned, drag racing was a natural progression for him. Raised on Mopars by his grandfather, Beningo soon outgrew that initial proclivity as he realized that there was much more in the world of automotive performance.
The “thinking man’s” crew chief, Beningo uses data to support every tuning call that he makes, each thought process analyzed and broken down to the least common denominator before changes are made. As such, his tuning skills are in demand, as you can see by his resume, and he rarely fails to answer the call. Getting into the NMRA eight years ago almost by accident to help out a friend, Beningo never dreamed that it would lead him down the wild and crazy path that it has, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Race Pages>> Chris, you’ve been a staple of the NMRA since the beginning. Where did you gain your racing experience prior to that?
Chris Beningo>> I started playing around with daily driver street cars and pretty quickly started helping racers in NHRA Stock, Super Stock and up to Alcohol Funny Cars. My budget and family requirements precluded me from funding an entire racing operation and for the most part, still do.
RP>> How did you get involved in Stock, SS, and Funny Cars? That’s not the typical progression for someone playing with street cars.
CB>> It was quite natural for me. My grandfather worked as a mechanic in a Chrysler/Plymouth garage and I didn’t think I had a choice to be anything else but a Mopar guy. The Mopar stuff is pretty scarce and the Chrysler guys I first got to know were into “class” cars. The super-strict rules and impossible-to-find casting number parts ended that attraction.
The interest in funny cars came from the old ‘Cuda funny cars of Big John Mazmanian and the Worlds Fastest Hippie that I knew from all the early Hot Rod magazines I collected. I got a hair-brained idea that I was going to build a nostalgia Funny Car and get paid for making exhibition passes. I walked up to a local Alcohol Funny Car racer named Pete Brozene at a Maple Grove race and asked if I could help. He said “Sure, but… DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!” That day, I stood on the starting line and watched his car go down the 1320 and rattle, shake, use up the whole lane, and leave black marks over 1,000 feet long. As we were towing back to the pits I commented that the car was all over the track. Pete said “That was a NICE pass” and my desire to build an exhibition funny car died that very second.
RP>> Did the knowledge you gained in Top Alcohol help to prepare you for the heads-up competition you’d later face?
CB>> My crewing experience with Pete and his car was the most interesting. He was a real low-buck guy that made a car go fast with shoestrings and duct tape. We pulled cracked crankshafts out of trash cans at the track and put them in his car just to be able to get in another two or three passes! We would watch how much oil was getting slung out of the crank seal to know how much longer those cranks would last. I remember running over to the Top Fuel pits after Joe Amato blistered the hides in the lights and buying those slicks for a fraction of the cost of new ones. His sense of doing whatever needed to get done to get thru the next round prepared me the most.
RP>> Way back in 1999, you got together with current Super Street Outlaw racer Billy Laskowsky to race in the old NMCA. How did that union come about?
CB>> Billy and I knew each other for several years thru a mutual friend that was into all kinds of Mustang stuff. Billy reconfigured his T-top 1985 ProCharger-blown street car to race NMCA Real Street. Billy attended his first event by himself and described it as “an abortion of human intelligence.” Bobby Hanlon suggested I give him a shout and see if he wanted a hand. I wanted to try something different than the TAFC and heads-up street car racing piqued my interest.
RP>> After spending time with the alcohol cars, it seems like door-slammers would be kind of an anti-climax. Why change venues?
CB>> Blown Alcohol Funny cars are absolutely brutal sensory stimulators when you have the opportunity to be up close and personal, but after the five years I spent helping folks with their Funny Cars I was just worn out. It became painfully laborious pulling the oil pan, pulling the clutch, and performing all the other maintenance necessary to keep one of those monsters going every round with the limited crew that we had. NMCA racing was alive and well in 1997 or 98 when I first got to one of their races and I liked the way fans could relate to the cars, their lower cost and reduced maintenance requirements. I would still like to do my own car some day!
RP>> You guys had a very uninspiring first season with the NMCA back then. In fact, you didn’t get past the first round until the final race of that season. What was it like to face that kind of adversity?
CB>> Neither Billy nor I took it as adversity. We viewed the rest of the competitors’ performance as the yard stick. The first NMCA race we attended was in Huntsville, Al and it was only eighth-mile. Billy ran a 6.40 in qualifying and us quarter mile guys had to go around to the competitors to ask what they had run to see how our pass stacked up…. We were only a half a second behind the top qualifiers! We couldn’t make a big enough mistake to lose a round that we should win because we were at the bottom of the barrel.
RP>> PBM Racing, as you guys were known back then, made the jump to the NMRA for 2000. What caused you to change sanctioning bodies?
CB>> NMCA had some oddball rules that we felt held the Fords at a disadvantage. I had gone to the Maple Grove and Bowling Green NMRA races in 1999 helping tune for my buddy Sammy LaManna and I liked where the organization looked to be going. Billy’s car fit the rules with some minor adjustments and we felt we could be competitive, so we made the jump.
RP>> Racing in a fledgling organization like the NMRA was back then must have caused some growing pains. What was it like?
CB>> It was more personalized back then. James [Lawrence], Rob [Kinnan], Steve [Wolcott] and Dr. Jamie all dug what everyone in attendance was doing and they really appreciated the efforts expended by the racers. It has become more commercialized than I would like, but this is a business and that is the direction it has gone and remained successful. Dr. Jamie’s undying enthusiasm and flamboyant announcing definitely remains the jewel in NMRA’s crown.
Don't forget to check out the rest of our interview with Chris in the June issue of Race Pages!
Chris Beningo
This is a portion of a complete interview that will appear in the June 2006 issue of Race Pages. Check out the printed version for the full story.
http://www.promediapub.com/vbulletinimg/nmra/beningo.jpg
The man has had his paws on more T-Top NMRA champion machines than anyone else.
Who is he> Data reviewin’, head scratchin’, knob turnin’, button pushin’ guy.
Why should you care> A former “Crew Chief of the Year”, Chris Beningo has worked on everything from a Real Streeter to a Super Street Outlaw machine
Written by> the bald guy written on> 2 Feb 2006 photos> NMRA lenshounds
Quiet, reserved, yet always smiling, Chris Beningo is somewhat of a mystery. A part of the NMRA scene basically since day one, Beningo began with the series helping out Hot Streeter Sammy LaManna way back in 1999 in the NMRA’s inaugural season. Progressing on to form a team with current SSO and former Hot Street champ Billy Laskowsky for five seasons, he then spent 2005 as an adviser/crew chief with Uncle Robin Racing, and is moving on to new projects of his own for ‘06.
The 38-year-old from Morgantown, Pennsylvania, credits much of his success to being in the right place at the right time. Having been involved with cars basically from the moment he could drive, and constantly modifying and “upgrading” everything he owned, drag racing was a natural progression for him. Raised on Mopars by his grandfather, Beningo soon outgrew that initial proclivity as he realized that there was much more in the world of automotive performance.
The “thinking man’s” crew chief, Beningo uses data to support every tuning call that he makes, each thought process analyzed and broken down to the least common denominator before changes are made. As such, his tuning skills are in demand, as you can see by his resume, and he rarely fails to answer the call. Getting into the NMRA eight years ago almost by accident to help out a friend, Beningo never dreamed that it would lead him down the wild and crazy path that it has, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Race Pages>> Chris, you’ve been a staple of the NMRA since the beginning. Where did you gain your racing experience prior to that?
Chris Beningo>> I started playing around with daily driver street cars and pretty quickly started helping racers in NHRA Stock, Super Stock and up to Alcohol Funny Cars. My budget and family requirements precluded me from funding an entire racing operation and for the most part, still do.
RP>> How did you get involved in Stock, SS, and Funny Cars? That’s not the typical progression for someone playing with street cars.
CB>> It was quite natural for me. My grandfather worked as a mechanic in a Chrysler/Plymouth garage and I didn’t think I had a choice to be anything else but a Mopar guy. The Mopar stuff is pretty scarce and the Chrysler guys I first got to know were into “class” cars. The super-strict rules and impossible-to-find casting number parts ended that attraction.
The interest in funny cars came from the old ‘Cuda funny cars of Big John Mazmanian and the Worlds Fastest Hippie that I knew from all the early Hot Rod magazines I collected. I got a hair-brained idea that I was going to build a nostalgia Funny Car and get paid for making exhibition passes. I walked up to a local Alcohol Funny Car racer named Pete Brozene at a Maple Grove race and asked if I could help. He said “Sure, but… DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!” That day, I stood on the starting line and watched his car go down the 1320 and rattle, shake, use up the whole lane, and leave black marks over 1,000 feet long. As we were towing back to the pits I commented that the car was all over the track. Pete said “That was a NICE pass” and my desire to build an exhibition funny car died that very second.
RP>> Did the knowledge you gained in Top Alcohol help to prepare you for the heads-up competition you’d later face?
CB>> My crewing experience with Pete and his car was the most interesting. He was a real low-buck guy that made a car go fast with shoestrings and duct tape. We pulled cracked crankshafts out of trash cans at the track and put them in his car just to be able to get in another two or three passes! We would watch how much oil was getting slung out of the crank seal to know how much longer those cranks would last. I remember running over to the Top Fuel pits after Joe Amato blistered the hides in the lights and buying those slicks for a fraction of the cost of new ones. His sense of doing whatever needed to get done to get thru the next round prepared me the most.
RP>> Way back in 1999, you got together with current Super Street Outlaw racer Billy Laskowsky to race in the old NMCA. How did that union come about?
CB>> Billy and I knew each other for several years thru a mutual friend that was into all kinds of Mustang stuff. Billy reconfigured his T-top 1985 ProCharger-blown street car to race NMCA Real Street. Billy attended his first event by himself and described it as “an abortion of human intelligence.” Bobby Hanlon suggested I give him a shout and see if he wanted a hand. I wanted to try something different than the TAFC and heads-up street car racing piqued my interest.
RP>> After spending time with the alcohol cars, it seems like door-slammers would be kind of an anti-climax. Why change venues?
CB>> Blown Alcohol Funny cars are absolutely brutal sensory stimulators when you have the opportunity to be up close and personal, but after the five years I spent helping folks with their Funny Cars I was just worn out. It became painfully laborious pulling the oil pan, pulling the clutch, and performing all the other maintenance necessary to keep one of those monsters going every round with the limited crew that we had. NMCA racing was alive and well in 1997 or 98 when I first got to one of their races and I liked the way fans could relate to the cars, their lower cost and reduced maintenance requirements. I would still like to do my own car some day!
RP>> You guys had a very uninspiring first season with the NMCA back then. In fact, you didn’t get past the first round until the final race of that season. What was it like to face that kind of adversity?
CB>> Neither Billy nor I took it as adversity. We viewed the rest of the competitors’ performance as the yard stick. The first NMCA race we attended was in Huntsville, Al and it was only eighth-mile. Billy ran a 6.40 in qualifying and us quarter mile guys had to go around to the competitors to ask what they had run to see how our pass stacked up…. We were only a half a second behind the top qualifiers! We couldn’t make a big enough mistake to lose a round that we should win because we were at the bottom of the barrel.
RP>> PBM Racing, as you guys were known back then, made the jump to the NMRA for 2000. What caused you to change sanctioning bodies?
CB>> NMCA had some oddball rules that we felt held the Fords at a disadvantage. I had gone to the Maple Grove and Bowling Green NMRA races in 1999 helping tune for my buddy Sammy LaManna and I liked where the organization looked to be going. Billy’s car fit the rules with some minor adjustments and we felt we could be competitive, so we made the jump.
RP>> Racing in a fledgling organization like the NMRA was back then must have caused some growing pains. What was it like?
CB>> It was more personalized back then. James [Lawrence], Rob [Kinnan], Steve [Wolcott] and Dr. Jamie all dug what everyone in attendance was doing and they really appreciated the efforts expended by the racers. It has become more commercialized than I would like, but this is a business and that is the direction it has gone and remained successful. Dr. Jamie’s undying enthusiasm and flamboyant announcing definitely remains the jewel in NMRA’s crown.
Don't forget to check out the rest of our interview with Chris in the June issue of Race Pages!