Beaver Springs Dragway – I caught up with Rocky Pirrone at the Nostalgia Nationals and stopped by his pit to have a little chat about the Super Camaro funny car. As Rocky would tell me, the car first debuted in 2015, but they started racing nostalgia funny cars in 2006, and he added, “That’s 19 years already! Time flies, especially when you’re having fun!” Rocky’s son, Joe Pirrone drives the car, something he started doing 3 seasons ago, so he’s in his third year driving the car. In addition to this funny car, Rocky also has some gassers in his collection, so I had to ask the question:

DFMM: “Do you like this more than your gassers?”

Rocky: “Hell no, no. To me, my favorite cars are the AA Gas supercharged, that was it, the funny cars cars just paid more money. Even back in the old days, that’s what happened, the gassers were great, but they were paying a lot more money to run the funny cars so we went funny car racing.”

Even to the casual observer, it’s obvious Rocky enjoys what he does. He went on to further explain, “I like being at the race track, I like the people, I like the experience I have with the people, we could race go-karts, I don’t care what we’re racing, we’re going to have fun. We’ve run so many different circuits, like the Chaos deal. With the old style gassers you can only go so fast with them cars anyhow. With the K.S. car, the Mazmanian car, the Boss Hydro, they’re all built on the original 32 Willys chassis, Oldsmobile rear, straight front axle, so we had to put a cap on what we’re going to run with them. But we still might bring them back out again, you never know. They’re my heart and soul and I love ‘em to death.”

Gassers may be his “heart and soul,” but given the chance, they’re not his first choice. According to Rocky, “If I had my choice to do anything, it would be nitro funny car racing, but it’s too cost prohibitive, so this is my best bang for my buck. I can run laps, have a good time, run it on methanol. We set it up as a very fast car, but we run it very easy because we don’t want to hurt anything.”

From there, Rocky went on to share some of his own history. “The first track I ever went to was Atco Dragway in 1965, I was 6, and I swear I remember it. My dad got me hooked. He never had to ask me to go to the races, never had to drag me, I was on his pants leg as he was walking out the door. I loved it, it’s been in my blood, I was born into drag racing. My son, he doing the dirt bikes and stuff, and for a lot of years, he helped us crew, but he didn’t show an interest to drive these cars.”

As we can see Rocky’s son, Joe, driving the car today, we know something had to have changed, something that made him want to drive the car. And what does it take to drive one of Rocky’s cars? Rocky put it in simple terms. “To drive these cars, my number one requirement is that you put the time in in the shop. When he was 22-23, it was motorcycles and girls, he wasn’t interested in drag racing, he just came on board kind of late at 24, but I thought about it and he was around it since he was a little kid so he knew all about it, and this is the very first car he ever drove down a drag strip. We were at Island Dragway, I stuck him in this car and said ‘here, do 300 ft and see if you like it, if not, no big deal you can work on the car,’ he made the 300 foot shot and said ‘I love it!’ Next he went 600 foot, a little longer each time and he got his license in 6 passes. That was pretty cool. I am blessed. I have 4 boys and one awesome daughter. My second love is football, I played it as a kid, I coached it for years, and they (the sons) all played football. I thought I was lucky to have that, getting to coach them. Nobody was really getting involved with the race car, so I thought I was blessed having them in football. This one (Joe) is the only one who got near it.”

He’s my dad reincarnated, he can drive anything! I don’t care what he drove, at 6 years old he was driving a 4-wheel drive, like he’d been there forever, I really do like working with my son. He’s a real joy to work with, a real good person to work with.” If you watch them in the pits and on the track, it’s easy to see they definitely are enjoying what they do. And the fans are blessed to see the fun they’re having as Pirrone Racing makes their impressive laps down the track!