Beyond the rules, what’s the next biggest challenge for ORSCA?
Barfield: Well, in the promotion aspect of it I think we’re doing a lot better, advertising through a lot more venues. We’re spending more money now on radio and TV advertising and we’ve got a pretty good campaign going on with Year One and Horsepower TV. I mean, it’s not on every week, but every other week you can pretty much see some ORSCA cars on TV, so that’s a big plus for us. Year One has done a lot to help us along the way, but especially with TV coverage.
Does Year One own part of ORSCA, too?
Barfield: Well, not on paper they don’t, but in our eyes they do. We share in all profits and losses, put it that way. This has been our best year by far and everybody will reap the benefits of that at the end of the year, but our main goal is something that we’ve never done in the past; everything we’ve made we’re trying to sink back into the company. Before that really didn’t happen, it was kind of just going one race to another.
 Here’s a sneak peek at the B&C Powerhouse twin-turbo engine that’s been dropped into the bay of Barfield’s ’69 Camaro. After being mothballed in favor of a 2002 Camaro last season, the car is slated to return to action in September at Huntsville, AL. (Photo courtesy Outlawracing.com) |
 Barfield (center), along with son Jack Jr. (left) and crew chief Randy Conner worked well into the night on the eve of clinching the 2004 ORSCA championship at Huntsville (AL) Dragway. |
Do you have any input on decisions made by ORSCA at the track?
Barfield: No. When it comes to raceday, Mike [Hill] and myself, we have no say-so whatsoever. If we did that would be a complete conflict of interest and nobody would want to race with us—and rightly so.
Johnny [Fenn] and Jason [Mote], they make all of those decisions. Sometimes when we all sit down after the race, Mike or I, we may not agree with it all, but the thing is, if there’s a mistake made during a race we’ve got to stand by those two guys during the race and talk about it later. If we disagree with how something was handled we may ask to have things done differently if it happens again, but during the time it’s going on, honestly, there’s not any discussion about race activities during the races by either Mike or myself.
What’s next for ORSCA?
Barfield: We’ve got plans in mind for the end of the season to implement some new safety rules. For example, I think next year you’ll see all of the heads-up classes will be mandated to use a diaper on the motors. That’s something we really haven’t stressed before, but new safety rules will come about in the off-season.
How about requiring head-and-neck restraints, too?
Barfield: That’s been talked about, especially for the Limited Street and Outlaw cars. I don’t know if that’s going to happen, but it’s definitely something we’re looking at.
What has ORSCA done to improve this year?
Barfield: I think hiring Jason Mote as our race coordinator, it’s a full-time job, has really paid off. There’s a whole lot more organization to our races now and what we’re finding is that the more experience we have, when problems arise we handle them more professionally now. We’re still not perfect, but we’re at least making the right calls a whole lot more often.
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