Profile
Murf McKinney
It's not that he couldn't drive or didn't want to. Murf McKinney still can, but he won't, for the same reason a lot of onetime drivers eventually quit racing: It costs too much.
Instead of fading away like some who get forced out, McKinney has remained in drag racing and become a bigger player as a chassis builder than he likely ever would have behind the wheel. By any definition, he has become, if not the leading builder in fuel racing, then close to it.
McKinney Corp., distinguished from other top shops because of its influence both in Top Fuel and Funny Car, has built a clientele list that reads like a drag racing Who's Who. More than 80 race cars have rolled out of McKinney's 16-man shop in Otterbein, Ind., since he joined his first tubes in 1981, though he can't point to any one of them and say, "That's the car that really made me."
"I don't think any single car among them really made everyone stand up and take notice," McKinney said. "For me, it's all just kind of evolved." It's progressed to the point that his prolific chassis shop currently is the shop of choice for 1994 Winston Top Fuel Champion Scott Kalitta, Mike Dunn, Tommy Johnson Jr., K.C. Spurlock, Jim Epler, Frank Manzo, Al Hofmann, Whit Bazemore, and Pat Dakin.
Don Prudhomme's last Funny Car was a McKinney, and he's just ordered a Top Fueler for his new driver, Larry Dixon. Chuck Etchells has raced McKinney's cars, and Connie Kalitta has one coming.
And then there's Don Garlits, who phoned one day in the early 1990s to discuss with McKinney what turned out to be the one-of-a-kind monostrut car that would be "Big's" last ride. It didn't revolutionize chassis science the way Garlits' '71 car did, but it sure didn't set technology back a day, either.
"A lot of the racers never liked that car," McKinney said. "I'm not sure why - I don't know if they don't want to change or what. When you try something like that - something completely different - you can't control everything. And people are going to notice. It's like they say: The pioneers get all the arrows in the ass.
"I don't know if that car performed up to everyone's expectations, but for us the project was a success. It was a prototype, and it was completed on time, no hitches. It was what Don wanted, and nothing had to be redone.
"Everybody likes to run their cars differently. They know what they want, and I've always tried to give them that ever since I got started."
McKinney, 39, began building chassis for a living in 1981, when the 26-year-old built a Funny Car for neighbor Larry Coogle, a car that McKinney eventually drove for him. By then, he was hooked on drag racing.
"I've always been obsessed with the sport, ever since I was a kid," said McKinney, who first was exposed to it in 1963 or 1964 by his oldest brother, Rolland, who ran a front-engine C/Dragster with a small-block Chevy. "I was 8 or 9, and he'd let me tag along. We went to Muncie [Ind.] one time and there was Garlits with his flatbed trailer. I was impressed."
Five years later, still before he was old enough to drive, McKinney bought a D/Altered '29 Ford with money he saved from working at a Dairy Queen. "I got the motor all done, bought an injected small-block from my brother, and had everything but a driveshaft and rear tires when I ran out of money. My car never happened, which was a bit of a letdown."
Other cars would materialize. After working at the Lafayette Gulf station of fuel-altered racer Mac McCord, McKinney, still in his teens, borrowed money and bought an injected Funny Car for $4,500 - complete with firesuit. "You could never do that today, obviously," he said.
After brief stints in cars formerly raced by barnstorming 1970s match racers Fred Goeske and Dick Bourgeois, McKinney, with his wife, Shura, acquired their own fuel Funny Car and delivered themselves an ultimatum few would have the foresight or nerve to make. "We set a date to determine if we were getting to where we wanted to go or not as racers," McKinney said. "The day came, and we decided we weren't making it."
It was time to make a decision - keep hanging on as a racer or begin building cars. "It wasn't a choice, really," McKinney said. "Economically, we had to do it."
McKinney drove Coogle's Funny Cars with some success until 1984, but his dreams of driving full time evaporated as his company's influence grew - especially in the Pro ranks, which accounts for about 80 percent of his business. Before his recent expansion into Top Fuel, McKinney was known, like John Buttera in the early 1970s and Jaime Sarte and Tony Casarez later in the decade, as probably the top Funny Car builder of his day.
Of course, those craftsmen were replaced, which hasn't been lost on McKinney. "I've looked back at it, and I really can't point to anything they did wrong," McKinney said. "This business is cyclical, I know, but they had small shops, which creates a problem: Just when you finally get guys who want your stuff, you can't get it to them fast enough. Building race cars is so labor-intensive; each one takes about 400 to 450 man-hours. People don't realize what's involved."
McKinney's involvement in the cars that roll out of his shop remains hands-on. Besides designing chassis, which provides his greatest satisfaction, and tending to the front-office tasks necessary to line up future work, McKinney still drops a face shield with the boys in the back. "I'm in the shop every day," said McKinney, who doesn't prefer to build either Funny Cars or dragsters over the other. "Funny Cars take more man-hours. They're dirtier, with all the fiberglass work and the grinding, but I like them just as much. It's where I got my start."
Does it help when building Funny Cars that he knows exactly what it's like to drive one? "Being a driver used to help, but it's been a long time now," McKinney said. "With what they're doing with clutches now, I don't know if that experience still means anything.
"Until recently, I hadn't even stood on the starting line and watched anyone run in a long time. I was just down in Gainesville at a test session with Spurlock, and it brought back a lot of memories. I do miss driving - it's something I've always enjoyed - but if I did it, it would take away from our commitment to our customers.
"I've got 16 people here now, and everybody really does the job. I can't say I wish I was still trying to make it as a racer, though. This has been rewarding." - Todd Veney
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