NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

To put it mildly, Deric Kramer’s 2021 season was not much fun. In fact, 2020 wasn’t very rewarding either.

Last year, Kramer competed in all 17 races and appeared in just one final round to go along with three semifinals. He finished with a 12-17 record in elimination rounds. During the Covid shortened 2020 season, he also failed to win a race. That came after a promising 2019 season that included two wins and a far more impressive 24-16 record.

Kramer has yet to win a race this season, but things are already looking up at the Get Biofuel camp.

“Honestly, I don’t think we were as bad as our record showed,” said Kramer, when asked about the last two seasons. “We made some stroke of genius runs, but they never seemed to be in the right qualifying session or at the right time during eliminations. We made some good runs, we just weren’t able to do it consistently.”

Michael Hiner, Kramer’s longtime crew chief, also isn't afraid to shoulder his share of the blame.

“A lot of it is on me,” Hiner said. “Jason Line used to tune all of the KB cars and now it’s on me. When I took over, I hadn’t tuned since we were running Dodge Hemi stuff in 2016. It’s been a learning process."

Hiner also points to the new Camaro the team took delivery of at the start of the 2020 season. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Jerry Haas-built Chevy, it’s just different than its predecessor and requires a slightly different tune-up.

“This car just wants to be run differently than our old car,” Hiner said. “It didn’t help that we only ran a handful of races during the 2020 season. That probably set us back a bit. I would say our issues the past few years have been far more tune-up related than power related.”

So far this season, Kramer appears to have righted the ship. He drove to the quarterfinals at the first two races of the season in Pomona and Phoenix before taking a tough round one loss in Gainesville.

More importantly, Kramer has qualified No. 5 at each of the first three events. That’s a sure-fire indicator that he has what it takes to run with anyone in the class.

“The big thing is that we didn’t really make any changes from last year,” Kramer said. “We have the same car. The same engines [from KB racing] and the same crew. We’re just making better runs. That’s all.”

Looking forward, Kramer remains optimistic that he wan win races and eventually contend for a championship, even as the level of competition in Pro Stock has been ratcheted up several notches with the arrival of Dallas Glenn, Kyle Koretsky, Aaron Stanfield, Troy Coughlin Jr. and this year, rookie of the year favorite Camrie Caruso.

“I wouldn’t be out here if I didn’t think we had a fighting chance,” Kramer said. “I made a perfect run, and we were still a tenth back, I wouldn’t do this. I raced a Dodge when I first started, and we weren’t very competitive and that wasn’t a lot of fun.

“Pro Stock has definitely gotten a lot tougher, but we’re a better team than we were. We have some certainty now as far as the schedule and that means something.”

Kramer figures that the Four Wide Nationals in Las Vegas would be as good a race as any to get back to the winner’s circle, a place he hasn’t visited since the Fall Charlotte race at the end of the 2019 season.

“I look at what Dallas Glenn and Kyle Koretsky have done. They’re both winning races with KB power. That reminds me of where we were in 2019. We can definitely do this.”

Kramer's Top 5 qualifying streak ended in Las Vegas but his 6.69 best was good enough for the No. 9 spot in a field that is separated by less than a tenth of a second. Kramer will race in a very tough quad that also features world champ Greg Anderson, Kyle Koretsky, and Mason McGaha.