Ben Patterson – breaking through the age barrier at 300mph

It’s early evening in Munford Tennessee when Ben Patterson pops into view on my computer. Like most days in the workshop, Ben and the crew have been hard at work preparing the Clay Millican driven MPE Motorsports Top Fuel Dragster.

The workshop is particularly frantic as they prepare for the upcoming NHRA Western Swing; three gruelling events in a row starting with the Mile High Nationals in Denver, followed by the Sonoma Nationals and finishing up in Seattle at Pacific Raceways.

This isn’t new territory for Ben however. For the last few years he’s been making the pilgrimage to the US of A to train under the highly credentialed tuner Lance Larsen, along with guidance from crew chiefs Justin Crosslin and Mike Domagala.

As Australia’s youngest Top Fuel tuner at 22, Ben has turned the dials, pushed the buttons and made the calls which helped Darren Morgan win the 2012 ANDRA Top Fuel Championship.

A little bit of history

You don’t wake up one morning and decide you’re going to tune a Top Fuel Dragster. Like most things in life you’ve got to pay your dues; start at the bottom, work hard, listen carefully and learn.

For Ben, his journey began as a 16 year old, working with Darren Morgan and the Lamattina Top Fuel team. As the work experience kid his jobs usually involved getting dirty, like washing parts and cleaning up around the pit area. For 2 years Ben worked with the Lamattinas, juggling his high school studies to be part of a top flight Top Fuel drag racing team.

When Darren Morgan put his own team together Ben got his first full time gig as the supercharger mechanic. When not studying mechanical engineering or at a race meeting Ben would spend his days at the team workshop preparing and maintaining parts.

According to Ben, ”Races are won and lost in the workshop. This is where the hard work really happens. Fans see us pull these engines down and put them back together in say 75 minutes or so. But this is only possible with all the work and preparation that’s done during the week.”

With years of practical experience under his belt, maturity beyond his years and a gift for the technical, it wasn’t long before the decision was made to promote Ben to the position of tuner. His first race meeting in the new role was the 2009 Nitro Champs at Sydney Dragway.

“I’m not exactly sure how it got to this stage”, said Ben with a smile. “After 18 months working full time on the car and looking after the computers I had a good handle on things. I get on with everyone and with my mechanical engineering experience it must have seemed like a good fit.”

A good fit indeed. With back-to-back ANDRA Top Fuel Championships to his credit, the bold decision to put Ben in charge of the tuning duties has well and truly paid off.

A method amongst the madness

As you can imagine, tuning a Top Fuel dragster comes with a lot of responsibility. There’s a lot of money and high expectations involved when you’re trying to finesse over 8000 hp down to the ground through a set of slicks.

Simple mistakes can cost you dearly so Ben relies heavily on a set of procedures to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

“I do everything on cards these days. We had a few slip ups in the early days so we use checklists and procedures, making sure every little detail on the car has been covered. It's very easy to miss something. It's very easy not to be looking at the weather station and see the grains go up 10 points."

These checklists are vitally important when the team is trying to turn the car around after a run and getting ready for the next round of racing.

“Once the car comes back from a run you download the data and have a look at it all. Did the blower perform the way you thought it should, the fuel curve, did it drop holes?”

“Then you start handing out head gaskets, blower pulleys and clutch weights. You've got to make those sorts of decisions relatively early in the rebuild because the guys get the heads off really quickly. Obviously you can't change head gaskets once their done but things like the blower pulley and clutch weights can be changed up until the last 10 minutes before a run.”

“Then you sit down and have a really good look at the data and make decisions on ignition maps, check your engine power levels, what the weather is doing and clutch flow configuration; about then you are ready to race again. A couple of hours sound like a long time, but not when you're getting a Top Fuel Dragster ready to race.”

The art and science of tuning a Top Fuel Dragster

With the car ready to go it’s now crunch time. Will it perform to expectations? Have we made the right decisions? Has the weather or track changed enough to throw the tune out?

“It's controlled but uncontrolled. Things can go wrong very easily. It's all good in theory until you actually try it on the race track", Ben explains.

“You try and set your engine up to make the same power every time. The theory is to try and make the engine like an electric motor, it's going to rev to this rpm, and you sort of make changes to your clutch to change how much power you actually want to put to the ground. “

“That's the ultimate goal with the engine. As conditions change you've got to change the fuel curve, the ignition map, clutch flow and things like that."

One of the biggest challenges for any tuner is getting the clutch flow right to coordinate the amount of power the engine is making to how much the track can handle. Too little and you’ll go into tyre shake. Too much and you can go up in smoke or shake the tyres as well. It’s a real balancing act.

"It's a small window you’re trying to aim for”, said Ben. “It's really hard to slow the cars down. They want to run fast. When you try and slow them down that's when things get really difficult. When the tracks there and they're good it's a little easier theoretically."

"The most important part of a race track for a Top Fuel car is the first 60 feet and getting that 60 to 330 slit time down as low as you can. And if you're at that point and the clutch is locking up without smoking the tyres then it's pretty much all over. The clutch is locked up in 2.5 to 3 seconds into the run depending upon the racing conditions. By half track it's doing something like 260mph and it pretty much cruises through that second half of the race track.”

A lot of help from our friends

Ben is the first person to explain that the team wouldn’t have achieved their current level of success without the expert advice of some key individuals.

When Ben took the tuning role he reignited the relationship with Lance Larsen. Darren Morgan Racing has a long history with Lance, which came about when the team bought their first car from Scott Griffin Motorsport. Lance had just finished tuning for them at the time and helped with the initial setup as it was bought as a turn-key deal.

“We couldn’t have done what we’ve done without Lance’s help”, explains Ben. “I still speak with him every night at a race meeting; show him what we've done and what he thinks we could do to improve on it tomorrow."

Graeme and Andrew Cowin have also given Ben a lot of advice over the years. Graeme’s “give it what it needs” attitude has definitely influenced Ben’s tuning style. Ben also includes Tim Adams in the list of people who have been instrumental in helping him achieve success, plus the entire MPE Motorsports team.

Going for the three-peat in the ANDRA Top Fuel Championship

The big question for this season will be if Ben and the Darren Morgan Racing team can repeat their success from recent years and bring home a third championship?

According to Ben, “Over the last 2 years with the 2 championships that we've won we've really gone to a bit of a different way of looking at things and running the car. We're really trying to make the car go from A to B rather than trying to run big numbers.”

“We rarely top qualify. I don't personally aim for it, as long as we are in the top half I’m happy. I want to go out there and win the race meeting. Generally if you go A to B and you're consistent you're going to go rounds. That's been our way of going about it."

“We will have to step up next year. This year we were aiming for mid 70s, now I think we'll need to step it up to mid 60s. I just think teams are more getting more competitive. That's my plan, that's where we're heading for the next season. We'll see how it all pans out."

On a personal note, “I’m enjoying what I'm doing and I’m very grateful for the opportunity. Who else would trust their Top Fuel Dragster to an 18 year old kid?", Ben said with a wry smile. “Bring on 2013.”