Frankie “Madman” Taylor is officially announcing a new marketing relationship with Vortech Superchargers, Chris Alston’s Chassisworks and Woolf Aircraft Products on his No-Prep Camaro.
Taylor, one of the most feared men in outlaw drag racing for over two decades, has decided to get serious about his no-prep program and is looking forward to going a different route with the world-famous fourth generation Camaro he debut at Lone Star Resurrection in 2016.
“We purchased the car a couple years ago and intended on selling it,” Taylor says, “then we stuck it in the wall at Doug and Jerrod’s race, so we had to keep it.”
Taylor’s Camaro, formerly owned by Wayne Long and tuned and driven by Kenny Hubbard, was the first car to run in the 4.20s in Radial vs. The World. Taylor sold the 481X Pro Line engine that was in the car and put one of his spare Alan Johnson Hemis in the car and decided to try this new form of drag racing that is hugely popular in the South. So popular that Discovery Channel now has an entire series based around the grassroots genre of drag racing, called Street Outlaws: No Prep Kings.
Taylor has juggled attending no-prep races with success while racing the 400 Thunder Series in Australia and tuning for California Pro Mod racer Jay Diedrich. The Texan won Shannon Morgan’s Old School back-half class at Redemption 11 and competed in the Redemption Series’ exhibition shows at the NHRA nationals in Dallas in 2017 and Houston earlier this year. Taylor runnered-up in Dallas to Chuck Parker and Kirk Peterson when he blew the blower off the car at the starting line.
“We put bullhorns on the car and we had so much timing out of it,” Taylor said. “We think the raw fuel was building up in the exhaust and burning back up into the cylinder and it was blowing the screw blower off the intake.”
During a discussion about the 2018 season with Doug Johnson, podcaster and host of The Thunder Road Show, Taylor mentioned a desire to get away from the screw blowers and try a front-mount blower. Johnson reached out to Dave Werremeyer at Oxnard, California-based Vortech Superchargers. Werremeyer was excited to work with Taylor. “Any time you can work with a guy as well-known as Frankie Taylor you jump on the opportunity,” Werremeyer said. “Especially when he’s choosing you over a screw blower.”
Johnson also reached out to Mike Weddle at Chris Alston’s Chassisworks for a front mount gear drive. They stepped up to help out with the transformation from a screw blower to a front-mount Vortech V30 supercharger. Willie Bush from Woolf Aircraft Products also stepped up with a new stainless zoomie header kit for the Hemi.
Taylor Racing will race the Redemption series in 2018, along with some of the No Prep Kings races for Discovery. The team believes they can be more competitive with the Vortech than they were with the screw blower considering they couldn’t use all the power they had at No-Prep races. “We had to turn it way down to run that stuff,” Taylor admitted.
Taylor is looking forward to testing with the Vortech in the coming weeks. If the data looks good he will consider testing a Vortech supercharger on his record-setting Pro Mod Corvette.
Lastly, Taylor would like to thank Benjy Lapp of Snap-On Tools and Renegade Racing Fuel and Oils for their continued support.
This story was originally published on July 28, 2018. 
