![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/26_US_Nats_Tony_Wilson-5.jpg\")
Wilson is 39 years old, a concrete contractor from Kannapolis, North Carolina, and a lifer. He grew up five minutes from Mooresville Dragway in the heyday of Carolina Pro Mod, watching guys like Buzz Varner and Randy Weatherford on Saturday nights. His dad worked for Al-Anabi Racing and spent time overseas with Shannon Jenkins. Wilson has driven other people\u2019s Pro Mods, including Tim Wallace\u2019s \u201855 Chevy in NHRA competition and Ed Burnley\u2019s Harts Charger-equipped \u201cIron Man\u201d Camaro to an IHRA win, but this car is different.<\/p>\n
This car is his, and there is only one.<\/p>\n
Tommy Mauney built the original Barney in 1994 and drove it to the 1995 IHRA Pro Modified championship, ending Scotty Cannon\u2019s run at the top. The Parsons Brothers bought it, and Jenkins, \u201cThe Iceman,\u201d won IHRA titles behind the wheel of it in 1997 and 1999. Thirty years later, Mauney built a new one for Wilson, a modern take on the same \u201841 Willys silhouette with a Pat Musi 998-cubic-inch nitrous engine and a Liberty transmission. It debuted at GALOT for the IHRA opener with Mauney himself in the seat. Jenkins is in an advisory role on the deal, and the car carries the white-and-purple scheme that made the original famous.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that still don\u2019t realize that the Barney car that we\u2019re racing is not the original Barney car,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThat is not the car from 30 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was never supposed to run the quarter-mile.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no intention of doing this until we were at GALOT with Tommy driving it,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cRickie [Smith] come up to us and I said, man, maybe I\u2019ll just run this thing in NHRA because it gets a 75-pound weight break. He said, you can\u2019t do it. And I said, okay, I\u2019m doing it. And then they said, you can\u2019t do it with a 998. And I\u2019m going to be honest with you, it\u2019s cost the hell out of me. But me and Pat and Shannon have worked on this thing. And this is a bad bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rickie is Rickie Smith, who knows a thing or two about nitrous Pro Mods and the NHRA rulebook. The 75-pound break is real. NHRA\u2019s Pro Mod rules allow 1959-and-older body styles to deduct 75 pounds from their combination\u2019s minimum weight. Nobody had bothered to take advantage of it with a nitrous car because the conventional wisdom, for a decade or more, has been that nitrous cannot win in the quarter mile anymore, and a Willys is an aerodynamic brick.<\/p>\n
Wilson\u2019s answer to the aero question is that this is not that Willys.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this body that we created, because there\u2019s not another one of these cars in the world, this is the one and only, I think this car is definitely better than the original Willys body,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that\u2019s the problem. If I wreck this car, it\u2019s not like I call up my buddy and say, \u2018Hey, send me that Willys car that\u2019s just like mine.\u2019 There\u2019s not another one of these cars. So I have to be very careful. There\u2019s no body. There\u2019s no nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before Wilson started this program, the fastest a Willys-bodied car had ever gone in the quarter mile, by his count, was 236 mph. His car had been 246 and 247 earlier this season, and he had run a 5.69 at Norwalk. In testing a couple months back, he went 5.65 and lifted early, 3.69 to the eighth-mile.<\/p>\n So the number was in the car. The problem at Indy was getting it down the racetrack.<\/p>\n \u201cWe felt like we could go 75, 74. That\u2019s kind of what we was after,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cAnd when they told me it went 71, I was pretty surprised myself because it wasn\u2019t supposed to do that. We botched up qualifying the first two days and we just knew we had to get down the racetrack. I wanted to be number one qualifier in Indy. And if I could have got them other runs in, I feel like we had a pretty good chance of being number one.\u201d<\/p>\n The Q3 miss on Saturday afternoon left him on the outside, and it produced the moment Wilson will probably remember longer than anything that happened on the track. His three-year-old grandson, Memphis, was in the push car.<\/p>\n \u201cQ3, we don\u2019t go down. And over the PA system they\u2019re like, oh, Tony Wilson isn\u2019t in the field,\u201d Wilson said, describing the call from the tower. \u201cMy little man is in the push car and just drops in the floorboard and bawls his eyes out. He\u2019s upset. Papa didn\u2019t do good. We\u2019re not qualified. He\u2019s three years old. He\u2019s not supposed to understand this. He looks up at my wife and says, tell Papa to get the other motor out of the trailer. I want to go fast.\u201d<\/p>\n Q4, Saturday night. Wilson had gone to a 10-foot parachute for Indy because the 8-foot chutes he runs in PDRA eighth-mile competition were not getting the car slowed down at 246. At 249.39, the car found something new.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also hadn\u2019t been 250 miles an hour with the car. It had only been 246, 247. And at that point, we were fine. But I guess somewhere between 247 and 250, there\u2019s a problem,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIt ripped the whole underslung out from the car, because Tommy\u2019s cars are underslung chassis, meaning that it\u2019s got two down bars that go behind the rear end housing and then up to the main frame rail. Well, it ripped all that shit out. And it even had weight bolted to it. That flew across the racetrack and landed by the scale house and about hit some people on a golf cart.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside the car, he felt the chutes hit and then felt nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cThank God I had Strange brakes on this car,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI had no problem getting stopped. It was scary for a moment, but we made the turn off, and I sit in the car, and I didn\u2019t know how fast I went because I had a whole hell of a lot going on in there. And they come over to me, and Jake, the NHRA tech guy, he\u2019s like, hey, you went 71. You\u2019re on the pole. I\u2019m like, holy shit. He\u2019s like, hey, but your race car is wrecked.\u201d<\/p>\n He did not stay on the pole. Justin Bond went 5.654 at 255.00 mph and JR Gray went 5.693 later in the same session, and Wilson ended up third in one of the deepest Pro Mod fields NHRA has assembled. In this field, in this car, with this combination, third was a headline all by itself. Wilson\u2019s grandson had a different read on it.<\/p>\n \u201cMemphis gets down there, and my wife and Dave, and it sinks in, and he looks at me, and he\u2019s just like, Papa, we did it. You won,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t realize that we\u2019re just qualified. He says, we win. And we just cry. I know people talk. They laugh at Rickie Smith because he cries a lot, but I\u2019m telling you, we cry because we are passionate. We don\u2019t buy our seats. We don\u2019t have people working on our stuff. We do it all. We do everything, and we\u2019re passionate about what we do. And I bawled my eyes out down there. I cried going up the staging lanes. I cried when I got back to the trailer.\u201d<\/p>\n Then the thrash started, and Indy did what Indy does.<\/p>\n Brian Lohnes and Joe Castello put the word out over the intercom that Wilson needed help, and the pits responded.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just a couple people that\u2019s hearing this. It\u2019s the whole place,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIt looked like ants in the pit trying to figure out where we were going and what we were doing. But everyone come together, and we made this work.\u201d<\/p>\n The guys from PBRC, the Brownsburg chassis shop a few minutes from the track, walked into the pit and said they wanted to fix the car.<\/p>\n \u201cSo a towing company come and pick the car up, no cost. They went and picked the car up at two o\u2019clock in the morning. And PBRC just wanted some T-shirts for helping us,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThey did an awesome job. They collaborated with Mauney on what they wanted to do to fix this thing. And we did go back with eight-foot chutes for the rest of the weekend. We weren\u2019t even going to try that again.\u201d<\/p>\n Mauney called him Wednesday morning to talk it through.<\/p>\n \u201cTommy said, \u2018Tony, when I built this car, I didn\u2019t have any idea of it doing this. It needed more support right there,\u2019\u201d Wilson said. \u201cAnd so now we know.\u201d<\/p>\n Which brings us to Monday morning and the wheelstand.<\/p>\n Wilson drew DI Winter series champion Peter Norton in round one. The chute incident had destroyed the top bars on his wheelie bar setup, and the replacement set that showed up Monday morning was too short. The bars ended up two inches too high. Wilson figured the car would yank the front end up, shake, and he would be done early. Instead, the Willys left hard, stood up, and kept pulling.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t tune this thing up to do that,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIt takes off. And I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, my God. Here we go. This is crazy.\u2019 And I knew I had to let off. And then with the Liberty, if you let off of it, it goes to neutral. So it slammed it down.\u201d<\/p>\n From the seat, he was steering off the wall.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t see nothing. I was looking out of the side window, judging off the wall where I was at on the racetrack. And then I knew I was in fifth gear. And I said, okay, I got to be at the eighth-mile mark. And then I felt the car get light,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cAnd I can\u2019t crash this car. If I crash this car, I have nothing else. And there\u2019s not another one in the world. So what do I do?\u201d<\/p>\n He lifted. Norton went 5.751 at 248.29 to advance; Wilson coasted through at 6.381 and 164.97 mph, front end back on the ground, car in one piece. The Facebook comment section has a lot of people who believe he should have ridden it out. Wilson has a message for them.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of people say, \u2018Man, you should have rode it out.\u2019 There was no riding that out. You don\u2019t know what I felt in the seat,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve drove these things a long time. I feel everything in them. And I knew it was time.\u201d<\/p>\n How the car stayed straight and kept applying power through a wheelstand that long is a question Wilson answered without hesitation.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll tell you how that\u2019s possible. A Tommy Mauney race car. I could do this with a 30-year-old Tommy Mauney car. I could do this with the original Barney if it had some updated parts,\u201d he said. \u201cThese cars are solid. They don\u2019t move underneath you.\u201d He credited Adam Lambert at PRS on the shock side and called the run \u201ca testament to MVM wheelie bars. They\u2019re perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n The return road at Indy runs right back up in front of the grandstands, and Wilson got the full Indy treatment. \u201cThere\u2019s people hollering. There\u2019s people got T-shirts. Both sides as we\u2019re coming back up the return road, you can hear people just screaming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n NHRA noticed. Wilson said word came directly to the Pro Mod pits from Ned Walliser, NHRA\u2019s vice president of competition: \u201cThank you for being here. We need you here.\u201d<\/p>\n None of this is cheap, and Wilson does not pretend otherwise. He signed a couple of short-term sponsorships for Indy and Rockingham that added up to about $15,000. Indy cost him roughly $40,000 once he bought the spares he needed. His engine has 30 runs on it and has never had the heads off, because he cannot afford to hurt it. He is taking three engines to Rockingham anyway, because he is going after the national record.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a good nitrous racer. I\u2019ve done it for a long time. But you get Brandon Switzer, you get Jeff Pierce, you get some of these people. And Jay Cox. I\u2019m going to say it. I hate saying it. It hurts me. But Jay Cox is a bad dude on the keyboard. And if you would get them guys over here, it would show what could really be done,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cMe and Shannon are doing our job. But we can\u2019t afford to race the way that the Marcus Butners race or the Tommy Franklins race. We can\u2019t afford that.\u201d<\/p>\n That is the crusade underneath all of this. Wilson is not in NHRA Pro Mod to make a point about Willys bodies. He is there because he refuses to let nitrous go away.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t let nitrous die. I\u2019m not going to let nitrous die, whatever it takes for me to do it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has been said that nitrous cars can\u2019t run NHRA, but it\u2019s also people saying that that does it for a living. That\u2019s playing the rulebook. I\u2019m not playing the rulebook. I\u2019m going out there to smash it, crush it. I\u2019m going to go 5.50-something at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n He credits Musi for making that possible. \u201cPat builds a solid foundation,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cYou have to be able to know how to run it. You\u2019ve got to be able to read your spark plugs. But Pat can provide you with what it takes to do this, and you can go run fast right out of the box.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson has a case to make about the nostalgia bodies, too, and it is aimed squarely at the eighth-mile world where he does most of his racing.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s take the quarter-mile out of it for just a second. If you go to eighth-mile racing, there\u2019s none of these nostalgia-bodied cars there either. I can tell you, to the eighth mile there\u2019s no difference,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy would you not have a \u201855 Chevrolet or a \u201857 Chevrolet or a Willys or a \u201837 Chevrolet? Why not?\u201d<\/p>\n He also said what a lot of nitrous racers have been thinking out loud about the World Series of Pro Mod: \u201cI wish we had a nitrous class with you guys at the World Series.\u201d<\/p>\n Noted.<\/p>\n The Willys is about to become less lonely. Riding home from Indy, Wilson called Mauney about having Hairy Glass pull a mold off the body so that if the worst happened, he would at least have a shell. Mauney had a different idea.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said, \u2018Yeah, how about I call and order some new pipe?\u2019 I said, \u2018What do you mean?\u2019 So me and Dean\u2019s bored down here, and I think I got one more left in me. How about let\u2019s build you a spare race car?\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI said, you know what? If you and Dean feel up to it, let\u2019s do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Barney No. 2 is officially in the works. It will wear a throwback to the Parsons Brothers-era scheme Jenkins won his two championships in, and Jenkins did not know about any of it as of Wednesday afternoon. Mauney and Dean work four days a week and limited hours, so Wilson does not expect the second car until the 2028 season, but the plan is a complete rolling chassis, tabbed out and painted, so the running gear can swap over if the unthinkable happens. Hairy Glass will take the car after Rockingham to pull molds, and Wilson expects the body to be available to the public sometime in 2027.<\/p>\n For the first time in three decades, there could be a new Willys in the Pro Mod catalog.<\/p>\n Rockingham is next, September 25-27, the inaugural NHRA Nationals at The Rock, and it is Wilson\u2019s home track. He tests there. He is convinced the record is on the table.<\/p>\n \u201cYou go to Rockingham and it\u2019s going to be 80 degrees. We already know that track has good rubber. It takes rubber well,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we can catch the air and we can catch the track prep, the record will fall.\u201d<\/p>\n He, Jenkins and Mauney will be at NitroFest in downtown Rockingham on Thursday night, September 24, signing autographs. The car has 30 runs on it and has never won an NHRA round. Wilson thinks that changes at The Rock, and he wants to run for a championship next year. That takes help, and he is not shy about asking.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know that I\u2019ll ever get a sponsor. I\u2019ve tried for 40 years. I feel like if I\u2019m ever going to get a sponsor, maybe right now is going to be my best shot ever,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to race all 10 races. And I think NHRA wants us there right now. But we need help. If it\u2019s just one race, if it\u2019s just somebody giving me a fuel card or some parts, I want to be able to keep this car out there.\u201d<\/p>\n Monday morning, before the wheelstand, Wilson was drinking his coffee and got a message from a 30-year-old who wants to drag race so badly it hurts, asking how he did it.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, well, at 30 years old, I didn\u2019t have a pot to piss in. I had nothing. I\u2019m going to be 40 this year. In 10 years, I created a business. I put people in the right place, and I still struggle to race. The burden\u2019s heavy for me. I said, you just can\u2019t stop. You can\u2019t stop trying to do this. It\u2019ll come if it\u2019s meant to be,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n \u201cI had Pro Mod raced some before then, but I didn\u2019t have nothing. I was renting a house. I had financed my appliances. I had nothing. I sat in a trailer one night and bawled my eyes out because I couldn\u2019t pay rent because I burned a motor up, and I didn\u2019t know what I was going to do. So I want everybody to try, and don\u2019t laugh at us if you see us emotional, because we are passionate. This isn\u2019t a hobby. This is our life. I\u2019ve never been good at nothing. I\u2019m not the greatest husband. I\u2019m not the greatest business owner, but I damn sure know how to drive a race car, and when I die, I don\u2019t want to be known as a concrete finisher. I want to be known as one of the best Pro Mod drivers in the world, and I\u2019m going to try to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n He came to Indy for a week. He has been coming to Indy his whole life.<\/p>\n \u201cIndy is not seven days. Indy is 40 years for me. From the time I was born until today, I\u2019m still living Indy,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI got to live out a dream this weekend if I never get to go back. I think we have a story that will be told for a long time. I could have won the race, and that would have been cool. I would have had that Wally, and JR Gray, I\u2019m so thankful. Congratulations to them guys. But what happened to us, even though we didn\u2019t win a round, I don\u2019t think we could have scripted this.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally published on September 11, 2026. The post The Wheelstand Heard \u2018Round the World: Tony Wilson, the Barney Willys, and the Best Story at Indy That Didn\u2019t Win a Round<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tony Wilson did not win a round at the 2026 NHRA U.S. Nationals. He was, without question, the biggest story in the Pro Mod pits at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, and depending on who you ask, the biggest story at the race, period. Here is the short version. After three qualifying sessions, Wilson and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/26_US_Nats_Tony_Wilson-1.jpg\")
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