History: Quain Stott Drag Racing

Date of Birth: May 30, 1960

Racing career: Began racing at age 15 and has continued to race for the past 25 years. Finished second in the 2000 Pro Modified points standings in which the title wasn't decided until the last race of the season.

Racing Biography: Quain Stott is one of the last true independent drag racers. He does it all from owning the team to driving the race rig back and forth to the races. Quain also calls the shots from start to finish on preparing the race car.

Stott bought this car in 1975 as his first street car. It performed double-duty as a street and strip car. Dad caught me racing it and from then on, its destiny was set as drag strip only. The car got stolen in 1976 and was never recovered.

Nevermind my hairdo, this Nova was given to me by my Uncle Larry Stott. He gave me the Nova body and I raced this car in 1978 with pretty good success at Greer, Spartanburg and Shuffletown. I didn't even have a streetcar. I had to borrow my Dad's truck to drive around town in.

I got this '55 Chevy Wagon from the old Modified partnership of Pearson & Strange. They were popular in this area and I took the car and ran as is in Formula 2, G/Modified Production in the latter part of 1978.

This was the Wagon after I redid the chassis. I had bought a new motor from Gene Fulton and the car wouldn't handle the horsepower. This was my first real stint as a chassis builder.

This was my Uncle's car and he would often loan it to me to race. This picture is off a later era, but when I ran it, the car ran Super Stock. I ended up driving it a lot when I would break the Wagon and couldn't afford to fix it. This is the same car that Larry won the 1978 Winter Nationals in Darlington, SC., with.

This is a car that I built for Uncle Larry in 1980 and wound up driving it a lot. I started my chassis shop in late 1978 and didn't have a lot of money to race on. I always ended up driving for other people.

I drove this car for Butch Duggins. Butch was a tech official for the IHRA and his son Scott was the crew. We had lots of success with this car in the IHRA's Hot Rod (10.50) class. Scott is all grown up now and has won four World Championships in a car built by me.

This car was built in 1981. The chassis shop was up and running strong at this point and everything was going well. The girl in the picture was a longtime girlfriend Colleen Brannon. One of the low points in my career was that she was killed in a car accident in 1985.

This was the same car in 1981. It had a small block and a four-speed. I remember dumping the clutch for the first time on it and dragging the bumper. I got it sorted out eventually. The one thing you have to notice is the relaxed safety rules at Spartanburg Dragway. I was driving the car in shorts and no shirt and if memory serves me correct, I might have had shoes on.

This car was already race prepared when it came to our shop. We went through the car and completely re-did it for a man named Carroll Walters. I ran it in Top Sportsman in 1985 when Walters didn't care anything about driving.

This picture dates back to late 1985 and early 1986. I was tired of bracket racing, so I built a streetcar. It was never outrun on the streets. It was super lightweight with a Fulton small block and automatic.

This was the most popular car that I ever built. The year was 1987 and the customer was Scotty Cannon. This car proved to be the first one that Scotty ever got in a magazine and the first article that Bobby Bennett ever had published. The story made the cover of Super Stock and Drag Illustrated in the January 1988 issue. This was one wild beast. Scotty's famous line to the photographer before he got ready to run was, "Hey ya'll watch out, I don't know which way this bitch is going."

I built this car for Dennis Ramey for the new IHRA Factory Modified class in 1988. He decided that he didn't want to drive, so I ran the car for a half-year in the class that was known as "Junior Pro Stock." He saw how much fun I was having and changed his mind about driving. The car went on to set the class record.

I  quit racing from 1990 - 1994 because I couldn't afford to race professionally and I didn't like bracket racing. I came back in 1995 with an ex-Top Sportsman car and put it in Pro Modified. At Carolina Dragway, I made it to the finals against Scotty Cannon. He came over and asked me if I wanted to split the money. I was astonished that he made me the offer. I agreed, needless to say, and Scotty broke a rearend in the finals. That was our first win. The car was later renamed "Grand Illusion". This is the car that probably established us as a Pro Modified team. It was the same car, but was rebuilt and stretched. We crashed on the first run out in Darlington after the changes. I t-boned the wall. We fixed the car and came back and finished in the top ten. I have been fortunate to be in the top ten ever since.

This is the comeback Vega that actually came before the Beretta. I ran it at some local Quick Eights.

This was my first major sponsor. Bug Eater stepped in as I was ready to quit again. We went to the finals for the first time in 1997 in Michigan and then did it again at the last IHRA race at Bristol in 1997. I lost to Shannon Jenkins both times.