"I Think It Would Be An Honor" - Dale Creasy Jr. on Pursuit of Third IHRA Funny Car Championship

(Photo Credit: Peyton Lohr/Racing Refresh)

By Logan Morris

Dale Creasy Jr. is already a two-time IHRA Funny Car Champion, and at this stage of the game he has nothing to prove, but he has no desire to slow down. After all it’s in his blood, the Illinois native learned from his father dating back to the 1970s. Drag racing is in his blood and he shows no signs of slowing down. I had a chance to talk to Dale Creasy Jr. before IHRA's inaugural return event for the Outlaw Nitro Series at Darana Raceway in Hebron, Ohio. I asked him about his emotions when it comes to returning to the IHRA and his excitement was clear

“It’s been good, we’ve done well here. Our cars are better now than it was then, but then they were pretty good, so I’m hoping that we can keep going and move on. We’ve been struggling this year, we upgraded some parts and the car is a lot faster, and we have to learn how to make 4.0. We made two solid 4.0 runs, cutting it off early, so I think we’re in good shape. But every day is a new day, you know, every track is a new track, and if they do track prep like they told me they were going to do, we should all be okay. If the track is not good, [the cars] don’t go. I know that Larry Morgan [IHRA Vice President] initially decided to go this direction, and then when Doug Foley came, I was really happy because that’s two guys that know racing. I think that it’s going to be a good one.”

Dale Creasy Jr. knows that winning a third IHRA Funny Car Championship would put him in rarefied air. He was well on his way to a third straight championship in 2008 when he suffered injuries during a crash at the Rocky Mountain Nationals. He was very clear that a third IHRA Funny Car Championship would mean a great deal but he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself.

“I think it would be an honor to be in that group because I don’t think there’s very many. I had talked to Paul Romine, after I won the second one, and he said, ‘Now you win three, you’ll catch up to me.’ But you can’t win three in a row unless you win the first two. I was leading the points and I got hurt. It was a shame. It wasn’t an injury that I could just scrub off if I could. If I go to a race, I don’t think farther ahead than that, because I tell my guys we’re here to qualify and it’s one round at a time on race day. I don’t even look at it much - I don’t want to know and I don’t need to know. I gotta get by this guy first, and then we’ll work from there. … but to me you got to keep your head down and do what you do. The reason we were successful is we didn’t try to go fast, we didn’t try to be the best. I wish I would have learned that twenty years ago. Here, we’re just working. We’re capable of running better than I think we’re gonna run the first time, but getting down the track the first time is a relief, because now, you’re safe. If we can go down the track and run somewhere in the 4.0 range here and there, then the night run will be the opportunity. I just don’t want to do anything to hurt anything, but I want to make sure that we’re going to be competing tomorrow.”

That mentality really comes from lessons that he still carries from his father., Dale Creasy Sr., who passed away in 2020. Creasy Jr. makes sure not to get complacent and takes nothing for granted.

“Just keep your head down and keep working. Some people come to the races to be seen. I did an interview over the phone and they were talking about, ‘you did this, you did that’ and I said, ‘It’s all great’ and I appreciate everybody talking about that, but I don’t think about it a lot. I don’t want to get to the point where I think about it, because in my mind, it’s like I’m already here, so I try to push out of that ‘fight for your life every time’ and I just work six days a week on the racecar, and I enjoy working on the racecar, so when I’m not working on it, I think I should be. You have to really, really love what you do and not just say you love what you’re doing and do it part-time, we do this 24/7. This is what we do. My guys have been with me for over ten years.”

(Photo Credit: Peyton Lohr/Racing Refresh)

He looks at the IHRA revival as a big opportunity and a place where he hopes he shows what he can really do. He also believes that it’s an opportunity drag racing needs.

“It’s an opportunity that we need because I’m not close to running NHRA and we’re getting better at it, but to run against them guys, you have to have really good luck on your side because guys like [Jack] Beckman and Austin Prock. I mean, we can run with them, but we aren’t going to outrun them. Here, we have an opportunity to be as good as the other cars around us and every car here can run. There’s cars here that I don’t know, but I’m sure they can run well. I just like the idea that we are all on the same page with everybody else and that we all have the same opportunity.”

Creasy Jr. and his 2018 Charger ran a 5.799 ET at 122.97 MPH after shaking the tires in Q1. In Q2 he ran a 4.654 ET at just over 189 MPH.

Creasy Jr. will look to capture the first Funny Car Ironman of the season at Darana Raceway on Saturday afternoon, July 12th.