“It was a big moment for me and the whole family,” Justen Moser said. “I’ve been at it for about seven years now. Knowing all the work we had put into it, it was the ultimate accomplishment to win at the same track where dad won his first national event. To have the support of my friends and family, it was a really cool moment.”
Justen races a 2010 Corvette roadster that his father and Tim Irwin built. His father raced it the first four years before turning over the car to Justen, who finished third in his division last year and won his second year. Of course, the car has all of the best products from Moser Engineering. The Portland, Ind., company’s roots are in racing, founded in 1982 when Justen’s grandfather, Greg, resplined a pair of axles and shortened a 1957 Oldsmobile rear for his own race car.
Some 35 years later, Justen Moser put the company’s parts to the test with a final-round run that featured him rocketing down the track in 9.913 seconds at 170.91 mph. It also featured a near perfect start by the driver with a .002 reaction time. It allowed him to experience his favorite part of drag racing.
“I enjoy most the thrill of winning,” he said. “There’s nothing like when you go down there and see that win light come on. When you come back, look at that time slip and see you won that round, and doing that five or six times, it is a great feeling. That’s what gets you out there at the end of the day, to go out there and compete and to get that win light.”
Besides highlighting the Moser Engineering products, the sport has allowed him and others to build relationships with Sportsman racers and the Street Car enthusiasts who often attend the events.
For Justen, there are common traits with driving a race car and his full-time job as purchasing manager for the shop. Both require a high attention to detail with his position requiring him to take inventory on roughly 10,000 parts to keep production going and to have parts for customers to purchase.
Through it all, the company and the sport continue to be intertwined.
Moser Engineering is an IHRA contingency sponsor and beyond the Indiana-based team, it also sponsors race teams in Louisiana, North Carolina and on the West Coast. But for a driver named Moser, it’s an extra special feeling when he straps inside the cockpit of his Super Rod machine carrying the company’s decals.
“It’s an awesome honor, nothing like it,” he said. “Sometimes you get to the track, and you can tell that you have a target on your back. But, it’s awesome feeling to drive a Moser race car.”
He competes with other drag racing organizations, but is quick to point out how the IHRA Summit Sportsman National Championship format is his favorite. He likes how it’s a program designed to create great value for the Sportsman, grassroots racer.
“We’ve loved the double-race format with a lot of runs,” he said. “If you don’t do well the first day, you have that second day to fall back on. We like that format a lot more than what other organizations have where you’re sitting there three or four days and only getting three or four runs. Over at IHRA, we might get 10 runs in one day. You have that seat time and you double your chances to win that Ironman, so it’s really cool.”
