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Chester's Inman featured in Drag Illustrated

Posted July 24, 2016 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler Staff Writer

A two-page, full-spread photo has helped thrust Chester's Johnny Inman into the spotlight.

Inman and his car, a nitrous-injected, 1,500-horsepower, BBC-powered X275 Ford Mustang, were featured in the May 2016 Outlaw issue of Drag Illustrated.

"We've been at it a lot of years and a lot of struggles," said Inman, who also owns 1st Class Auto in Chester. "My buddy that helps me, Greg Davitz, a lot of late nights, a lot of blood, sweat and tears so to speak, and a lot of money."

The photo was taken during the third-annual Outlaw Street Car reunion at Memphis International Raceway in March.

"A good chassis guy (Sutton McGee of Linear Custom Fabrication) and a good engine builder (Scott McMillan) is one of the main things on a race car to make it do what it does," Inman said. "Those guys went above and beyond for me and we're trying to dip in the low 50s this year."

In May, Inman finished runner-up to Orson Johnson in the X275 Class of the Heads-Up Showdown and Brackets competition at Jeffers Motorsports Park in Sikeston, Mo.

He won a race at Jeffers earlier in the year, the second year in a row he won his first race of the season.

"We struggled the first two years in this class," Inman said. "It's a competitive class, a Heads-Up class - X275 Drag Radial - and we travel to do it.

"That being said, a lot of heavy-hitters in the field that we go against. You learn from them, you get beat by them, you regroup and go at it again."

Inman noted it took him and his team four years to get where they are at currently and he feels blessed to be honored by an appearance in a magazine.

"We're making progress steadily," he said. "I'm pretty pleased about it."

The Inmans are a bit of a motorsports family. His cousin, Rich Inman, builds monster trucks at his Concussion Motorsports shop in Ellis Grove.

"I was hooked on racing at a young age," Johnny Inman said. "Six or seven years old in Benton, Illinois, watching R.L. Eggemeyer and all those guys from Ellis Grove race.

"Growing up and looking up to people like Troy Bachmann around here, who races. He's been a huge, huge mentor with me and I looked up to those guys and never stopped chasing what I wanted."

Inman also spoke on his love for the sport of drag racing.

"The drag racing community is just so tight-knit and you're competitive with everybody, but if you've got a problem, they're willing to help," he said. "Tools, parts, whatever they can do to get you back on the track to being competitive."

Inman's best is 4.67 seconds in the eighth mile at 156 mph and he will compete in the Street Car Super Nationals at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Ill., Aug. 25-27.

"When I was a kid, there was a lot of muscle cars around here and that's kind of where it started," Inman said. "Rob Fortner was another big influence on me. These guys instilled it in me and I never looked back."

Inman is also planning for a race in Georgia next spring and another in Denton, Texas.

"This is a sport that if you don't stick with it, if you don't keep on pushing forward, you're going to get left behind or you're going to stay where you're at," he said. "The cars keep getting quicker and my end goal is to eventually move up from X275 into the class above me, which is Radial vs. the World.

"That's certainly down the road some."

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