Not everyone would like to have a neighbor like Top Fuel racer Scott Farley, but we sure would.
The native of Ellington, Connecticut last appeared on the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series tour at Norwalk, Ohio in June, and in between his day job as a commercial airline pilot for UPS, he’s been busily preparing his Top Fuel Dragster for an outing or two on the tour this fall. The 2022 NHRA Rookie of the Year finalist competed in five events a season ago with the Terry’s — one with Terry Haddock and four with Terry Totten — before taking over ownership of Totten’s dragster during the offseason.
Totten, who won his only professional round at Epping last season, failed to make the Top Fuel show at Norwalk, with a 4.50-second best elapsed time. “We had a flurry of ignition issues at Norwalk and wanted to make sure they were sorted before this weekend’s race in Maple Grove.” So what did Farley and his team do to check things over? Well, they rolled the flamed dragster out into the Ellington sunshine and lit the candles for the 16,000-plus residents of the town to hear…throttle whack and all.
“The neighbors love the dragster,” Farley says. “I gave them a couple of days warning before the planned start. They were there with cameras and were both fascinated and blown away by the sheer sound of it. It was a neighborhood hit.”
Farley plans to compete this weekend at Maple Grove, and “if parts carnage is not too high” will also race in Charlotte next weekend.