Andrews and his sister, Finola, form the persuasively personable public face of F&A (Forbes & Andrews) Racing.  The team principal is Mac Forbes, a man with a long history in the sport. Eddie Corr will tune the car and Ben Allum will head the crew.  Some 14 years in the making, F&A Racing has now reached critical mass just when its country needs it.  The team has already scored a crucial early goal by sealing a multi-year marketing partnership with Lucas Oil.  All they need now is to go out and win a few races.



Easy, eh? Easy, heck! A year ago Andy Carter had regrouped the brains-trust which helped steer him to the first two of his four FIA championships, this time under the management of Team West-Tec, a successful circuit racing outfit stepping anew into the drags.  On paper this enterprising venture looked so right, but on the track the pesky car just would not run for them.  Chris Andrews is mindful of such pitfalls, having been involved in drag racing long enough to know that, as in any sport, success has to be hard won, but a clear sense of proportion does nothing to dilute his sense of ambition.  Thus far, Andrews has followed a similar route to the likes of Larry Dixon and Robert Hight, learning the ropes for several seasons as a fuel racing mechanic before taking to the cockpit.  Unlike those illustrious Americans, though, he will not be driving for an employer.  Instead, with his colleagues, he will be running the show himself.

As a crewman, Andrews has garnered plenty of experience on both sides of the Atlantic, working with Smax Smith, Jöran Persåker and Lex Joon in Europe and Bob Gilbertson and Bobby Baldwin in the States.  He attended Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School as both student and staff member.  As a driver, he set out as a teenage Sportsman racer in a ’55 Ford and, still a teenager, took his first of several Top Fuel shots in 2002.

A key component of Andy Carter’s past success was his prowess in the sponsorship marketplace, a fact often overshadowed in the public eye by Carter’s achievements on the track.  F&A Racing struck an early blow in its campaign by negotiating a fresh deal with Lucas Oil following that company’s association with Carter.  Since its foundation in 1989, Lucas Oil has emerged as one of the most visible and prolific investors in motorsport, not to mention its acquisition of naming rights to the Indianapolis Colts stadium which recently staged American football’s Superbowl (plus Madonna’s monumental and extraordinary half-time show).  Does the presence of so eminent a backer increase the pressure on F&A Racing.

“Yes, to a degree,” admits Andrews.  “We consider ourselves very fortunate to have secured this partnership with Lucas Oil so soon in our project.  We’re fully motivated to succeed on our own account, of course, but we certainly intend to satisfy all of Lucas Oil’s goals too, on and off the track.”



F&A’s Lucas Oil connection runs deeper than marketing, for the team’s Hadman dragster chassis was bought last year from Morgan Lucas Racing.  A TFX motor will power the car and the team is adopting a Morgan Lucas setup to run it, with tuning advice coming from the US outfit to see them at least through the early days (and from NHRA’s five races so far this year, Morgan Lucas has a win, three low qualifiers and three of the four quickest ETs on record).

Andrews is full of gratitude for the backing the team receives from head office.  “Forrest, Charlotte and Morgan Lucas, and (Lucas Oil’s) Don Corsette and Tom Bogner have all taken a close interest in what we’re doing here,” he explains, “and we’re very grateful to them.  They’re so generous with the confidence they show in our team and with the support they offer – guidance, encouragement, straightforward practical help.  Honestly, it makes such a difference to know they are all with us on this.”

For the time being, the team will run a single-transporter operation with a small hospitality unit, with plans to expand as the programme develops.  The team will work closely with Lucas Oil’s UK chief, Les Downey, and with the company’s European distributors, to help spread the Lucas word.

The early-season schedule calls for pre-Main Event testing.  Absent from the seat for a while, Andrews must also re-license.

Whisper it quietly, but a second Top Fuel car glimmers on the horizon. (“Sounds a bit rich, I know,” concedes Andrews, “when we’ve yet to run the first car.  But we are planning ahead.”)  When it arrives, the new digger will serve first as a show car, then graduate to full runner status once funding is settled.



As well as an eye to the future, Andrews has a keen eye for the past.  F&A Racing has to date been the biggest benefactor of the Allard Chrysler Action Group engaged in the restoration of Sydney Allard’s original British dragster, the machine which essentially kicked off European drag racing five decades ago.  The team will continue to donate a percentage of its funds to the ACAG project.  The prospect of seeing Britain’s earliest and latest fuel dragsters firing up side by side is something indeed to savour.

Right now, F&A Racing stands on the brink of a new era, the second half-century of British drag racing, with a driver whose range of experience belies his still-young years and a management team that has already hit the nail in the marketing stakes.  All that will fade into the background, of course, when the motor fires for the first time, the car rolls into the water and Andrews guns the throttle.

Then it gets seriously serious.