Tony
Arcuri and Tom Furches used to
live roughly 70 miles apart for more than two decades from
the early 1990s until well into the New Millenium. Today,
they are geographically much closer to each other. Yet,
despite the physical difference, as eager, teen-age street
racers, they began what is essentially a lifelong friendship
couched around a competitive zeal.
“Their
relationship dates back to their high school days,”
said Ed Arcuri, III, Tony’s father and founder/CEO
of Rocky Mountain Superchargers ("RMS"),
the Colorado-based organization which competes from May
through September in eight Mountain and Plains states.
The
younger Arcuri and Furches, only seven months apart in
age, are the spotlight drivers for RMS in the faster class,
Top Supercharged Thunder, along with North Dakotan Jim
Chase and another Colorado resident, Scott Dominguez.
Tony drives his “Firefighter” Chrysler design,
TFX Hemi beauty with a 540 c.i. block, a replicated, 1956
Ford Crown Vic body, sitting atop a 125-inch wheelbase;
and Tom proudly guides his pride-and-joy Pontiac Firebird
funny car, “Made in America,” down the quarter-mile.
The alliance was “formed by racing, and we’ve
been bonded by that ever since,” Tony Arcuri said.
It
was 1993 when Furches, who turned 40 in July 2016, and
Tony Arcuri, who was to reach the same age in January
2017, first hooked up. They have been inseparable as friends
and competitors ever since. The former was attending Littleton
High School, 15 miles southwest of downtown Denver, the
latter then a student at Monument’s Lewis-Palmer
High School, just north of Colorado Springs.
More
recently, during the 2016 season, the pair – competing
virtually against each other from within the RMS team
in Top Supercharged Thunder – have continued a series
of weekly match races with blown cars (or injected nitro),
with 6-sec. ETs and 200 mph- plus trap speeds; mostly
in their own, head-to-head, two-car competition, but occasionally
some four-car fields from within RMS ranks, paired against
either Dominguez or Chase, who earned RMS Top Supercharged
Champion honors in 2014.
Furches
took home an RMS award of his own in 2015 – Best
Appearing Car, for the patriotic, red-white-and-blue paint
scheme on his funny car. The color combination, the crowd-pleasing
Furches conceded, “also is designed to entertain
the fans.”
Typically,
in their high-altitude milieu at their “home”
track, Pueblo (Colo.) Motorsports Park, their ETs and
top speeds are relatively modest on a grand scale, compared
to those routinely logged in hotter, more humid weather
at lower elevations, yet the two got a more realistic
idea of their upper-end capabilities in 2016 when RMS
added Kansas International Dragway, at Maize, Kan., north
of Wichita, to the racing menu. “(It) opened up
a new venue,” said Ron Burge, the veteran RMS Competition
Director. “There were great races; it’s a
great facility. The humidity helped immensely, with the
heavier air,” he added regarding the Kansas strip,
where Furches and Tony Arcuri competed twice, consistently
burning lower 6’s and well over 200 in May’s
match race and July’s round-robin. Most of the 2016
RMS events – in both the Top Supercharged Thunder
and the relatively slower (7.5/under-200) Pro Supercharged
All Stars -- incorporated the addition of a new sponsor
recruited by Ed Arcuri in the Competition Products Challenge.
All
that is for the present, though, as they have progressed
into guiding jet-fast, nitromethane-powered speedsters
after their earlier, less-sophisticated encounters as
budding teen-aged speed demons.
Any
drag-racing driver evolves “in time to go from street
cars to funny cars – learn all the nuances of the
drag strip,” Burge explained. It is like any sport
in which someone excels; those with the talent and desire
want to achieve the pinnacle – e.g., football’s
Super Bowl, baseball’s World Series or hockey’s
Stanley Cup. Some dragsters ultimately ascend to regular
bookings as National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) contestants,
earning a full-time living with big prize money, exposure
on weekly ESPN telecasts and the like. Yet for most, the
thrill of being able to increase top speeds, while lowering
ETs – all the while making a full-time living elsewhere
during the work week – is rewarding enough.
That is exactly the osmosis experienced through the years
by Tony Arcuri and Tom Furches, as they never forget those
days in the mid-‘90s at the legendary Bandimere
Speedway, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) track
tucked into the picturesque red rocks along the C-470
beltway, hard against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
When
the fellow Chevrolet lovers were competing for the first
time, Arcuri was in a Nova and Monte Carlo, Furches in
a Camaro. Whereas today each boasts mutli-person pit crews,
with more-advanced tools and parts, and veteran crew chiefs
– Colorado Springs’s Terry Phillips for Arcuri,
Conifer’s Roger Kuyatt for Furches – it was
common as high-schoolers to basically “wing it”
and pray.
It
made no matter, however, how far apart they were during
the school week. Because every Friday night, from Memorial
Day through Labor Day for three consecutive racing seasons,
they always found themselves at “Bandy.”
“We
would show up on Friday nights for high school-age races,”
Tony Arcuri remembered. Although the weekly Bandimere
menu for locals also included trophy jackpot, club and
various other races, “we couldn’t win cash,
but trophies, and the champion would get a Frank Hawley
Racing Scholarship,” he added. Hawley, an NHRA funny
car and top fuel legend, operates a racing school in Gainesville,
Fla. The street cars the youths were driving at Bandy
could not exceed 11.5 seconds ET.
Realizing
that perfection never is fully achieved without extra
practice, the younger Arcuri – an otherwise law-abiding
citizen, and a husband and father who works full-time
as an engineer for West Metro Fire & Rescue in suburban
Denver – said he and Furches put that principle
into maximum motion once while still in their teens. Trouble
is, in retrospect, they consider themselves very lucky,
since how they did it was technically illegal.
“One
time, we had left the race track and went out …
and had to go back, and I don’t know what we forgot,”
Tony Arcuri admitted. One of the track employees had just
locked the gate, so the driver of today’s Firefighter
vehicles, both on and off the track, said, “We broke
(the lock) and went back in to race the wrong way (backwards).”
Furches,
who works for the Miller Coors brewing operation, said,
by comparison, the higher speeds and reduced ETs in modern
nitro-thrust racing vehicles is no more nerve-wracking
than the much slower street “gassers,” yet
he conceded, “it might be a little more risky.”
He sometimes – on quick, first glance – is
mistaken for actor/martial arts aficionado Steven Seagal,
with Furches’ thick, dark hair tied back in ponytail
fashion, accompanied by a well-trimmed mustache and ring
beard.
Rocky
Mountain Superchargers competitors relaxed and celebrated
during their November 2016 year-end banquet at Colorado
Technical University in Colorado Springs. A fine, catered
smorgasbord capped off the Competition Products Challenge.
Owner/driver Furches was crowned Top Supercharged Thunder
Champion. Ed Arcuri said Furches’ consistency gave
him the season title, while Furches credited his Kuyatt-led
crew. Crew Chief honors in Top Supercharged went to Bismarck,
N. Dak., race car builder Joe Wetsch.
Consistency
was the watchword for the Pro Supercharged/All Star winner
Matt Nissen, as well. Racing out of his Auto Kreations
shop in Alma, Neb., Nissen and his crew attended every
race and either won or finished in the semifinals to secure
the points lead. Despite having to watch California's
Greg Means top Rickey Weeaks of Roswell, N. Mex., in the
season-ending Colorado Fuel and Gas Championships at Pueblo
on Sept. 24, Nissen's championship was ensured with his
semifinal finish at that event. Honored for his technical
expertise was Pro Supercharged Crew Chief of the Year
Tim Smith. Smith, a Lincoln Tech instructor and brother-in-law
of television star/bounty hunter Duane “Dog”
Chapman, has made the popular "Last Starfighter"
Dodge Challenger of Steve Stracener a car to beat at each
Rocky Mountain Superchargers race. After smiles and handshakes
all around, the Superchargers headed home to ready their
cars for 2017 and season No. 8.
Visit
www.rockymountainsuperchargers.com.
Text
& photos submitted by Phil Ross
