The Medicine Man - Dr. Jerry Powell

Courtesy of Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Photo courtesy of David Smith

Most doctors would probably rather vacation in exotic locales or just play golf, but for Dr. Jerry Powell, relaxation comes a quarter-mile at a time in a 270-mph A/Fuel Dragster.

"A lot of other doctors think I'm nuts," says Powell, who runs a family practice in Kokomo, Ind., and pays for racing by working emergency-room shifts. "I've had some of them say, 'Why would you want to do that?' Save your money for when you retire.' But everybody has to have their own thing, and racing is my thing. Why be 50 or 60 and look back and wish you'd done it? I can do this job until the day I die, and I'm going to race as long as I can."

Powell's interest in the medical profession began when a dump-truck tailgate slammed shut on his hand when he was 6 years old. "One of the first microscopic surgeons in the world was in Indianapolis, and he sewed the tips back on my fingers," Powell says. "That was 1978." Rehabbing for a year, he became increasingly enamored of medicine as he was making a complete recovery from his injuries. It wasn't that long ago that he – like most doctors, presumably – knew little about drag racing, motorsports, or cars in general. Then he went to a track with his dad.

"He used to race sprint cars, but he got out of it when I was born," says Powell, 39. "He'd had a wreck, and my mom told him he had to. His dream was always to own a front-engined dragster, and when I was a junior in college, he bought a piece-of-crap, 30-year-old car that wouldn't pass tech at any track in the country. I was his pit crew. Then he got a rear-engined car and moved up to Super Pro, and when I was a sophomore in med school, stressed out from studying biochemistry and microbiology 24/7, I went to the track with him to get away from it all. One weekend, I asked him what it would take to get the old front-engined car running again so I could drive it. He put an engine in it and I ran the Pro class, had a good time, and went a few rounds."

The car didn't have a delay box or any electronics – just a trans-brake. "It had wheelie bars made out of an old shopping cart – no kidding – but we didn't even put them on because the car didn't make enough power to pick up the front end anyway," Powell says. "I ran it six or seven times before the engine blew itself to smithereens, and it was a hell of a ride. We didn't know anything, and most of the guys we raced didn't know of me as a doctor; to them, I was a guy out having a good time with his dad. For me, racing was a way to get away from medicine and the stress of what I was training to do whenever I had a free weekend."

It still is – he's just going a lot faster now. Powell has progressed from that aging slingshot to Super Pro to the Jegs Super Quick Series to Top Dragster to a blown-alcohol TA/D to his current ride, an A/Fuel Dragster that has run a best of 269 mph. "Right after the first year of NHRA Top Dragster, I bought a bunch of Lencodrive stuff off of Larry Snyder," Powell says. "He put together a Hemi for me because it would run easy 5.90s and blow past guys at the finish line, but it made a lot of people mad. They were like, 'Why's this guy running a five-second car in Top Dragster?' "

NHRA later put a 6.00 limit on Top Dragsters, but by then Powell had already made his way to Top Alcohol. "That was always my dream," he says. "We used to go down to Indy for the points meet, and I always wanted to eventually race an Alcohol Dragster. I just didn't always think it was achievable. Marty Thacker and Bill Reichert were my heroes. Ten years ago, I sure never thought I'd be shaking hands with people like that."

With the blown-alcohol car, Powell achieved a career best last year at the Summit Racing Nationals in Norwalk, upsetting past national event winners Randy Meyer and Mike Kosky with reaction times of .006 and .018 to reach the semifinals. This year, he made the difficult switch to injected nitro.

"It's been a struggle so far, but I really think A/Fuel is the way to go," Powell says. "I was really frustrated at the U.S. Nationals last year. I was killing the Tree every time, but I couldn't run fast enough to get in the race. That blown car would really whack you out of the gate, but by the eighth-mile, it was pretty much over, and that's where this car is just getting going.

"A/Fuel is a whole new beast, and I'm trying to learn as much as I can. I'll ask Tony Samsel, 'Why do you put that much weight on the clutch?' or 'Why do you do that?' I didn't grow up a motorhead – it was always basketball, football, and baseball for me, and then I went to college on an academic scholarship. I didn't really know anything about cars 10 years ago, but now I get almost as much enjoyment out of working on the car as I do from driving it."