91°µÍø

Cruise through the Pro Stock pits here at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, and you're likely to walk right by a legend without realizing it. Walk slowly, though, and allow your gaze to settle on the gentleman with a thoughtful expression leaning over the engine in Cristian Cuadra's Corral Boots Chevrolet. That would be Pro Stock pioneer Frank Iaconio, who won this very race as a driver in 1982.

Iaconio, methodically attentive, wrenches on the engines that he builds back in Flanders, N.J., at the race shop that he's been operating since the early days of Pro Stock under the F.I.R.E. (Frank Iaconio Racing Engines) banner.

He actually got his start in Stock eliminator at the impressionable age of 17.

"Bill Jenkins was kind of like my hero," he said with a nod to the cigar-chomping Pro Stock patriarch known (somewhat affectionately and accurately) as "Grumpy." Jenkins won the first 91°µÍø Pro Stock race at the Pomona NHRA Winternationals in 1970.

"I raced Stock from '66 to '71, I would say, and then I just built a Vega," continued Iaconio. "I wanted to race Pro Stock – I saw Bill Jenkins doing it, and it was one of those things; 'Yeah, I want to do that.' "

The engines he ran in his Stocker were put together by Iaconio, himself, who was honing engine blocks in the basement of his mother's house when he was just 16. Over the years, his skills gained a sharpened edge as he raced at NHRA national events across the country against drivers who would become some of the greatest of all time, but he also had a couple of ferocious accidents with the Vega, and he was deterred for a few years.

While snowmobiling with friends, though, Iaconio was invited to give his decision to quit racing a little more consideration. The 1972 NHRA U.S. Nationals Pro Stock winner, Ray Allen, proposed that the two go Pro Stock racing. Together with Richie Shulz, they pooled their funds (to the tune of $15,000 a piece) and ordered a Monza, the newest Pro Stock car as the Vegas were phasing out.

"But we built this Monza, and Ray's license wasn't any good," recalled Iaconio. "I still had my license, so, he said, 'Well, you drive it.' It was either I drove it, or we didn't race. We finished the car and went out to the Summernationals at Englishtown, and I think we barely qualified. But Indy was the second race, and I wound up in the final. Ray said, 'You keep driving.' That's how it happened."

After reaching the final round at the U.S. Nationals in 1976 – where Wally Booth emerged victorious – Iaconio started making regular appearances in the money round. He finally claimed his hard-fought first Pro Stock win in 1978 against Bob Glidden at the NHRA Gatornationals.

"We ran good, had some runner-ups, won Gainesville, and then the Camaros came out," detailed Iaconio. "Reher Morrison had one from [car builder Don] Ness, and it was really nice. So, we said, 'Let's get a Ness car.' "

The decision proved fruitful, particularly a couple of years later in 1982, when Iaconio experienced an unexpectedly extraordinary year.

Over the winter ahead of the '82 season, the rules for Pro Stock changed from weight breaks to a standard 500-cubic-inch engine package. That was, initially, quite disheartening for Iaconio.

"I always used to leave my stuff out at Lamb Components in Upland, Calif., over the winter. I'd leave my car and trailer and ship the motors home, then ship them back in January to save the whole trip across country," he began. "I didn't even know we were going to go to 500 inches until the middle of November. I was thrashing, trying to put something together, and hearing all the horsepower numbers Reher Morrison was doing. I was thinking, 'I'm not even going to go. I'm making 900 horsepower, they're making 1,000 or something.' But my stuff was already out there, so I shipped a couple of motors out – I don't even know if I had two; maybe one and a short block. We went down to Orange County and tested, and we got down the track. Then we went to Pomona and wound up winning the thing. It was 100% unexpected."

As the first winner in the 500-cid era of Pro Stock, Iaconio will forever have a place in history. But winning the most historic event on the tour later that season, the one everyone wants to win, the Big Go, etched his name into an even more elite record book.

"To win Indy, it's a big deal," he said. "It was pretty exciting, and just something you think maybe you could never even do. We should have won it in 1981 – we had low e.t. first round of eliminations and second round, the throw-out bearing seized up the clutch. That was a little more incentive to try to do better. Sometimes you win some that you shouldn't, and sometimes you should win and you don't. It goes both ways.

"I'm pretty calm, so in the final with Glidden, it was just another race – but then to win it, to have that on your résumé, it's special."

Iaconio won 11 races over the course of his career in 36 final rounds. His triumphs came over some of the most successful and renowned Pro Stock racers of all time: Glidden, Lee Shepherd, Pat Musi, and Warren Johnson. Iaconio stated that his only disappointment was in not winning the championship, but he led the points until the World Finals at Orange County Int'l Raceway in 1983.

Iaconio's accomplishments and impact stretched outside of what he could do from the driver's seat; Greg Anderson, the most winning driver in Pro Stock and a five-time world champion, claimed his first two wins with Iaconio power (Bristol and the U.S. Nationals) before Anderson and then-team owner Ken Black opened an engine shop of their own.

In modern-day electronic fuel-injected Pro Stock without carburetors and hood scoops, Iaconio continues to thrive. In addition to supplying and maintaining young Cuadra's engines, he also builds the 500-cubic-inch bullets for Pro Stock veteran Kenny Delco, who remains an able competitor in an arena of incredibly tight battles.

Primarily, Iaconio can be found next to the bold yellow Corral Boots entry driven by Cuadra – a second-generation Pro Stock competitor whose father, Fernando Cuadra Sr., finally qualified for a Pro Stock race a decade ago after switching to Iaconio power.

In 2021, Cristian and older brother Fernando Cuadra Jr. went head-to-head in the final of a match race after outlasting an incredible field of heavy hitters, both Cuadras running with Iaconio power. In 2022, (Cristian) Cuadra raced to the final round at the spring four-wide race in Las Vegas, and last season, he earned the first No. 1 qualifier award of his career in Phoenix and finished in the top 10 for the second time. He opened the 2024 season with a runner-up in Gainesville next to Elite Motorsports teammate Erica Enders, the incoming Pro Stock champion.

In nearly every race he's contested this year, Cuadra has picked up at least one round-win – and to be in the No. 8 position at present time, after missing four races traveling for business, is a tremendous statement to the horsepower under the hood.

"It's satisfying," said Iaconio. "The thing is, I love doing it. I can't wait to get in the shop in the morning and work on the stuff. With this format that we have, you get to show your stuff off, too. When we make a good run, it's pretty neat."