NHRA’s “People’s Champ” is Now PBR’s Champion as Well
By Andrew Giangola
Scott Palmer pilots the PBR Teams Top Fuel Dragster, which officially launches this weekend at Menards NHRA Nationals.
If PBR is the most exciting 8 seconds in sports, the organization has found a kindred partner in Scott Palmer, who tears down the racetrack in the fastest 3.7 seconds in sports.
Palmer pilots the PBR Teams Top Fuel Dragster, reaching up to 330 mph on raceways coast to coast.
The partnership officially launches this weekend at Menards NHRA Nationals at Heartland Motorsports Park in Topeka, Kansas (Sunday, Fox Sports1, 3-6 p.m. ET).
In a sport where big brands spend big dollars to buy speed, Palmer is a workingman’s throwback – the perennial underdog independent, eschewing selling out to big corporate deals that would dictate how he does things, somehow finding a way to compete against the cash-flush big dogs.
Incredibly, he’s finished in the Top 10 twice in the past five NHRA seasons.
Palmer is known as “The People’s Champ.” He’ll sign every autograph, speak to any approaching fan, and never say no to a photo request.
He welcomes fans into the pits to see the PBR Teams Top Fuel Dragster up close.
“What’s the point of success if you can’t share it?” he asks.
Call Palmer, and if he can’t pick up, his voicemail is usually full. That’s because he gives his phone number to fans who ask. He knows that without them, he has no job.
Palmer has been racing top fuel dragsters for two decades in a regulation helmet, but he might as well be blasting from the start line in his 11,000-horsepower machine wearing a cowboy hat.
The man is cowboy through and through, and boy, does he love PBR.
“It’s hard to explain how much it means to have PBR Teams on this car,” Palmer said this week on the phone from his trailer at the track in Topeka. “Partnering with PBR is a huge honor to me. I truly love this sport.”
How PBR Teams came to adorn Palmer’s Top Fuel Dragster is a story that includes good old-fashioned cowboy friendships and the tragedy sometimes falling on bull riding brethren.
Moving his race shop to Missouri 14 years ago, Palmer lived in Exeter, a town bull riding fans will recognize as the hometown of Mason Lowe.
New to town, Palmer patronized Jersey’s, a local sports bar that was the place to hang out. Coming from Oklahoma, he was far from a city slicker but stuck out the way an outsider can in a small-town joint.
One time at the sports bar, a group of locals was giving Palmer some trouble. Stu Crowe, PBR’s intrepid safety man, was there. Crowe only knew Palmer by sight but saw the unfair situation for what it was. He walked over and promptly ironed things out.
Chatting with Palmer, Crowe viewed him as much as a fellow cowboy as a professional racer. The two became fast friends.
“I didn’t know Stu’s last name for three years. He was Cowboy Stu to me,” Palmer said.
Palmer settled in as a regular at Jersey’s and got to know the local bull riding sensation, a kid who would show up and flash an impish grin revealing a missing tooth. Rising PBR star Mason Lowe was tragically killed in a bull riding accident at the Denver stock show in January 2019. He was 25.
After Mason died, Crowe put together a benefit rodeo drawing the likes of Brady Sims, Chase Outlaw, L.J. Jenkins, Chase Dougherty, Daniel Keeping, Andrew Alvidrez, Bob Mitchell, Keith Hall, Zane Cook and Gene Owens. Crowe would bring the riders to Palmer’s shop to check out the race cars and drink beer.
“The talk was always that we should do something together, PBR and the race team,” Palmer said.
Crowe knew just the person who could get it done.
He phoned Mandi McCary, who runs a Western-focused PR firm that has served PBR for 15 years. She took the idea to PBR Marketing, and an innovative partnership was born.
In addition to the PBR Teams Top Fuel Dragster, Palmer has the PBR Teams logo on a 1953 nitro-fueled “Studezilla” Studebaker and a 1970 Chevelle, both equipped with 10,000- horsepower engines, possibly making them the wildest and most dangerous cars on earth.
Palmer’s 1963 Corvette Outlaw Pro Mod will also run for PBR Teams.
As sensually arresting as top-tier professional drag racing is, Palmer is blown away by PBR.
“It’s an awesome spectacle – probably the greatest show on earth,” he said.
One thing the People’s Champ loves about the events is the positive family feel.
“You look up at the big screen, and you see there are riders who bucked off every time they got on,” he said. “Not a single ride. And the announcers promote it like, ‘This kid has all the tools and is about to hit a hot streak! Watch out for this cowboy!’ It’s all positive encouragement. PBR has the best announcers I’ve ever heard.”
Palmer says the PBR deal will cover whatever he wants to do – whether it’s match races, NHRA national events, or even his “Nitro Side Show.”
Looking ahead, the Scott Palmer Nitro Side Show, which overlaps with PBR Teams Rattler Days (Oct. 6-8), will be turned into the “PBR Nitro Side Show,” with the entire stable of PBR Teams cars there for fans.
“I take this super serious – to have this on the car is a huge honor to me,” he said. “I want to make sure to do my part to promote PBR.”
His love for powerful racecars began growing up in Marlow, Oklahoma, watching his dad race in Ardmore, Lawton, and Oklahoma City.
“My dad taught me how to paint cars as a kid,” Palmer said. “Actually, he made me. Because that’s what you did then. You worked. He said, ‘If you don’t like it enough, you’ll get an education and do something else. You’ll never starve to death if you have a trade.’”
Palmer moved to Missouri, where the economy was better, a hot rod always sitting in the driveway. The learned trade came into play. He’d paint cars in his detached garage and began racing locally, meeting the right people, and drawing more support.
If anyone asked about his hobbies, he’d say, “Racing is my golfing, fishing, and deer hunting.” He’d spend days on end in the garage working on his race cars. He loved it so much that he didn’t consider it work.
“I was obsessed with racing, and people saw that passion and started helping me,” Palmer said. Whatever he earned would be pumped back into the race team.
What began in his garage turned into a multimillion-dollar racing operation.
Most teams have up to a dozen full-time employees. Palmer currently has himself; crew members pitch in part-time. With runs like a record-breaking blast down Mo-Kan Dragway in Asbury, Missouri, where he set the track record in July in the eighth and quarter mile, he’s never lost the kid-in-a-candy-store enthusiasm around race cars.
Palmer brings that same heart-and-soul passion to promoting PBR and its new team league on his dragster.
The sport is fortunate to have the People’s Champ as its new champion.
Andrew Giangola is the author of Love & Try: Stories of Gratitude & Grit from Professional Bull Riding, with proceeds benefitting injured bull riders.
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