This 22-Year-Old’s Nitrous-Spraying Nova Is One Of The Southeast’s Best Real Street Cars
We’ve seen names like Garrett Mitchell and Alex Taylor shoot to prominence in the drag-and-drive scene. The success of a new generation of racers, who match mechanical wits with social media savvy, is supercharging the sport of drag racing.
Now you can add 22-year-old Graham Hayes to the mix. The second-generation Virginian driver might not have the YouTube channel or the Instagram following yet, but he’s got the hot rod.
Graham’s father Tony was a Pro Mod racer once upon a time, but had been on an extended break from the sport. He didn’t expect his son to follow in his footsteps, until Graham was 14, and he announced to his dad that he had put an LS and a turbo into a friend’s Chevy S10 truck.
Several years later, the pair were at an auction with a friend, who was there to buy a hot rod, when a ‘66 Chevy Nova came across the auction block.
“We (Graham and I) never liked the same car,” Tony said. “But on this day he came up to me and said, “Dad, did you see that Nova?”
The deal was done and the Hayes added an American classic to their garage. Over following years, Graham went to work on the car, building the cage and doing as much work as possible himself on the beautiful coupe. It was intended as a drag-and-drive build from the beginning.
“Gene Fulton built us this motor in three weeks,” Tony explained. “He used to build my Pro Mod stuff, so I called him and told him what I wanted and at first he hung up on me! But then he called me back and said he had a water jacketed block for us, if he could get a set of rods and pistons. Three weeks later we had 1125hp on pump gas, and we have two nitrous kits on it.”
Graham broke his ankle shortly before 2021’s Hot Rod Drag Week, ruling him out of what should have been his first drag-and-drive event in the Nova. But along came Carolina Drag Cruise in May this year, where Graham was planning to race in the S10 while Tony would drive the Nova. When the S10 developed an unwelcome knocking sound following its first pass of the event (later tracked down to a crank bearing), it was decided that Graham would take over steering the Nova. But that too had its problems, blowing through the gearbox on its first run.
“We think it got the clutches in it,” Graham said on day two, with the Nova up on a hoist as he and Tony finished installing a spare transmission. “It was a fresh ‘Glide that came right off the dyno.”
With a lacklustre 6.337 handed in on day one, Graham would have to stage a comeback — and that he did. A 5.579 on the tricky Ware Shoals track, followed by a 5.091 at Union (the quickest run overall for the event) were the decisive passes.
“(At Union) we made a good A-to-B hit in the middle of the day,” Graham said. “We threw down our normal race tune for a radial track and we were able to save the car for the final day. We were hoping to get it into the fours at Shadyside.”
That would have to wait for another day, as Graham rounded out his week with a pedaled 5.151 to take his average to a 5.539, while he also earned a win in the penny shootout.
By Luke Nieuwhof. Photos by Luke Nieuwhof and Phillip Thomas.
