Drag Illustrated Issue 113, September 2016 | Page 86
small community of people that are very specific
in like and passionate about what they do. We
all travel all over the country just to get together for what we love to do. I actually see a lot of
parallels between a rock band hitting the road
and a race team.”
Back in Buffalo, the Snapcase show is over, the
we’ve had an emotional impact on their lives.”
Having been able to successfully translate two
of his life’s passions into sustainable careers, Salemi knows he’s one of the lucky few who are truly
living the dream. “I want to try and be the best
at what I’m doing and I hope that I can still live
comfortably doing what I’m doing in the future,”
These days Jon Salemi’s touring is done alongside his wife, Melanie, and brother, Jim, as they
do battle on the national event drag racing scene
with their supercharged Pro Mod Firebird. When
not at the track, however, Salemi stays busy consulting with other teams by way of his Resolution
Racing Services business.
stage is silent, and all that remains of a crowd
bent on reliving its glory days is the usual trash
and debris. Salemi and his band mates are backstage now, relaxing, but still riding the wave of
adrenaline that inevitably accompanies whipping
their fans into a frenzy, where band and audience
become one, feeding off each other’s energy.
“I never dreamed something like this would
happen to me,” Salemi admits. “It’s surreal to
think that 25 years later, people still care and
he says. However, his long-term plan is centered
on growing his business to the point where if his
children choose to continue his legacy, they will
have the platform to be able to do so.
“I’m super fortunate, but I’ve worked hard for
what I have,” Salemi says. “Everything comes
with struggles, and we all have our faults, but the
sooner you can take constructive criticism from
someone you respect, the sooner you’ll be able
to grow your own life.”
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Issue 113
PHOTOS: IAN TOCHER
You’re never going to be able to slow it down and
people that want to should just go do something
else. You can’t slow that human progression down
and anyone that tries to is just a naysayer. It’s
development; it’s productivity stuff, you know?”
Not surprisingly, Salemi prefers modern-day
electronic fuel injection systems over old-school
mechanical injection for the dynamic flexibility
it offers when tuning. “It gives you control over
the engine at any point in the run, where with
mechanical injection, if you make a change it
effects a run from the lower RPM to the highest,”
he clarifies. Salemi has seen EFI recently experience a rise in popularity for supercharged engines,
but knows most are still using the older, tried
and true technology. “It’s a learning curve for me,
and I’ve hurt some parts with EFI, but it’s made
me faster on some runs over what mechanical
injection would have.”
To help expand the acceptance of EFI within
his world, Salemi has partnered with FuelTech,
Pro Line Racing, his brother Jim, and Jeff Pierce
to deliver a supercharger EFI kit which bundles
the necessary components and is sold through
Salemi’s Resolution Racing Services.
His daily life, though, isn’t simply tuning
cars and slinging
parts; it’s running
a full-scale business, managing
operations with his
partner companies,
answering customer calls, and just
juggling the responsibilities of being an
adult. “One day I’m
on the flow bench,
then I’m flying to go
tune a car, and my
phone is ringing the
whole time. People
look at me and think
it’s easy, but they
don’t realize all the
work that’s going on
behind the scenes,”
Salemi says. Being a husband, caring for his two
children from a previous marriage (son Evan,
14, and daughter Akyra, 11), in addition to handling mundane household chores like mowing the
lawn often throws a wrench into Salemi’s actual
wrenching schedule.
At first glance, Salemi may just seem like an
average “race car dude” and family man, but he’s
also an internationally recognized rock star who
jokes that when he explains Snapcase’s impact
on the hardcore music scene, unless people are
involved in that specific genre, they often don’t
really understand.
“It’s a lot like explaining to someone who
doesn’t care about drag racing that I do car stuff
and they just assume NASCAR because to them
it’s all the same,” he laughs. “Racing is a lot like
hardcore music; both are very underground, and
not a lot of the general public really knows about
it. Both represent such a small niche, but it’s a