recently returned from the first race of the PDRA season at South Georgia Motorsports Park, where we were fortunate enough to win. While taking home the trophy is always rewarding, there is something far more rewarding to take home with you after the race is over.

Most people judge a successful outing as it relates to the car’ s good performance or race win. If all went well on track then all was good, but if the racecar struggled, so did our attitudes about the whole weekend. For years, I struggled with the right attitude about success. If I won I was happy, but if I lost I had a pretty bad attitude for quite a while. You see, most will tell you success is everything going right, winning all the time, making more money, or having more stuff. That simply isn’ t true. Most of us are at the track for three-to-four days at a time, sometimes longer, so approximately 72-to-48 hours. The time we actually spend going down the racetrack in that span of time on a race-win weekend would be about 24.5 seconds. So now that you have that in perspective, let’ s think about how you spend the other time off the track.

Many of the best stories in racing have very little to do with what happened on the track. Most of the incredible stories happen in the pit area. While we were in the semifinals we had a large backfire which lifted the blower. We got back to the pit area and found that we had very little time to get it fixed. Suddenly, we had people all over the place. Parts were being removed and reinstalled, and we did manage to get it fixed at the last second, arriving in the staging lanes to applause by many, including our competitor, for the final round. It’ s moments like this that really make me smile to know that we did what many thought could not be done.

If you really think about it, there are feel-good stories all over the racetrack at any given event. The thing we need to do is start focusing more on the good that’ s happening around us rather than crying about not getting what we want. Many of our Junior Dragster kids have the right attitude in racing. I have seen countless Junior Dragster drivers who have already lost but keep going up to the staging lanes to encourage their friends and celebrate with them while making great memories. They choose to let go of the loss or problematic weekend with their own cars and focus on having a great time while they are there. Some of my best memories at the track were when I didn’ t even bring a car. I focused on helping and building others up, and when the race was over the impact it had was far more than I could even imagine.

Next time you go to the races, I want you to think about how you are going to spend your time. Knowing that the time on track is few and far between, we need to make choices about how we can maybe look for others who need help, or maybe just strike up conversations with new people. You see, in the beginning I raced just for me, me, me, me. But now I want to make a difference in others’ lives through racing. You can have such an impact in this wonderful sport of ours, and not only win a trophy here and there, but win hearts and change lives. If you’ re going only for the win, I hope you realize that even the best racers still have a losing record, so if I were you I would decide ahead of time to make sure you’ re going for the right reasons. I know first-hand what it’ s like to race for the wrong ones. The choice is yours to make.

Tommy D’ Aprile tommyd @ dragillustrated. com

February 2017

ARP Helps You Build More Power. Make Sure It Gets To The Ground!

WHEEL STUDS Made of heat-treated 8740 chrome moly steel and cadmium plated for extra durability. Available for all popular applications.

RING GEAR BOLTS Premium grade chrome moly bolts with specially hardened precision ground washers available for OEM and aftermarket rear ends.

CLUTCH / CONVERTER BOLTS Prevent bolt shear with these premium 190,000 psi rated chrome moly gems. Complete with parallel ground washers.

CRANK / FLEXPLATE BOLTS Exclusive flat 12-point head design and larger shank diameter for improved register provide superior reliability. Nuts and washers as required.

800-826-3045 www. ARP-bolts. com

Check out ARP’ s new 2017 catalog and see what’ s available for your application

DragIllustrated. com | Drag Illustrated | 57