“ People ask , ‘ What was the difference between NHRA and IHRA ?’ For me , there was no difference . I was driving a Top Fuel car and trying to get to the finish line first .” really , really hard . Donna worked every day . I spent every day on the phone trying to find money to go racing . It was a very , very difficult time for both of us , but she never once said , “ You ’ ve gotta get a job .” And I was still racing . I was still going bracket racing and going to national events , which was silly because I was certainly not making any money doing that . But she believed in me more than anybody because she ’ s the one who paid the bills at the house . For us to do that was just insane . I wouldn ’ t recommend it to anybody . We spent all the savings that we had , all the 401k stuff that I had from working at Kroger for 11 years . We lived on every dollar that was in savings for those couple years until Peter put together the dot-com deal . It ’ s nuts . I can ’ t believe we did it .
The success that you had with the IHRA , whether it was the winning itself or everything that came long with it , how did that prepare you for competing in the NHRA full time beginning in 2007 ?
When we started winning as much as we did , I learned a lot , from doing morning television to radio to even TV shows . I ended up doing a lot of TV shows ( like PINKS All Out and Drag Race High ) and that opportunity came from the success we had in the IHRA . I still say this all the time : We didn ’ t look at it as IHRA versus NHRA . We looked at it as “ Our team is going to the racetrack .” People ask that question a lot , “ What was the difference between IHRA and NHRA ?” For me , there was no difference . I ’ m driving a Top Fuel car and I ’ m trying to get to the finish line first .
The IHRA was the training ground for what I ’ m doing today , but at the same time it is still the same process . More people just happen to watch the NHRA so they say , “ Where ’ d this guy come from ?”
A lot of it was really Peter Lehman giving me that opportunity and then exposing me to things I had never been exposed to . I was a bracket racer . Peter giving me that chance certainly exposed me to things that I never would have had the opportunity to do . That guy was and still is a special part of my family . He and I still talk all the time . He ’ s just a super , super guy .
When it came time to make the move from IHRA to NHRA , around the 2007 season , that was around the same time the IHRA show started to go downhill . Did your team predict that , or was there another reason for the move ?
Again , that goes back to the business side of things . We never made a conscious decision at all . It was a business thing . We have to back up a little bit . After we won our fourth or fifth championship , Peter Lehman came to me at Rockingham . We had just won the race and locked up the championship . It was late at night . Peter walked me over by the racetrack and he said , “ Look , I bought into your dream and we ’ ve won all these championships together . We have a sponsorship . I ’ ve lived your dream with you . Now I want to go and do what I want to do . You ’ re all set . You need to go and find someone to be a team owner and keep this thing going . You ’ re in a good position right now so make that happen . I ’ m not going to drop you or put you in any kind of bad position .”
We contacted Kenny Koretsky and he bought the team . We won some more IHRA championships with Kenny . Then that ‘ 06 season was when the fuel prices just went crazy . Werner has over 10,000 trucks on the road , so when fuel went sky-high , that certainly affected the money their company had . They came to us and said , “ This is our last year .”
The agreement between Werner and Peter was a handshake deal . There was never a piece of paper written . Greg Werner and Peter literally shook on it . Greg said , “ We ’ ll do this for a few years .” That few years turned into six . We weren ’ t mad that Werner went away . It was just the proper thing to do for their business since fuel prices went so high .
That brings us back to the ‘ 07 season . We didn ’ t make a conscious decision to go NHRA racing , it was just back to the business side of things . That was a tough time for everyone . Not that it ’ s still not hard – it is . We transitioned to the NHRA , ran a year or so , then we had some highs and lows with sponsorship . There were years where I did one or two races . There were some years where I did ‘ em all . Just a lot of great people along the way that kept this thing going . The Pickens family out of Memphis ended up buying the team . It ’ s been a crazy ride . It ’ s amazing the amount of people who stuck with me , and we ’ re still here . Next year is 20 years , which is crazy . My wife , Donna , got me to quit Kroger 19 years ago . I was always in trouble at work for missing days to go racing . Donna told me , “ If you don ’ t quit this now , you ’ re going to regret it .” I was like , “ You can ’ t really want me to quit .” But I quit , and here we are 19 years later . It ’ s crazy .
Since May 10th of 1998 , your full-time occupation has been “ Top Fuel driver ”. In recent years . we ’ ve seen so many drivers put on the sidelines , temporarily or otherwise , due to sponsorship woes . It certainly hasn ’ t been on accident , but how much does it mean to you to still be doing this 19 years later ?
This will sound bad , but it ’ s almost everything because this is how I ’ ve paid the light bill , how I ’ ve paid the mortgage . Now , during that ‘ 98 timeframe that I was just talking about , my wife had a normal job and when she got me to quit , it wasn ’ t like I was on Peter ’ s payroll at that point at all . He certainly helped . But when I quit my job , this was back in the days when you would get a credit card in the mail . They ’ d send you a pre-approved credit card and I was high-fiving myself , Yay , a credit card came in ! We can buy gas to go to the store and we can put groceries on there .
There were a lot of times where it was really ,
“ People ask , ‘ What was the difference between NHRA and IHRA ?’ For me , there was no difference . I was driving a Top Fuel car and trying to get to the finish line first .” really , really hard . Donna worked every day . I spent every day on the phone trying to find money to go racing . It was a very , very difficult time for both of us , but she never once said , “ You ’ ve gotta get a job .” And I was still racing . I was still going bracket racing and going to national events , which was silly because I was certainly not making any money doing that . But she believed in me more than anybody because she ’ s the one who paid the bills at the house . For us to do that was just insane . I wouldn ’ t recommend it to anybody . We spent all the savings that we had , all the 401k stuff that I had from working at Kroger for 11 years . We lived on every dollar that was in savings for those couple years until Peter put together the dot-com deal . It ’ s nuts . I can ’ t believe we did it .
It ’ s amazing to still be doing it . I certainly have been through enough ups and downs to know that this can go away at any moment . It ’ s went away for me before and it ’ s went away for a lot of people out here . You ’ ve got people who are able to somehow find their way back and I ’ ve been one of those people fortunate enough to find my way back several times when my dream job has gone away . Look at Shawn Langdon – it ’ s happened to him a few times recently . There ’ s several people out here with cool stories about how their dream went away and they were able to find their way back , and I ’ m certainly one of them . It ’ s just nonstop , don ’ t-give-up , hard work . That ’ s really what it is .
You must be asked all the time about how you find these sponsorships . What has been your secret to finding the funding required to race Top Fuel ?
Well , I have a lot of stories on that , but this sponsorship game is like getting a job . You know somebody who may know somebody who knows somebody else . You can ’ t go to a sponsor and just say , “ Hey , I ’ m going to put your decal on my car .” That ’ s out the window , and that ’ s one of the biggest things Peter taught me , to figure out what it is that you can do to help those companies to make them want to go racing . Everybody you meet could be your next sponsor .
I tell this story a lot so it ’ s nothing new , but it ’ s a really cool story . We were in Phoenix testing . I was packing a parachute . It was the PRO ( Professional Racers Organization ) test session so it was open to the public . A guy comes up , dressed normally – flip-flops , shorts , t-shirt . He tells me he ’ s from the Memphis area , and we just had a conversation not unlike the thousands of conversations I ’ ve had back there packing parachutes . Fast forward a few years and that ended up being Mark Pickens , who ended up being a team owner for me .
Parts Plus – there ’ s another good story . When the budget with the Pickens was coming to an end , the landlord of our race shop in Munford , Tennesee , introduced me to Steve Tucker , the vice president of Parts Plus . I gave him a game plan for Parts Plus to go racing , and that partnership is now in its sixth year .
The Werner Enterprises deal came about when Mike Kloeber hired a local kid , Jaymond Hogue ,
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