LUKE BOGACKI
“ WHAT I THINK REALLY MAKES [ THE SPRING FLING MILLION WIN ] SPECIAL, IS THE REALIZATION OF JUST HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE PAYING ATTENTION AND HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE GENUINELY HAPPY TO SEE US GET THAT WIN.”
A second successful Jr. Dragster season followed in 1994, but Bogacki voluntarily opted out of racing the next year to work at the Kennedale track and save his money for a“ real” car. In January 1996 he found it, a‘ 73 Nova that a then-14-year-old Bogacki promptly wheeled to victory at Cedar Creek Dragway, again in his first time racing a full-sized ride.
“ I ran my first NHRA national event with that car later that year at 15,” he recalls.“ Now you’ ve got to be 18, but at that time in Texas if you could justify that you needed to drive at 15— you had to have a way to get to school or to work or what have you— you could get a license with restrictions, like you had to drive between 7 a. m. and 7 p. m. or something like that— and you couldn’ t tow anything.
“ Both of my parents worked and obviously there was transportation to and from school, but I think I justified it through the after-school job that I had, but it was just to go racing. That was really what it was for.”
In 1997, often running as many as five times a week, Bogacki enjoyed great success in the Nova while still a high-school student, putting 24 events in the win column that year while making nearly 900 passes down local eighth-mile strips.
“ I’ ll always look back on that season as probably the most memorable and most fun I’ ve ever had racing. I was 16; I’ d just got my license and all I wanted to do was race. Dad had helped me make my old Nova into a real reliable piece,” Bogacki says in his online bio, though he admits it wasn’ t going to win any car-show trophies.“ It was god-awful ugly; mostly factory brown, but we’ d torched out the door beams and put a bigger tire under it that didn’ t really fit, so we’ d cut out the fenders. So that was all bare metal. Then to top it off the wheels and tires for it were an old set off my Dad’ s Vega that he’ d painted blue. That really went well with brown and rust! I was somewhere and couldn’ t make the bump for Super Pro, so I ditched the front bumper. It never found its way back on the car. It was rough for sure, but it was the perfect learning tool.”
Recognizing his son’ s obvious talent, for the 1998 season Gary Bogacki turned over the helm of his’ 32 Bantam Altered, in which the young rising star earned his NHRA Super Comp license. Though still racing his Nova at local bracket races— and often winning— Bogacki took on the NHRA Division 4 Super Comp tour in his dad’ s Bantam, while also driving Stock Eliminator entries for several other car owners and eventually finishing fifth in Div. 4 Stock class points.
A 17-year-old Bogacki capped off an exciting’ 98 season with a huge Labor Day weekend outing at Texas Raceway, steering the Nova to back-to-back bracket wins on Saturday and Sunday in the No Electronics class before scoring a 32-car shootout win with the Altered on Monday that delivered a brand-new Cameron Race Cars dragster as his prize.“ That’ s how I got my first dragster,” he says.“ And things kind of snowballed from there.”
More bracket racing in the new dragster followed in 1999, highlighted by a $ 20,000 win at Montgomery, Alabama— Bogacki’ s first truly national victory— on the final day of the original Million Dollar Drag Race, pioneered by the late George Howard. He hasn’ t missed one since. To start the new millennium, though, Bogacki ventured into IHRA competition for the first time, eventually landing the inaugural IHRA Division 4 Quick Rod championship and finishing third in Hot Rod points.
Unfortunately, Bogacki was about to experience his most conflicted season ever in 2001, as he scored seven major wins on his way to securing a B & M Series Division 4 championship, but also tragically lost his dad to cancer that August. Devastated but resolute, at just 20 years old, Bogacki returned to racing just weeks after his father’ s death, participating in a Million Dollar race in Atlanta, where he not only won a $ 20,000 one-day purse, but a special-event shootout, too. He recognizes some people may wonder how he could compartmentalize the decision to compete, but explains it stems from the example set by his father.
“ That was a really special weekend,” Bogacki remembers.“ Mom and I went out there, obviously with a lot of confusion in our lives and very heavy hearts. Racing was what brought Dad and I together, and when I say we were best friends, we were. Sure, we had the normal father-son spats, but we were tight. To some, it probably seems strange that I got back to racing so quickly, but that’ s what he would have wanted. To see me succeed in this sport, I think that was very fulfilling for him.
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“ I watched a Sports Century episode on ESPN about the Petty family, and they focused on the death of Kyle’ s son Adam in a racing incident. They interviewed Richard Petty and asked him about getting the team back on the race track. He simply replied,’ That’ s who we are; that’ s what we do; the Pettys race.’ That, in essence, was how I felt about getting back on the track myself.”
Three series titles came Bogacki’ s way the following year, including both Quick Rod and Hot Rod in IHRA Division 4, along with the 2002 Southern Super Tens Bracket Series championship. Meanwhile, Bogacki was also attending Northwood University in north Texas, where he graduated in May 2003 with a Bachelors degree in Automotive Aftermarket Business Management. A move to upstate Alabama followed shortly after graduation, where he put that fresh degree to work at Huntsville Engine and Performance.
“ I was basically doing marketing, answering calls, sales, and did that for two years before I decided it wasn’ t really for me. But we’ ve still got a great relationship,” he quickly adds.“ Huntsville had always built my engines previous to that and they’ ve built my engines ever since. I just wanted to basically pursue the timed racing and I was doing some PR work, press releases and things like that. But racing had been really good, so I kind of took off on that road and scraped by; truly racing for a living for probably five years or so, just did bracket racing almost exclusively for 45 weekends a year, three or four nights a week. Just ran all over the country and had a lot of fun, met a lot of cool people, but if you put pencil to paper on that the math is very difficult to make work. It’ s kind of feast or famine.”
In truth, it appeared to be more feast than famine for Bogacki. Coming off an’ 04 run that delivered the southeastern Tenn Tuck championship, as well as weekend series titles from widely spaced Montgomery Raceway Park and Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio, he finished 2005 with a DragRaceResults. com Bracket Series Division 2 Sportsman crown and the Division 2 Super Pro and Sportsman titles the following year. Then, in addition to several big-money bracket race wins nationwide in 2007, Bogacki added DragRaceResults. com Bracket Series world championships in both Super Pro and Sportsman to his racing résumé.