Drag Illustrated Issue 129, January / February 2018 | Page 111
THE
CHAMPIONS
ISSUE
pDrA p ro e Xtreme
Mike Recchia
I
t was a long climb to the top for
PDRA Pro Extreme’s newest champion,
but the wait was well worth it. After a
long and successful foray with the Chi-
cago Wise Guys, winning championships
there in 2000-2003, 2005, 2007 and
2009, Recchia was ready for a bigger stage.
Recchia had never won a PDRA race until this
season. “Took us a long time to go as fast as [the
PX competition],” he explains. “It always seemed
like we were behind them six months or a year
as far as performance. Recently we just started
catching up to them.”
Recchia captured his first win at the 2017 East
Coast Nationals at GALOT Motorsports Park. He
quickly followed that up with another final-round
appearance at The Legendary Darlington Drag-
way. Two races later, Recchia, again made his way
to the final round, this time in front of his home
crowd and on one of the biggest stages drag racing
has to offer: Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis.
“Heart and desire are really what transformed
our program,” continues the Illinois native. “It’s
a long road to go as fast as these guys. The win
at Indy is what really put us over the hump.
God-willing and my guardian angels next to me,
we pulled it off. My crew, of course, gave me a
great car. We had about 30 people come drive in
from three hours away to root us on. Of course
there was a big party afterwards. Doing that in
front of your family and friends – you can’t script
it any better than that.
“What really hurt us [this season] was during
round two of the second GALOT race, we blew the
engine up so bad that it broke about everything on
the car. We didn’t realize there was an electrical
problem with the car until the last race of the year.
So instead of testing on Thursday to get ready
for the final race, we spent the day wrenching.
We tried tuning around our problems, but the
car wasn’t consistently responding. We hung on
[to the championship] by the skin of our teeth.”
It’s a family affair for Recchia, whose son, Mi-
chael Recchia Jr., tunes the Agrow Fresh-backed
Camaro. Recchia Jr. has made such progress as
a tuner that he earned a spot in the 2017 Drag
Illustrated 30 Under 30.
The team has spent the off season taking the
car back down to the frame rails to ensure any
problems left from the engine detonation are
completely remedied before coming back to de-
fend their championship.
“It felt pretty good [to win this championship]
after about five years now of chasin