TheHOTTEST2018
GOING THE DISTANCE
Be it the GALOT Motorsports Park eighth mile or the Summit Motorsports Park quarter mile, the Salemi gang has proven they have what it takes to get to the finish line first. with non-racing friends.
“ We can turn off work, but we don’ t ever turn off racing,” Jon says in between bites of his veggie quesadilla.“ We just had our big Christmas party a couple weeks ago, probably 50 or 60 people at the house. At the height of the party, we stopped everything and made everybody sit around the TV and watch racing videos. This year we played the new Sidetracked year-end episode, so all of our friends and family got to see that before it was released publicly. We played the NHRA. com interview with Lewis Bloom. There’ s a fair contingent of old folk within the family that doesn’ t have Facebook or they don’ t go on the internet to look at this stuff, so they got to see what we did last season.
“ To me, those are some of the most important parts of the year, where you can go back and see all this hard work and drive and passion and hopefully shared it with these people for five minutes of this seven-hour, double-throwdown party.”
Getting the family to take a few minutes to watching racing videos isn’ t necessarily a challenge at a Salemi family gathering, though, as both sides of the family have deep ties to the sport. Melanie’ s father, Roger Simmons, raced, as did her grandfather and grandmother, who were early adopters of the straight-line sport in the‘ 50s. Jim, the oldest of five brothers, led his siblings into the sport, first racing at Lancaster Dragway on Friday nights, almost always with an elementary-aged Jon and their mother watching in the grandstands. After years of involvement, drag racing lingo isn’ t only understood by the Salemi tribe, it’ s their native language.
“ We’ ll be at a family function and Jim and I will be over in the corner talking about tune-ups,” Jon says.“ At the other side of it, our immediate family, they’ re all racers, so we’ ll be talking about Lucas and Angelo’ s bracket race on the snowmobiles at Lancaster on Friday night – who took the stripe, who went double-oh and who didn’ t. Then we’ ll be talking about,‘ Man, it rattled through 1.2 and( John) Strickland drove by us in the second round and we lost. Or‘ Man, it never set the wheels down in second gear. Did you see that?’ At the end of the day, we’ re completely consumed and ate up by racing.”
Melanie and Jon do get a brief reprieve from racing when they take part in the afterschool activities of their two children from Jon’ s previous marriage. Evan, 15, is an avid hockey player, while Akyra, 12, is into competitive dance. Both kids have made passes in Jr. Dragsters, and Evan attends around half of the team’ s races, incorporating them into his school schedule when it’ s possible. He helps in the shop and at the track, usually spending a couple hours working on homework in the track media center after racing is over for the day.
On the off chance there isn’ t a race, hockey game or dance competition, the couple will spend time catching up with local friends, but as Melanie admits, racing inevitably makes its way into those gatherings too.
“ In the summer, we really enjoy going over to
March 2018 DragIllustrated. com | Drag Illustrated | 73