Drag Illustrated Issue 140, January 2019 | Page 32
Dirt
Carving His
Own Path
Austrailian Steve Easton lives
his racing dream in America
I
t was Steve Easton’s goal to race
successfully in America, a lofty measure for
the Australian mechanic and auto electri-
cian to reach when that became his focus
a little more than a decade ago.
But Easton risked his career and made the leap,
and nearly every day has been a dream come true
ever since. His 2018 season was his best yet, pilot-
ing both a Nostalgia Funny Car and a Pro Mod
car throughout the year and taking the Patriot
Pro Mod ’63 Corvette to the winner’s circle on a
number of occasions.
If Easton needed affirmation that he made
the right call to uproot his life and move across
the world – all in the name of drag racing – this
season was definitely it.
“I set a goal of working on a real race team and
occasionally getting to drive, and everything since
then has been like walking on a cloud,”
Easton says. “How do you have a bad day
when you’re doing what you dreamed
of? It’s a lot of hard work and you can’t
rest on your laurels at all in this industry,
but this is a dream come true for me.”
Easton joked he accidentally fell into
drag racing about 15 years ago, helping
a friend that owned a few cars. But from
working on the car to messing with the
chassis to driving it, it all made sense to
Easton and he was hooked immediately.
He made his first trip to the United
States in 2007, coming over twice a year
– and using all his vacation time in the
process – to crew on a Nostalgia Funny
Car, but Easton wanted more.
The biggest risk followed in 2011,
when he left a stable job to take a position with
John Force Racing, starting as a crewmember
on Courtney Force’s Funny Car. Moving into
more of a driver/tuner role in the Nostalgia
Funny Car and Pro Mod world, Easton now
splits his time between California, Indianapolis
and Painesville, Ohio, where the Patriot Pro
Mod team is located.
“This all made sense to me in my brain,” Easton
says. “Going to the Vegas NHRA race and the Hot
Rod Reunion for the first time, it just changed
my life. I really enjoy the challenge and tuning
the chassis, and driving is what motivated me to
keep going and make the sacrifice to move to the
other side of the world.”
Easton maintains a great relationship with
JFR and also worked with Top Fuel driver Mike
Salinas earlier in the year while waiting for the
Pro Mod engine to be finished. He raced the nos-
talgia car earlier this year, but found an impres-
sive groove in the roots-blown Pro Mod Corvette
over the summer.
The motor for the car was finished in June,
with the team doing its initial testing with it at
races early in the summer. Once everything was
honed in, Easton thrived, winning two of the
final three races of his season. The first came at
Dragway 42 in West Salem, Ohio, following that
with a victory at Quaker City Motorsports Park.
Back at Dragway 42 to end the season, Easton
ran a career-best 3.91 at 188 mph, marking an
ideal conclusion to his 2018 campaign.
“We’re big-time excited,” Easton offers. “It’s not
very often you’re walking into the next year three
steps ahead of where you thought you were going
to be. It’s a good situation to be in. It’s definitely
been a full year, that’s for sure.”
It’s led to big aspirations for 2019 on
the Patriot Pro Mod side, as well as the
rest of his multiple racing avenues. He
plans to race the Nostalgia Funny Car
a handful of times next season, racing
about 20 times in the Pro Mod Cor-
vette at a variety of local races, as well
as events in the PDRA and NMCA. But
Easton has made it his goal to make a
mark in the sport.
“Hopefully we can keep building,”
Easton says. “I want to carve out my own
path and keep pushing for success and
keep growing. I feel like I have some-
thing to prove coming from the other
side of the world, but we want to build
on where we left off.”
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I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
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Issue 140
By Josh Hachat