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are some that I have raced with for many, many years on other race teams. Some that I tried to bring with me to Bartone, some that I’ ve known since we were kids, some that we have just kind of corralled into our family along the way. But the point is that every single person on this team, whether it’ s someone that I’ ve been with for 20-plus years or two, they are a true diehard racer. They are racers to every end of the Earth, and if Boggs says,“ Hey, we need to stay here until four in the morning,” we stay there until four in the morning. It doesn’ t matter; no questions are asked. We just corral together and do it, and that is such a wonderful feeling. It’ s so much fun to race that way.
We do a lot of things away from the racetrack together, and we make a point of that. We’ ll fly into races a day earlier or stay a day late to go to amusement parks, or go fishing, or do something together. We all consider each other family. We have a text group that we text every single day to everybody.
What’ s it like working with the legendary tuner Steve Boggs and Tony Bartone, who is a character himself? Bellemeur: The biggest thing for me personally, being a fan of the sport and being a fan of alcohol Funny Cars, was kind of grounding myself to the fact that I actually get to work alongside these two legends of our sport. I had to snap out of being starstruck a little bit.
I’ ve always been on the aggressive side as a driver. One of my favorite things about an alcohol Funny Car is the fact that you can get away with a lot in that driver’ s seat. There is no finesse to driving a Funny Car. I love the fact that it is a blue collar, roll up your sleeves and drive the car. Steve Boggs is very much the same way when it comes to tuning.
With Steve, he likes to be challenged, and so for him to have a driver that is up for the challenge, that’ s important to me. I try to mentally put myself in that position for him to be available to him that way. If he thinks a track is in a position to absolutely have the kitchen sink thrown at it, I wanna be ready for that. If he needs that driver to tiptoe down a racetrack because it’ s 140 degrees, I wanna be that driver
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for him. My team deserves that because they’ re gonna give me the best, and I want to be able to have that feedback for him and my team so that way we can be successful, if not this run, the next run. There’ s a lot of communication that goes into that. It’ s imperative that a driver and a tuner can communicate with each other.
Let me tell you something – that onboard computer doesn’ t feel going down the track. So, knowing what Steve has in his back pocket for a certain run is important for him and me to be able to communicate both prior to and after each run.
We joke around a lot together; we respect one another. That’ s a word that I think is understated a lot in the racing industry: respect. Every single one of my teammates, whether it’ s from the highest of Tony Bartone to the newest team member, we respect each other not only as human beings but as teammates, and that works really, really well.
Following that thought, Steve, what is it like working with Sean and Tony? Boggs: It’ s a real piece of cake. They make your job easy. All the guys make it a piece of cake. We all get along good, and if we’ re having a problem, we’ ll kind of laugh and
ALONG WITH BELLEMEUR, BOGGS, AND BARTONE, THE TEAM IS COMPRISED OF INDUSTRY VETERANS HAND-PICKED TO WORK TOGETHER TOWARDS THE TEAM’ S COMMON GOAL: WIN EVERYTHING POSSIBLE.
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say,“ Come on, guys, get our head out of our ass here and get to work.”
Sean will come back sometimes and say,“ Man, that was a crap job driving,” and I’ ll come back once in a while and say,“ Man, that was a crap job tuning.” But you know what? It takes a whole season to win a championship, not one or two runs.
We have confidence in each other, and there isn’ t any bickering. When that car is not going down the track, I don’ t have one guy come in [ the trailer ] – including the owner – and
“ We have a saying here, and that is, if we win everything, then nobody else can win anything. If we win everything, they’ re going to hand us a big trophy at the end of the year.”
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say,“ So I think you should do this or I think you should do that.” They stay away from me. They know I’ ll fix it. And then I don’ t get too involved in what their jobs are.
I have things that I want done certain ways, like with the clutch and the transmission and how they put stuff together. I may give them suggestions that this is better I think than that way. But they’ re all experienced, and I just name the job, and they go do it. Then I explain to them how I want the clutch. I do the fuel system. I do the electronics. Sean does the driving.
Sean is humble as there is. I mean, there’ s no doubt. I’ ve seen them all- the Pat Austins, Frank Manzos, Bob Newberrys, and you can name another 10, but there’ s no doubt the best driver, personally, I’ ve ever been around in racing is Sean.
When Tony had to get out of the car, he said,“ Who are we gonna get to drive this car?” I said,“ You don’ t worry about it. I know somebody.” Well, I’ d watch Sean – see, I watch everybody race. I watch all the cars. I watch your drivers. I watch your crews. So, I watched Sean. When he went to work for us, he had been to seven national event finals and never won one, but he had the killer instinct. So, one day I told him after I watched Sean drive one of
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