JOHN DEFLORIAN | PART 2
most difficult moments. As he went into the motorhome to suit up, his greatest supporter and his partner, Liann, grabbed him by the shoulders, looked directly into his eyes and said,“ Forget all the people in the pits. You’ ve got to FOCUS as hard as you can on this run”. John heard what he needed to hear. He towed to the started line and was the first car down the track in the session having no idea what might happen.
Brad Waddle led the field at 6.319 seconds. John did his burnout, backed up and picked a spot in the groove. John staged in front of an officially sold out crowd. He launched. The car got through every gear. The scoreboards showed 6.269 at 223.65 mph. It was positively electric and total elation among the crew and those millions of friends. John stayed on top of the field, leading the pack by a monstrous five hundredths of a second.
However, that was only one half of the battle. The NHRA often runs the first round of the JHG MMPS series eliminations on Saturday, and E1 was scheduled for later that same day in front of that same sold-out St. Louis crowd. John and Self decided to leave the car alone and towed to the starting line. As the low qualifier, John had choice of when he wanted to run in the opening round. He chose last in order to put the pressure on Pluchino. Strapped in the car underneath the tower at WWTR, there were so many people around John’ s car and in the water box area, he could see nothing but the tops of the scoreboards. John knew which lane Pluchino was in. John entered a state of near panic as the two staged. He heard them going down the track as he stared intently at the top of Pluchino’ s scoreboard. The win light never came on. Vince Nobile defeated Pluchino and, in just six seconds, John DeFlorian won an NHRA World Championship in Mountain Motor Pro Stock. The gang of humans surrounding the Total Seal Camaro erupted in cheers and each of them was reaching in the car to slap John on the back. Meanwhile, John was screaming in joy with the feeling known only by the winners of close point championships. The winners never scream,“ I’ m World Champion!”. They yell,“ It’ s finally OVER!”. Like magic, the crushing pressure is lifted.
It took“ Lump” Self to lean into the cockpit after a few minutes and loudly direct John to“ Breathe and FOCUS”. The World Championship might have been secured but they still needed to win the event. Paired with Dennis Firkus,( who cut an 0.011 RT), DeFlorian drove around his opponent to win his first round match up and officially secure the title. As he made the turn off at the end of the track screaming with joy and relief inside his Camaro, the NHRA FOXTV crew awaited him with the winner’ s hat, champion’ s medallion, a huge Gold“ Wally” World Championship Trophy and a giant check for $ 25,000. On live stream and the live TV show with over
DEFLORIAN SHAKES DOWN NEW CARS FOR HAAS CUSTOMERS ON A REGULAR BASIS IN PRIVATE TEST SESSIONS, BUT SOMETIMES IN COMPETITION AS WELL, AS HE DID HERE FOR NHRA PRO STOCK’ S MATT HARTFORD.
one million people watching, John DeFlorian delivered a perfect John DeFlorian acceptance speech; he simply could not believe what had just happened to his life especially since it was happened at that track and in that town. With tears welling up, it was with almost boyish awe John quickly reflected on the minute, the day, the life which led to him standing on a podium, surrounding by fireworks, talking into a television camera.
After more interviews, World Champion winners’ circle photos with all those friends and fans and a raucous party lasting into Saturday night, John and the team got down to the business of preparing the car for Sunday. John recounted he couldn’ t sleep Saturday night, either, but for completely different reasons. He couldn’ t get his heart rate low enough to sleep.
The objective on Sunday was to turn a $ 25,000 windfall into a $ 35,000 payday and, as if to prove his abilities to any nonbelievers, he blasted through the field again and beat Vince Nobile in the final round. In previously unknown trivia, John now has the most wins in a season( 4), the most wins in the JHG MMPS series( 9) and the most final round appearances in NHRA MMPS history( 14). Moreover, John DeFlorian is the first World Championship-winning Pro Stock driver in any association to have built his own race car since his boss, Jerry Haas, won the AHRA World title in his homebuilt Monza in 1981.
After another“ Wally”, another round of interviews and winners’ circle photos, the fans and friends each gave him one last hug and said their goodbyes. Finally he and the crew began the tearing down and the loading up of everything. It was a weekend previously unimaginable to everybody on the team. After the crowds had gone and knowing everything he won would simply pay off debts, John was asked what it was like to have a $ 35,000 weekend and a $ 65,000 season yet still lose money. His response was the only quote from John DeFlorian you’ ll see in this story.“ It just doesn’ t hurt as bad as it usually does”. The crew headed out and Liann was recruited to drive another local racer’ s truck to a shop. At 8:30 PM Sunday night, the newly crowned National Event and World Champion wheeled his motor home and trailer out the gate for the thirty-minute drive home … alone. Well, there were also the four dogs.
He got home at 9 PM, unloaded the car alone and, at 10:30 PM, grabbed a quick sandwich in his kitchen and went to bed. The alarm went off at 6:15 AM and, at 7:00 AM, John walked into Jerry Haas Race Cars to begin another day at work.
It’ s easy to imagine the life of a traveling professional drag racer, flying from city to city to jump into an awaiting race car and thunder down the track in front of massive crowds, signing autographs, doing interviews and posing for photos. The fact of the matter is only about one dozen drag racing drivers receive a paycheck for actually showing up and wheeling the car. The rest are all either team owners who drive their own machines or drivers who have paid huge sums to drive another owner’ s racer. Of course the majority of those owners are incredibly wealthy, collect large payments from sponsors or take the cash of paying drivers … or all three.
John DeFlorian, on the other hand, is simply making happen what he can make happen. It’ s an amazingly difficult task which requires every aspect of one’ s humanity, humility and determination. However, for John DeFlorian, it’ s all his real life. DI
160 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated. com Issue 198