Drag Illustrated Issue 137, October 2018 | Page 45

Special Section
“WE’VE GOT SOME PRETTY GOOD KNOWLEDGE
HERE, WE JUST HAVE TO GET OUR STUFF TOGETH-
ER AND GET THIS CAR WORKED OUT. IT SHOULD
BE PRETTY FAST WHEN WE’RE DONE WITH IT.”
to figure some things out on
it, but so far, it’s been a pretty
cool deal.
We’ve got some pretty good
knowledge here, we just have
to get our stuff together and
get this car worked out. It
should be pretty fast when
we’re done with it.
Did you exceed your expecta-
tions by making it to the final
round at your first race?
We didn’t know what to
expect. We thought we had
enough power to run in the
top half of the field and go out
and make some noise. The car
ran pretty good, but we had
some struggles that weekend.
We beat Johnny Pluchino
second round and we had a
bye into the finals. In the final
round we had a needle and
seat stick in the carburetor
and I couldn’t get it to unstick.
It was flooding the motor over
after the burnout. I just staged
the car and hoped for the
best. In all reality, just being
Your family has been deeply
involved in drag racing for
decades. How special is it to
be able to all race together
now?
out for the first time with the
car, things went pretty well
for us. I can’t complain about
going to the final.
Who do you have working on
the car?
My dad is the brains behind
this thing. My brother-in-law,
Billy Wagner, is our crew chief.
He’s been around this stuff
forever. He was John Monte-
calvo’s crew chief in the ‘90s,
Larry Morgan’s crew chief in
the late ‘90s through early
2000s when he was with
Mopar, and he worked for Bob
Benza, too. My sister, Chrissy
Wagner, also comes with us.
We’re having a blast together.
We never raced together, by
brother-in-law, my dad and I.
It was always my dad and I,
then Billy was somewhere else
and we were racing against
him. This is a family deal and
we’re all doing it together
now. That’s the most impor-
tant thing: getting us all to-
gether and spending time at
the racetrack together.
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