Drag Illustrated Issue 151, December 2019 | Page 51

DIALED IN
Persistence Pays Off
How Tony Saraceni III rebounded from a flop to eventually
promote several races at “The Rock”  By Van Abernethy
N
ative New Yorker Tony Saraceni
III has enjoyed an extensive involve-
ment in drag racing, wearing a vast ar-
ray of hats that include crew member,
driver, racing apparel vendor, decal
maker, photographer and eventually a success-
ful race promoter. He’s traveled the globe while
visiting drag strips in three different countries,
scores of tracks in the United States, which
encompasses six of NHRA’s seven regional
divisions, yet he still enjoys talking about ex-
panding his horizons in racing.
For Saraceni, his love of all things racing began
December 2019
as a young boy, while watching his dad, Tony Sara-
ceni Jr. “My mom was pregnant with me when
Dad bought his first real race car, so I grew up
watching him race,” Saraceni recalls. His earliest
memory of seeing a drag strip was Connecticut
International Raceway at age 6, although even
earlier he was pretending to be a race car driver
at age 5 while he lay awake at night. “As a young
teenager, I knew I wanted to do something in
racing for a living, I just didn’t know what.”
Roughly two decades ago, he also fantasized
about moving down south closer to racing, and
he got the perfect opportunity in the most un-
conventional way after being named “Employee
of the Year” at his local Home Depot, a job he’d
had since graduating high school. His award just
happened to be a check for $500, along with the
opportunity to transfer anywhere in the country.
“Ten days later I was living in North Carolina...
and I had never even been to North Carolina!”
he laughs.
“A short time later I met up with a couple old
guys who wanted to get away from their wives
on the weekends and drink beer,” Saraceni con-
tinues. Since they owned multiple cars but had
no real desire to race them, they told Saraceni he
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