of racing was probably hanging out at Ba-
kersfield or Sacramento Raceway when our dad was running
the Nostalgia series,” says 27-year-old Jasmine Salinas, the
eldest daughter of Top Fuel driver Mike Salinas. ¶ “I just
remember hearing all these loud cars. We would be doing
our homework in the bed of the truck, and it would suddenly
take off to go get him at the top end,” she continues, laughing
at the memory. “Racing was just something our dad was
doing, and it was a place for us to hang out on the weekends.
We would have barbecues and get to be with all the people.
It felt like one big family, and I loved it.” ¶ Jianna, five years
her sister’s junior, has a slightly different first memory of
racing. “I remember the first time Michael brought home
his dragster,” says the 21-year-old, referring to her father by
Y FIRST MEMORY
his formal first name. “He was all excited and saying, ‘Look, look what we
got!’ But I remember thinking, ‘What is that thing? It doesn’t look like a
car.’ I also remember Monica being really mad.”
The girls lock eyes and a burst of brief laughter erupts. It isn’t uncomfort-
able, their laughter, nor is it sarcastic or bitter. Their relaxed interaction is
becoming a theme during a roundtable interview between nitro qualifying
sessions at the NHRA Arizona Nationals. In time with one another, they
both glance at their mother, Monica, who is seated at the table and dividing
her attention between a mound of paperwork and the interrogation of two
of her four daughters. Mom raises her eyebrows and only grins.
When the exchange of smiles subside, Jianna continues. “The car looked
funny, and they had put everything together themselves, so it was really
scrappy,” she says. “But I always like to look back on that because that’s
where it started. That’s where the good memories of racing began, with a
group of people coming together, putting together a car, and saying, ‘We
have no idea what we’re doing, but let’s go do it anyway. Let’s go racing.’”
Jasmine nods and chimes in, “You take the personalities and everything
out of racing, and that’s what it used to be. That’s what attracted us – we
never wanted to race for attention. We just fell in love with this as a place
where you can go and have fun. That’s what we want to get back to.”
While a lot of families in racing travel together in support of one fam-
ily member as a driver, the Salinas family has entered the NHRA fray
with Mike leading the charge as a full-time racer in Top Fuel, Jasmine
translating her passion for racing into Top Alcohol Dragster competition
before branching into Top Fuel, and Jianna heading right into the upper
echelons aboard a Pro Stock Motorcycle with the guidance of Karen and
Gary Stoffer. Both girls got their first taste of racing in the Summit Racing
NHRA Jr. Drag Racing League.
Although Mike was fervent in his appreciation of racing, he never pushed
his daughters towards racing as a hobby or career. “I think it was Bakers-
Dr ag Illustr ated
field when he said, ‘Hey, come look at this,’” recalls Jasmine. “He brought
us to the fence while they were running little Jr. dragsters and was like,
‘Do you guys want to try that out?’ I know there are a lot of people whose
parents were super-big into forcing them into it, and I really appreciate
that he just asked. We were like, ‘Sure, we’ll try it.’”
Jasmine was 15 and Jianna was 10 when they first started racing Juniors.
They competed intermittently for approximately three years and kept “close
to home,” a relative term since both Bakersfield and Sacramento Raceway
were still quite a drive from where the family lives in San Jose, California.
Between the distance to races and respective school and sports activities,
there were large gaps of several months at a time in which the girls didn’t
strap into their race cars at all.
The sisters agree that Jr. drag racing was never a destination for them, but
more of a way to get their feet wet and experience, first hand, what had so
captured their father’s interest. Their own passion for racing developed later.
‘I
JOURNEY TO TWO WHEELS
’LL BE HONEST; I REALLY WASN’T THAT INTERESTED
in Pro Stock Motorcycle until a couple of years ago,” Jianna be-
gins tentatively before tumbling into characteristically animated
dialogue. “I just didn’t really understand what they were. But one
day I was walking back to our pit, and I saw Angelle [Sampey].
She was getting pushed through the pits on the bike, and I just remember
thinking, ‘She’s my size! And she looks so cool!’ There aren’t many sports
where someone my size is a perfect fit. I played volleyball for a lot of years,
and I played all the way into my freshman year of college, but nobody wants
a 5’ 1” player on their team. I started watching the bikes, and I thought, ‘If
they can do that, I can, too.’
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