Drag Illustrated Issue 148, September 2019 | Page 96

THE ALLIANCE
WITH BARTONE –
BOTH AS A DRIVER
AND AS TEAM
OWNER – HAS
PROVEN TO BE
ABSOLUTE GOLD.
STEVE BOGGS
T IS QUITE LIKELY that Steve
Boggs has stood behind more alco-
hol Funny Cars than any other hu-
man in drag racing – and he isn’t shy
about admitting it. Now 75 years
old and still active as heck in the
industry, Boggs is known far and
wide as one of the most successful
and relevant tuners in all of drag
racing. Most recently, he tuned Sean
Bellemeur to the 2018 NHRA Top
Alcohol Funny Car world champi-
onship, and at the time of print, the
team had won 10 national events
since partnering together full-time before the
NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville last year.
Boggs isn’t braggy about his extensive list of
accomplishments, but with a little coaxing, and
if the time and place are right – say, after win-
ning the 2019 Summit Racing Equipment NHRA
Nationals in Norwalk – the Ohio native might
hop in the time machine and share a tale or two.
“I was born in 1943, and for a while, I just went
and watched the stuff,” Boggs begins. “But it just
kept going from there. It was a hobby, and then
people started paying me to do it. That’s when it
got good.” A beat passes, and then he says with
an oversized grin,
“They’re still paying me.”
Boggs explains that in the early 1960s, he and
his brother, Ronnie, raced at National Trail Race-
way in Hebron, Ohio. The brothers kept at it and
found their groove, and in the late ‘70s they won
their first national event with Ronnie behind the
wheel of an AA/A that they ran in Pro Comp.
The Boggs Brothers became well known for their
altereds and dragsters, and although his brother
passed away in 2010 at the age of 63, Boggs made
a life of extending the legacy.
Over the years, Boggs has worked with the likes
of Chuck Cheeseman, Terry Mullins, Von Smith,
and of course, Tony Bartone and Bellemeur. He’s
contributed to the programs of Paul Gill, Bob
Newberry, Joe Penland, Mitch Myers, John Finke
and Brandon Lewis.
“But I’m old and can’t remember everybody
when you put me on the spot like this,” Boggs
laughs. “I could probably come up with another
25, if I had some time, but I’ve just been doing it
forever, and this is where I spend all my time. I’ve
had a lot of moments I’ve been proud to be part of.”
The season victories he’s earned as a tuner
have certainly stood out for Boggs, and the trio
of Nostalgia Top Fuel championships with Bar-
tone as the driver were remarkable. The paths
to those championships were never fluky; they
were dreamlike. In 2014, Boggs and the Bartone
Bros. team won every single event in which they
competed for a clean sweep of the NHRA Heri-
tage Series and the Top Fuel championship, and
they were nearly unstoppable with season titles
following in both 2015 and 2016.
The alliance with Bartone – both as a driver
and as team owner – has proven to be absolute
gold. In addition to championships with Bartone
behind the wheel, they earned the prestigious U.S.
Nationals title together twice (1993 and 1999).
Their partnership formed during a heated mo-
ment early in the 1992 season, but the ignition
spark came from neither Bartone nor Boggs.
“I believe we were in Gainesville, and I was
getting really aggravated with the guy I was help-
ing,” Boggs says. “I said, ‘The next time that guy
[does something], I am done. That’s it. I’m not
TONY BARTONE’S BOGGS-TUNED TOP ALCOHOL
FUNNY CAR HAS BEEN AN ABSOLUTE KILLER AT
BOGGS’ HOME TRACK, NORWALK, WITH THREE
WINS IN FOUR FINALS BETWEEN NATIONALS AND
DIVISIONALS OVER THE LAST THREE YEARS.
96 | D r a g
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
Issue 148