PAUL LEE
This is crazy.” I go, “Well, you haven’t seen
anything yet.”
We took him out on the starting line for
the first round of eliminations and the first
run, he just was totally blown away. He
never knew that anything like this on the
planet existed. He thought it was incredible.
But then he turns to me and goes, “We’re
going to have to rethink this driving thing.
We’re going to have to do some more planning
before this.” He was completely blown
away by it. He had never seen anything like
that in his life.
Seeing the Funny Cars run just
brought up a new list of concerns, I’m
sure. How did you get him convinced it
was OK for you to race?
He had a couple concerns, obviously, after
seeing the cars in person. One of them,
after looking at Del’s car, is magnetos, because
I had a pacemaker defibrillator in my
chest. He goes, “These things could interfere
with that,” the two 44-amp magnetos.
He asked me if I could get in the car with
it running, idling, so he could measure the
effects on my defibrillator.
Del agreed to let me sit in the car and we
warmed it up. The doctors are there, the
cardiologist and the defibrillator doctor
were there monitoring my defibrillator
remotely on a laptop to see if there was any interference
of the magnetos.
We started it up, and they were monitoring my
defibrillator with the laptop. We did a regular
warmup with the car. It was running for about
two minutes. We shut it off and it was fine with
no interference whatsoever. That was the first
test to pass.
Now the next thing he says, “Can we get you in
a car and actually make a run?” They would hook
me up to a heart monitor. Connie (Kalitta) let
me drive J.R. Todd’s DHL car at the Phoenix test
session [in early 2019], and Kenny’s Components
in North Carolina built me a carbon fiber chest
protector that covered up my defibrillator. I hadn’t
driven in a year and a half, so I got in the car and
made the first planned run, 330 feet. That went
well. Of course, I was anxious about it because I
didn’t know how my heart was going to hold up.
Well, my heart rate went up to about 145, 150 according
to the monitor, but everything went well.
I pulled the ‘chutes just to pull them, just to see
how it felt on my chest. It all checked out fine, so
the next run we went to half-track, and did really
well. Everything felt fine, so they said, “OK, well,
this last run, just go as far as it feels good.” On
the third run, I went the fastest time I ever went.
I went 3.90 flat at over 320 mph and pulled the
‘chutes. Everything felt good.
And they cleared me. When you have a heart
attack, your cardiologist has to sign you off for
your license, not necessarily NHRA. It’s the cardiologist.
It’s up to him. So now I have permission
to go back racing again.
“IT FELT GREAT.
I NEVER THOUGHT
THAT I’D BE BACK
RACING AGAIN, AND
IT JUST FELT LIKE
WOW, IT’S LIKE I
CAN ACTUALLY DO
THIS AGAIN. ALL THE
HARD WORK PAID
OFF. THEN IT WAS
LIKE, OK, NOW I’VE
GOT TO PUT A TEAM
TOGETHER.”
It had it be just a surreal moment for you.
So, how do you go from that to putting the
pieces back together to have a team and go
racing again?
It felt great. I never thought that I’d be back
racing again, and it just felt like wow, it’s like I
can actually do this again. All the hard work paid
off. Then it was like, OK, now I’ve got to put a
team together.
At that point, Jim Oberhofer, who is a good
friend of mine, he left Kalitta Motorsports, so
I got him together. I said, “Jim O, let’s
put together a team and let’s go race.” We
went to Don Schumacher [Racing] and we
talked to Don, and Don said, “You know
what? Whatever you guys need, I’ll take
care of it. I’ll sell you guys anything you
need.” I ended up buying everything I own
from Don Schumacher Racing, and I even
rent space in his shop. I bought the truck,
the trailer, the cars, three bodies, all the
parts and pieces, and Don was extremely
great to me. If it wasn’t for Don, I wouldn’t
have been able to come back like I did
this strong.
It’s truly fascinating to hear this. Now
that you’re back, it’s like you’ve got a
smile on your face the whole time. How
incredible does all of this feel?
I have a smile on my face every time I
wake up in the morning, to be honest with
you, and I’m blessed to even be granted
another day on this earth as I make the best
of it. The racing is just icing on the cake.
When I was not racing that whole time, I
never really got depressed. I just was always
motivated to get back. But the one thing
that was sad about it was I never got to see
my friends because I didn’t go to a lot of
the races, so I never saw anybody.
Now that I’m racing and back out there,
what I love most about racing, yes, I love driving
a 330-mph car, which is an awesome experience
in itself, but the best part about drag racing, and
this basically is another philosophy that I’ve got
with my own team, is this is my friends and family
race team. There’s no one that’s not welcome in
my pit that’s not a friend or family.
At the same time, you’re as competitive as
anyone out there. This isn’t just a way to go
out there and pass the time, is it?
I don’t do it halfway. We go to race. We go to
win. We go to race. We go to make four qualifying
runs. We go to make every run. We’re there to
race. We’re serious. We’re having fun, but we’re
also there to win. We’re not there just to show up
and qualify. We’re there to go rounds.
After all you’ve been through and coupled
with the improvements this team has
made, what would that first Funny Car win
mean to you?
I tell you, it’d mean a lot. That’s what we’re
striving for. It’ll be a great feeling when hopefully
I get to hold that Wally because that’s what
it’s all about. It’s all about the competitiveness
and the good feeling of a great job well done by
a team. There’s nothing I’d like better than to
share a Wally with all my friends and family and
teammates in the winner’s circle.
That’s our goal. When you see us at the racetrack,
that’s exactly what’s on our mind. You’ll
never have to know. People say, “What’s on your
mind?” What’s on our mind is winning a race. DI
68 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated.com Issue 157