With the advent of television, race fans have been introduced to the
fast talking, sponsor promoting, hat switching, back slapping driver of the
'90's. The first thing you do after a winning run is hop out of your car and
look for a TV camera. That is, unless you're Rick Santos. Then, the first thing
you do is check your race car, wait for the family to join you and then head
back to the pits and get ready for the next round. And lately, for Santos and
his family, there have been a lot of "next rounds."
Rick Santos is the reigning NHRA Federal-Mogul Dragster champion. He
won the title in dramatic fashion last year, beating his closest rival, Bobby
Taylor, in a head-to-head match on the final run of the very last points race
of the year. And, while that might have seemed like the perfect "photo op"
for most racers, Santos simply said "that's neat" and headed back to the pits.
Don't get me wrong, nobody is more competitive than Rick Santos. It's
just that it's not in his nature to go jumping up and down after a win, although
I do seem to remember that moment in Seattle last year when he recorded the
first 5.4 second run by an alcohol-powered dragster. If I remember correctly,
Rick climbed on top of the supercharger and gave us kind of a "Rocky" pose
when he found out that he had made history. But, just as quickly, he hopped
down and began to prepare the car for the final round. There was, after all,
a race to be won.
In 1995, Santos drove his family's familiar, and very popular, small-block
Chevrolet powered car to the first ever 5.60 clocking by an alcohol entry.
And, while that was a milestone that can never be taken away, it may have
been the beginning of the end for the "little engine that could." "We were
running so well with the car," Santos said, "that NHRA kept adding weight to
it in order to slow us down. It was kind of frustrating." But not nearly as
frustrating as it must have been for the other teams in the class. Imagine
getting beat by a little 388-cubic-inch Chevrolet. Things like that just
shouldn't happen.
To realize why that did happen you have to know the Santos family. Father,
George, had been running those small block Chevrolets for as long as anyone
could remember. "Dad has an old '32 Ford roadster, and when Chevrolet came
out with the small block V-8 in 1955, he took out the flathead and put in the
V-8. We've been running it ever since," Santos said. They ran that combination
in a class that was dominated by the bigger, more powerful Chrysler hemis and
they more than held their own.
At first, they campaigned mostly near their home, at tracks like Fremont,
Kingdon and Vacaville. They initially ran an A/Fuel car back in the late '60's
and then competed in the Pro Comp class when that category began in the early
'70's. All the while they were racing with their trademark small-block Chevy.
"We really didn't expect a lot and the Chrysler guys were always busting on
us asking us when we were going to take the Chevy out and put a hemi in,"
Santos continued. "but we were having a lot of fun and the car was more than
competitive, plus that's all we had ever raced."
After going through a series of drivers, Rick finally took the reins
in 1984. They continued to race mostly on "the coast" and, the more they raced,
the more competitive they got. In the early '90's, with the new supercharger
technology and the addition of a three-speed transmission, they were constantly
among the quickest cars in the class. Rick won his first national event at
the Winternationals in 1991 and he has gone on to add a dozen more since then,
including the season-opening Winternationals this year.
But with the success of the car came some problems. In an effort to
keep the class competitive, and to avoid having any one type of car dominate
the field, NHRA started changing the weight breaks on the car. After the
sanctioning body established a minimum weight of 1700 pounds for the class,
a weight that the Santos family thought would make the car non-competitive,
they made the toughest decision of their racing career. They decided to park
the car. After the 1995 season, it was apparent that the little Chevrolet would
race no more. "We could make enough power to compete," Santos said, "we just
couldn't see adding that much weight to make the minimum. So we decided to
quit." That was the last we would see of the Chevrolet, but it would not be
the last of Rick Santos.
Like so many stories in our sport, this one has a happy ending. Norm
Grimes, who had been the crew chief on the Santos car, had teamed up with
Jack O'Bannon, a businessman and former drag boat owner, and they were looking
for a driver. Santos met with O'Bannon and they agreed to go racing together
in 1996. The fact that the car didn't have a hemi in it didn't bother Santos
or his dad, at least they would be racing again. 1996 ended with a win at the
Winston Finals, a win that came at the expense of Keith Stark, who had earlier
established the low elapsed time in the class (5.38) in his fuel-injected entry.
The team was encouraged enough by their own performance that O'Bannon ordered
a new car for the 1997 season and the rest, as they say, is history. Santos
won the championship, ran that historic 5.4 pass and formed a friendship with
the owner and the team members that has carried over to this season. "We really
get along well with Jack, Norm, John Layfield, Alan Russell and the rest of
the team," said Santos. "It's a good deal for everyone."
Even though he's driving for someone else and even though he's not in
his trademark Chevrolet, Rick Santos continues to be one of the best drivers
in the sport. And, with the support of his wife, Kelly, and under the watchful
eyes of his sons, Kyle and Nicholas, he should be a serious contender to repeat
as Federal-Mogul champion. And while Rick is usually very shy and soft-spoken,
he did break into a big smile when I asked about the performance of the
nitro-burning injected cars in the Federal-Mogul class. "Maybe NHRA should
add some weight to them," he said grinning. Or maybe, just maybe, the Santos
family will build one of them. Yeah, a nice, fast, small-block Chevy powered
fuel car. Now that would be something to jump up and down about.
