The Business Of Drag Racing – It’s not just back home in the pit area or shop. Success in drag racing starts behind closed doors with handshakes, signed contracts and mutual understanding.
The truth is, the best racers in the world don’t get where they are by talent alone. Turning driving talent into real circuit wins requires passionate marketing men and women, successful public relations and relationships with the right people and businesses.
The Business Of Drag Racing
A longtime racer and avid businessman, he owns his own Paul Lee Racing operation with three companies under the Wharton Automotive Group, including McLeod Racing, FDI Performance and Silver Sport Transmissions.
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“I’m passionate about this game,” said an optimistic Lee. “I loved it as a little kid, and I’m still that little kid almost 50 years later. It didn’t happen overnight. I’ve been working for this since I was 13. I’m proud of the lifelong commitment I’ve made to do what we do, but I believe even more. , and that’s what we’re doing right now.
Lee was recently paired with industry executive Steven Cole and savvy marketing person, Top Fuel driver and team owner Krista Baldwin added to the Paul Lee Racing team. Baldwin, who not only drives the McLeod-sponsored dragster, is also the creative director of Wharton Automotive Group, helping to take the race team from a one-car operation to a promising megateam. Lee believes marketing a pair of cars from each of the primary nitro categories in the NHRA Camping World Track Racing Series is the next step in the team’s progress.
“What I see is when you’re marketing drag racing, you have the first two classes. So when you’re working with a marketing partner now, you have a two-for-one,” Lee said. “Having a fun car and dragster is the ultimate marketing tool in the sport of drag racing. .”
Cole has been involved in professional motorsports for over 25 years, including NHRA, NASCAR and IndyCar. For the past 10 years, John has worked exclusively in track racing with high profile race teams such as Force Racing, Stringer Performance and IHRA Track.
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Lee, who met Cole, one of the most popular drivers in NHRA history, through a mutual friend, and hopes the pair will help take Paul Lee Racing to another level on the track.
“We have some big changes in terms of the business side of our team. It’s led by working with Steve, who has been a long-time friend of mine for years,” Lee said. “We were actually introduced by Tom ‘The Mongoose’ McEwen years ago. He was a mentor to both of us. He always said, ‘You have to work together,’ and now here we are finally working together. The only sad thing is that Mongoose wasn’t here to see it all come together. ” To serve his clients, Modern Racing founder Justin Elks draws on years of IHRA and NHRA Pro Stock experience. “Whether you buy a $100 part from us and need help setting it up, or spend $100,000 to build a car with us, after-sales support is our big deal.”
From consultations and chassis design to wiring and fabrication, Justin Elks and his team at ‘Race City USA’ provide professionalism and deep industry knowledge to help customers compete and win.
Anyone setting up shop in the place nicknamed “Race City USA” has to have something of an edge over all the other race shops located in Mooresville, North Carolina. For Modern Racing’s Justin Elks, that edge is a deep commitment to customer service.
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“Whether you buy a $100 part from us and need help setting it up, or spend $100,000 building a car with us, our after-sales support is something we really pride ourselves on,” explained Elks.
Many factors contribute to Modern Racing’s ability to deliver above and beyond customer service. The Elks employed a staff of master craftsmen who specialized in tuning, wiring, fabrication and other skills. Also, Elkes brings years of experience in the business as a tuner, consultant and team leader for several successful drag racing teams.
That perspective pays big dividends for Modern Racing’s customers. Elite Motorsports, which campaigned the 2019 NHRA Pro Stock Championship-winning car with driver Erica Enders, for example, not only hired Modern Racing for fab work and wiring on several of its race cars, but also tapped Elks as the team’s crew chief. The twin-turbo, NHRA-legal Pro Mod car is driven by Enders.
“I’ve known Justin for quite some time and had the privilege of not only working with him but racing with him,” Enders said. “In addition to being a great tuner—he called the shots on our 261-mile world record run—he knows his way around a race car and has the ability to manage a team and his staff.”
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For Enders, the crew at Modern Racing treats every job as if they were working on their own race car; They take pride in their work. “Justin has brought together an incredible group of people,” he said. “They are reliable, fair, honest, funny, and their character is very high in our business. It is a rare find and something that cannot be bought.
Elks’ acting career has its roots in his teenage years, when his stepfather would take him to bracket races in his home state of Florida. He studied mechanical engineering and automotive technology at Florida Atlantic University, and before finishing school, worked with Keith Wilson at Wilson Manifolds in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Elkes was a quick study, and he worked his way into a partnership running the business with Wilson. He also served as co-crew chief of the company’s in-house IHRA Pro Stock car that won three championship races in the American Drag Racing League (ADRL) Extreme Pro Stock series.
Elkes would take his crew-leadership skills to reigning NHRA Pro Stock champions Greg Anderson and Jason Line, and was later hired by the Al-Anabi Race Team in its ADRL Pro Extreme car. While Elkes was there, the car ran 3.50 seconds to finish first in its class and won two championships. Elkes returned to NHRA racing when a new Pro Stock team, Gray Motorsports, hired him to help with tuning. That position would turn into a role as crew chief for the three-car team, at which point Elks relocated to Mooresville and developed connections with tuning firms MoTeC and Racepak. Those relationships laid the groundwork for the Elks to strike out on their own and create the modern race.
Modern racing was originally done by Justin Elks, alone. “I hired my first employee and started doing data systems and wiring harnesses,” he said. “From there, it grew into a fabrication company. I hired a full-time fabricator.
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Originally, Elkes ran Modern Racing himself, bringing his tuning, electronics and data acquisition skills to a number of clients. But as his fledgling business grew, he realized the need to expand and entered the brick-and-mortar world.
“I hired my first employee and started doing data systems and wiring harnesses,” he said. “From there, it grew into a fabrication company. The next thing I knew, there was so much fabrication work stacked up that I hired a full-time producer. With his team-leader background, he had insight into how cars should be set up or modified. This pushed him to expand his race shop.
Modern Racing is now located in a separate, 13,000-square-foot building in Mooresville’s Lakeside Business Park. “We have a total of 10 people,” Elks said, including a secretary, a full-time parts department employee, four full-time people in the fabrication shop and a full-time manager of the race-team side of the business. Elkes is proud to still have the first employee he ever hired.
The building is divided into sections, each dedicated to one of the company’s specialties. The fabrication area is the largest at 5,000 square feet, while the wiring shop and components department share an additional 5,000. The dyno room is 2,000 square feet and the showroom is 1,000 square feet.
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Each department in Modern Racing has its own department head and staff. Each is an expert in their particular craft, and his team members never stray from their respective trades. Wiring technicians do not fabricate, and fabrication technicians do not wire parts.
“When a project comes in, we can really send it through different departments and team it up with an expert in each department,” Elks explained. Following this business model, they have mastered what they do.
Justin Elks’ firm boasts an impressive list of clients, including Pro Stock standout Jake Coughlin Jr. Respect for Elkes extends to legends such as engine builder Pat Moosey, who described modern racing as “service, knowledge, the.