Limpert Tech on iHeartRadio: Paul Lee, NHRA Drag Racer, McLeod Racing

For over 40 years, McLeod Racing owner Paul Lee’s passion has been racing since his first trip down the quarter mile at age 17. Growing up in New Jersey, Paul was surrounded by great race tracks such as Englishtown and Atco Dragways.

Paul joins Rick this week!

“It was a terrific learning experience for a driver racing as much as we did at nearly every track in the Northeast.” Paul’s racing goals have always been the same: to someday win an NHRA Funny Car World Championship. Paul realized long ago that if he were going reach his racing goals, he would need the proper education and business skills to both become successful in business and to betterunderstand big corporations’ marketing goals and objectives. “Today, a successful professional driver needs to know how to market and promote a sponsor’s products or services and to show them how they will receive a measurable and tangible return on investment.”

With the importance of education as a priority, Paul graduated Summa Cum Laude (highest honors) from the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, has two post-graduate degrees in business and law (MBA & JD) from Rutgers University, and is a member of the New Jersey Bar Association. His background in finance and management gives him great skills to run McLeod Racing but his passion for the industry is what gives him his drive. “Owning McLeod Racing and building a team of people here that designs and builds the finest quality high performance clutch and driveline products in the automotive aftermarket are a dream come true for me. I bought my first McLeod clutch while I was in high school, and now I am the President. How cool is that!” “When you buy from McLeod Racing you can rest assured that we would not sell you any part that I wouldn’t use in one of my own cars. Thank you, our loyal customers, for your continued support!

Steve Torrence, NHRA Drag Racer at SEMA

Rick talks with NHRA drag racer, Steve Torrence at the massive SEMA Show in Las Vegas.

Steve and his dad race for the same team and he’s still in contention  for the NHRA title with one race remaining.

The most dominant Top Fuel Driver of this decade!

Steve Torrence’s rise to the pinnacle of drag racing success is one of the great Horatio Alger moments in American motorsports.

Diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma as a teenager, he underwent months of radiation and chemotherapy treatment before emerging cancer free and ready to make the most of his second chance. The experience, which he considers “the biggest race I’ve ever won,” completely changed his perspective, spawning the laser focus that fueled his later success both on and off the track.

After losing the 2017 NHRA Top Fuel championship on the final day of the season, an outcome likely sealed weeks earlier when his primary race car was destroyed in a 300-mph crash at the Texas Motorplex outside Dallas, he left nothing to chance the following season when he became the first and only driver in any racing discipline to sweep all the events comprising NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship.

Nevertheless, that proved to be only the beginning for the talented Texan, who remains the only driver ever to have won NHRA series championships in both the Fuel and Alcohol categories. Thirteen years before he hoisted that first Top Fuel Champion’s trophy, he won the Lucas Oil Top Alcohol dragster title by reaching the final round in 11 of 13 starts while posting a 37-4 elimination record.

He repeated as Top Fuel Champion in 2019, won yet again in a 2020 season abbreviated by the COVID-19 pandemic and made it four straight in 2021.

In winning 11 of 20 races during that 2021 campaign, the one-time black belt in taekwondo became just the fourth driver in NHRA pro racing history to secure as many as four consecutive championships, joining Don Prudhomme, Kenny Bernstein, John Force, Lee Shepherd, Bob Glidden and fellow Top Fuel driver Tony Schumacher.

Rick talks to Steve about all that, new technology and more!