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Diamonds are Forever for Jeff Arend
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How a shining new sponsor has revitalized this native Canadian's Funny Car racing career
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Story and photos by Bill Walters |
When Jeff Arend showed up at the spring NHRA event in Las Vegas earlier this season with his brand new sponsor, Casavant Mining and Kimberlite Exploration, most people had to do a double take when they saw his Corvette-bodied flopper roll to the starting line. Arend, a former NHRA Funny Car national event winner, hadn't driven a nitro car in competition in over three years and many new drag racing fans had never heard of him. It wasn't much of a surprise for Arend, who 14 days before the Las Vegas race didn't have anything even close to resembling a race team. Nothing, no car, no transporter, no crew chief, no crew members, no sponsor, and not even a current valid Funny Car driving license.
All of that was quickly about to change, but to truly understand the significance of the big day that put Jeff Arend's racing career back on track, it's important to understand the journey the 41-year-old racer has embarked on since the first time he traveled down a quarter-mile dragstrip. Robert Jeffrey Arend was born on November 27, 1962 in Toronto , Ontario Canada . His father, who passed away in 1989, was a gemologist, a jeweler and also a pilot. Arend's mother is a Political Science professor at York University . He and his younger brother Richard, who is currently a professor in Business at the University of Nevada , Las Vegas , enjoyed a happy childhood growing up in the Toronto area. The Canadian's first exposure to racing was during high school when he visited a local speed shop owned by a friend's brother-in-law. They were putting together a race car in the garage and Arend took an interest and began to get involved. When Jeff turned 16 he entered a high school challenge race at Cayuga Dragway Park with over 150 contestants. In his very first trip to a dragstrip Arend made it all the way to the semifinals. He ended up going to work at Engineered Racing Services, the same speed shop where he first caught the racing bug and he's been involved with racing in one form or another ever since. Arend continued honing his driving skills growing up in the Toronto area, wheeling faster and faster streetcars as his career began to evolve. Beginning in 1985, Arend started driving a '27 Ford roadster that ran in the 8.80 range and he won a couple of races. By the end of the decade he was a regular on the Quick-16 series. In 1990, Arend built an alcohol-burning '48 Fiat that he purchased from good friend John Rossitter that was eventually capable of running in the 6.40 elapsed time range at over 200-mph. With the help of friend Eddie Bryck, the popular “Bad to the Bone” car helped Arend revive the match race concept in the early 90s.
After a brief marriage failed at the beginning of the decade, Arend had become discouraged with drag racing and sold his operation. That's when he received a phone call from fellow Canadian and then-former Pro Mod racer, Al Billes, who said he wanted to go Alcohol Funny Car racing. In November of 1993, Arend quit his job at a GM dealership and went to work full-time as crew chief for Billes. The pair raced the entire 1994 IHRA season, finishing in the top 5 in the points standings at the end of the year. It was when Arend was working with Billes that he met legendary tuner, driver and drag racing school proprietor, Paul Smith. “I always wanted to drive a nitro Funny Car,” said Arend, “so after I finished the year working with Al, I called up Paul to talk about it and he said come on down to Florida .” Arend made the journey to south Florida 's Moroso Motorsports Park in November of 1994 to earn his fuel Funny Car license through Paul Smith's Drag Racing School. He already had his Alcohol license, so all he needed to do was make three runs quicker than 5.80 at over 250 mph. With Smith and Jerry Gwynn looking on, Arend earned his license in the minimum three runs on the same afternoon, resetting the track record with a 5.57 at 266 mph. “I hadn't driven a car in over a year and it felt great,” Arend remembered. “After I earned my license, Paul told me I could lease the car anytime I wanted,” said Arend. “So he gave me a number and I told him ‘we'll see'. He kept calling and by the time the '95 Gatornationals rolled around we worked out a deal.” Arend qualified 10 th in his Funny Car debut at Gainesville and Smith was pleased enough with Arend's performance to ask him if he wanted to continue driving at selected events throughout the 1995 NHRA season. Arend accepted, and at his second event in Englishtown, he upset No. 2 qualifier Mark Oswald with low E.T. of eliminations in a quarterfinal finish. After that, no one took Smith and the rookie Canadian driver for granted again. Arend finished his rookie season 18 th in the NHRA point's standings. “In 1996 Paul and I started racing together again and we ran about a dozen races,” said Arend. The pair went to Canada for a match race with John Force, Chuck Etchells and Tom Hoover at Arend's home track, London Motorsports Park . On Sunday, Arend defeated Force and Hoover and set the track record to win the event in front of his friends and family. “That was a great weekend,” Arend remembered with a smile. “To beat John Force in front of all your friends and family and the people you grew up with was pretty cool!”
But the excitement wasn't over for Arend. “I went down to Maple Grove just to watch the race with a couple of friends of mine,” recalled Arend. “About two hours before the first round of qualifying, Paul Smith said he didn't feel like driving and he told me to drive. Unbelievable, Arend won the '96 Keystone Nationals, and he did it in style. He left the starting line first in every round and defeated Dean Skuza, Al Hofmann, Del Worsham and Tony Pedregon, all in races decided by less than a tenth of a second. Arend put an exclamation point on his sophomore season by becoming the first Canadian racer to travel over 300 mph at the Winston Finals in November, finishing the season 17 th in the points.
Arend lived in Canada until 1997, when he relocated to San Dimas , California after meeting his wife, Windy, at the '95 Winston Finals in Pomona . “I was driving for Paul Smith when I met Windy through some friends of one of the crew members,” recalled Arend. “She came by the pits and we started talking. The following year we were in California a couple of times and before I knew it my phone bill was $400 a month, so I decided it was time to get married or not call her anymore.” Arend married Windy in 1997 and the couple has a beautiful daughter named Jenna, who is now 4-years-old. Arend only drove at three races in 1997, filling in for an injured Al Hofmann and qualifying No. 2 in Rockingham, his best qualifying position ever. Now that he was a married man, Arend needed to work between races, so he landed a full-time job as an instructor and eventually became operations manager for Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School in Pomona . “I started working for Frank doing his alcohol stuff, tuning and working on the cars,” said Arend. “I ran the shop and handled daily operations and after a year and a half Frank let me take over instructing the alcohol class, which I did until 2001.”
“Working for Hawley was a really great learning experience,” added Arend. “Frank's a very smart guy. And I learned a lot from watching other people make mistakes. I thought I was a pretty good driver in '96 but after spending five years with Frank I think I'm way better now, even though I didn't drive very much.” Arend drove occasionally for Chuck Beal between 1998 and 2000, keeping his Funny Car license current and his name in the loop. At the 1999 NHRA Winternationals Arend was given the honor of being the first driver eligible for Winston ‘No Bull' $100,000 bonus. When Hawley moved his operation to Florida in 2001, Arend decided to stay in California with his wife to be near her family and raise their newborn daughter. Arend went to work for Gale Banks Engineering in Azusa , Calif. and stayed with the firm until March of 2004, when his drag racing career suddenly took on a new brilliance.
While racing in 1996, Arend made friends with a gentleman named Tony Reding. The pair shared the same racing aspirations and soon formed Can Am Motorsports, with Reding leading the search for sponsorship. The pair worked for years searching for the right marketing deal. Then in March of 2004, they literally struck diamonds. “All of a sudden in the beginning of March, we got a call from a mutual friend to go meet with a guy named Urban Casavant in Las Vegas ,” recalls Arend. “Urban was originally interested in doing a one race deal to promote his diamond mining company. We told him if he really wanted to do it right, he should go for the whole year and we'll give him a really good deal. He was pretty excited about the whole deal and two weeks later Urban gave us a call and asked us if we could be ready in time for the Las Vegas race.” Arend immediately called Paul Smith and the pair went to work 24/7 to get a car ready in time for Vegas. In what may have been an unofficial record, Arend and Smith started from scratch and had the CMKXtreme Machine Corvette Funny Car ready to race 14 days later. Although rain kept Arend from making enough runs to renew his license in Vegas, the team made up for it two weeks later in Houston . Arend blasted to a career-best 4.874 seconds to qualify in the No. 3 spot and let everyone know that he was back in business.
Urban Casavant, the man who made the whole deal possible, was ecstatic with the results. Casavant, a longtime race fan, is the founder and current Chairman of the Board of CMKM Diamonds, Inc. A native of Prince Albert , Canada , Casavant has been involved in the precious stones and metals industry for over 17 years. “We are very excited to be sponsoring Jeff Arend and the CMKXtreme Machine in 2004. We hope to develop a marketing strategy that will provide new promotional opportunities for our business and our race team.” One of Casavant's interests is community service and that is why the team schedules a hospital visit at each stop on the NHRA tour. So far Arend and CMKX team members have visited hospitals in Chicago , Columbus , Englishtown and St. Louis , signing autographs, posing for photos and handing out CMKX souvenirs. The team plans to continue their hospital visits throughout the year.
“Things are kind of surreal right now,” Arend concluded. “I always hoped to be back behind the wheel, but it wasn't something I worked at night and day. I'm not like a kid in a candy store anymore. I look at racing as more of a business now, so I do things differently than before. I'm probably a lot more mature than before, but I'm still very excited to be driving again.”
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