HERNANDEZ HITS 100 MARK
Wed, 2008-05-14 16:28
Hernandez scored his 100th round win in NHRA Pro Modified en route to beating Tony Pontieri in the final round. (Roger Richards)
"One hundred rounds? The first word that comes to mind is 'wow,' " said Hernandez, driver of the Team Rage Camaro sponsored by Interlinc Mortgage and Tommy Lipar Racing. "I don't really stop to look at the numbers very often but when you hear something like that or look at the stats on JegsProMod.com, it is mind-boggling.
"Credit (team owner) Tommy Lipar, who is my wife Amber's uncle. When he put this team together he said if we were gonna do this thing then we needed to do it right. We want for nothing and our success is the result of many, many people, but none of it would have happened without Tommy."
Hernandez scored his 100th round win in NHRA Pro Modified en route to beating Tony Pontieri in the final round. (Roger Richards)
"One hundred rounds? The first word that comes to mind is 'wow,' " said Hernandez, driver of the Team Rage Camaro sponsored by Interlinc Mortgage and Tommy Lipar Racing. "I don't really stop to look at the numbers very often but when you hear something like that or look at the stats on JegsProMod.com, it is mind-boggling.
"Credit (team owner) Tommy Lipar, who is my wife Amber's uncle. When he put this team together he said if we were gonna do this thing then we needed to do it right. We want for nothing and our success is the result of many, many people, but none of it would have happened without Tommy."
Hernandez has attended exactly half of the 72 events in the seven-year history of the JEGS ProMod Challenge, qualifying for all 36 races he's entered. His 14 wins are six more than second-place Mike Ashley, and his 10 low qualifying efforts -- including two this year in Houston and St. Louis -- are two more than Fred Hahn's total of eight.
Among tenured racers, Hernandez's incredible 77-23 (77 percent) race day winning effort is considerably better than Ashley's 61-33 (65 percent) mark, which is second best, and Shannon Jenkins' 28-16 (64 percent) record.
"I feel like I'm still really new in this sport," Hernandez said. "When I hear myself being compared to Shannon Jenkins, Fred Hahn, or Mike Ashley it doesn't really fit. I grew up reading magazine articles about those guys. They are still my heroes. It's incredible to be mentioned in the same breath with them.
"Numbers in drag racing don't add up favorably very often. I mean, there's only one winner at the end of the day. If I could swing a baseball bat and have the ratio of success we've been lucky enough to have on the strip, I'd be a gazillioniare. But I wouldn't trade places with anyone. I'm having a blast."
Currently fifth in the JEGS rankings, 81 points behind Pontieri, the reigning series champion knows missing this year's Atlanta event due to a scheduling conflict has narrowed his margin for error. But he refuses to lament the misstep.
"It's drag racing," Hernandez said. "It sucks that it happened but it's no different than if you go somewhere and a 10-cent part breaks. We need to just get on to the next race and forget about it.
"I'm not going to put any extra pressure on this team. To be honest, I feel a lot more pressure being the defending champion of an event than anything else. It makes no rational sense, I know that, but I just like proving last year wasn't a fluke."
Hernandez also is doing well in the eighth-mile ADRL series, where he's won the first two events of a nine-race season.
"There're no gimmes any more and it makes winning even better," he said. "I thrive on racing the best of the best. Someone asked me the other day in Valdosta (Ga.) after the race, 'Don't you get tired of winning?' My first thought was, 'How could you ever get tired of this?' I'm having an absolute blast, and win or lose, if we're progressing I'm happy. To set a goal out here and go out and achieve it is special.
"My family is so supportive of what I do and that's key to our success. Amber and the boys (Max 6, Ayden 5) come to as many races as possible or they text me and call me all weekend when they're not there. The boys want trophies as much as I do."
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