Rick Jackson, a longtime highly successful Top Alcohol Funny Car owner in NHRA, passed away Jan. 16.

Jackson, a former drag boat racing owner, transitioned into the Top Alcohol Funny Car ranks and had great success with drivers including Tony Bartone (2009-2013), John Lombardo Jr. (2014-18) and Shane Westerfield (2019-2022).

“Rick was a cool guy,” Westerfield said. “I watched from the outside for years from when he was boat racing when I was a little kid at the races. He had a Pro Gas Flat he raced, and he always had the professional look. Everything was classy in the pits. He moved to the upper-class Alcohol Flat and I watched him progress and then when he went to the Funny Car thing, he carried over his professionalism.

“I was just a fan of his from the early 1990s all the way up until when we started car racing in 2010. He would see me in the pits and all his crew guys were boat guys also and I knew all of them because they were still active in boat racing. We would have some beers at the end of the day and that’s when he had Bartone driving and in 2013, I was telling him ‘If you ever want another driver I’m here.’ I wanted to be a part of his program.”

Westerfield, who won a Top Alcohol Funny Car world championship in 2017 on his own, finally teamed up with Jackson in 2019.

“We would always see each other on holiday weekends in Parker, Ariz., near Lake Havasu, and we would hang out and I would always tell him I was available to drive for him,” Westerfield said. “He would laugh and the end of 2018, he asked me if I wanted to still do it and I said ‘Yes,’ let’s go make something happen. That’s when we started hanging out a lot. We would talk every other day from 2019 basically until a couple of weeks ago. We talked all the time and bullsh*tted. He would come out to the boat races when I was racing my boat in Bakersfield (Calif.) or at the Parker (Ariz.) race. Obviously, we would be at the car races together and we would be at the river together. We did a lot.”

Outside of racing, Jackson had three body shops in the Los Angeles, Calif., area.

Westerfield finished second in the Top Alcohol Funny Car Lucas Oil Drag Racing world standings in 2022, 42 points behind champion Doug Gordon.

In 2019, Westerfield finished third in the points chase. 

“In 2020, we only did two races and that’s when Rick got sick the first time,” Westerfield said. “We kind of did an abbreviated year in 2021 and we hit it hard last year (2022) and midway through the 2022 season he got sick again. This time we were doing so good he told us to keep going. I almost got it (that world championship for him). I feel bad about that especially right now. It is what it is. He was cool. I really enjoyed him. He would call to check in and say, ‘I have not heard from you Turbo.’ I would tell him sorry I’m just working away.

“Rick was a business guy. Don’t bullsh*t him and he won’t bullsh*t you. I had times when I screwed up and I would get back in the tow vehicle and I would text him and say ‘Hey I messed up. I left low or I short-shifted.’ You’re going to see it on the computer anyway and I’m going to tell you now. There were times when I was on, and he would come in and say we screwed up on the tune-up or we did this or that. He would not sugarcoat anything. He would tell you if he didn’t like what you were doing, and you could do the same thing back to him. I liked that. There was nothing hidden. When we were racing it was business and when were hanging out together we were good friends.”

Multiple-time Top Alcohol Dragster world champion Jim Whiteley also took a moment to talk about Jackson.

“Rick and I were good friends for some time now,” Whiteley said. “He was a wonderful guy. He had one of the elite paint and body shops in California. He did it right. I went over for Thanksgiving maybe eight years ago to Parker, Ariz., and spent a little time with him and ended up buying a place over there. We had a lot of fun. Rick loved going up the river and taking an ice chest full of beer and wade in the river water and drink beer. Rick was one of the real genuine good men. Zero bullsh*t. He was 100 percent up front.
“The racing was just like what he did for a living, and he did it top-notch.”

While driving for Jackson, Bartone had 13 wins, and was runner-up in the NHRA championship points race in 2011 and 2012 to longtime rival Frank Manzo.

Lombardo Jr. also had a decorated stint with Jackson. Jackson and Lombardo combined forces during the 2014 season to create Jackson Lombardo Racing which also included the efforts of Les Davenport, Chris Perl, Scott Manning, Mike Pavia, Jack Miller, and LuAnn Bishop.

The five-year partnership produced three Central Region championships, two JEGS Allstars victories, seven national event wins including the prestigious U.S. Nationals in 2017, 13 regional event wins, two national speed records, numerous track elapsed time and speed records, five national top 10 finishes including championship runner-up efforts in 2015 and 2017.

“It is a damn shame,” Whiteley said. “It is a huge loss for the racing world. I will miss Rick forever.”