If Santo Rapisarda taught his eight children anything, it’s to pursue their passions.
The Australian Top Fuel team owner who mixes and matches his drivers and continents with globetrotting gusto is mapping out his 2012 adventure.
With part of his heart still bruised by the death of Top Fuel racer son Louie 20 years ago this past July, Rapisarda is enjoying the current involvement of sons Santo and Santino as crew chief and mechanics extraordinaire. But he’s looking ahead, as well, to 43-year-old daughter Gianna’s emergence as a Top Fuel team manager — and her goal someday to field an all-female team.
For the patriarch of this business-savvy family, drag racing is a swirl of emotions. It’s grief, pride, fun, intrigue, and, ultimately, satisfaction. It’s a kick he shares with girlfriend and unofficial team manager/organizer Kristie, who was an Olympic volleyball athlete representing Australia at the 2000 Sydney Games. (“She’s the best!” he said, sweetly of the mother of their two-and-a-half-year-old son.)
If Santo Rapisarda taught his eight children anything, it’s to pursue their passions.
The Australian Top Fuel team owner who mixes and matches his drivers and continents with globetrotting gusto is mapping out his 2012 adventure.
With part of his heart still bruised by the death of Top Fuel racer son Louie 20 years ago this past July, Rapisarda is enjoying the current involvement of sons Santo and Santino as crew chief and mechanics extraordinaire. But he’s looking ahead, as well, to 43-year-old daughter Gianna’s emergence as a Top Fuel team manager — and her goal someday to field an all-female team.
For the patriarch of this business-savvy family, drag racing is a swirl of emotions. It’s grief, pride, fun, intrigue, and, ultimately, satisfaction. It’s a kick he shares with girlfriend and unofficial team manager/organizer Kristie, who was an Olympic volleyball athlete representing Australia at the 2000 Sydney Games. (“She’s the best!” he said, sweetly of the mother of their two-and-a-half-year-old son.)
“To me, this is not a business. To me it’s a hobby. And I enjoy it,” the iron fist behind Titan Cranes said.
He’s not 100-percent certain who his driver in the NHRA’s Full Throttle Series will be next season, although he’s hoping Top Fuel veteran Cory McClenathan will stay in the seat. [Please see accompanying article: “Rapisarda Says He Favors Cory Mac’s Return.”]
But no matter — that never stopped Rapisarda as he has rotated five drivers during the past year. Before the 2011 season was finished, he had pitched a lifesaver to McClenathan, even bringing him across the Pacific Ocean to win the Australian Nationals. Likewise, he plucked homeland standout Damien Harris from Australian National Drag Racing Association (ANDRA) Pro Series action and exposing him to the world’s toughest competition at Pomona, Calif.
(Mike Mariani, who ironically knocked McClenathan out of contention for the 2010 NHRA Top Fuel championship at Pomona last November, yielded his seat to McClenathan. Terry Sainty also drove in the U.S. this year for Rapisarda.)
The door might revolve again — who knows?? — but Rapisarda said in November that he’s planning to run dragsters in both the United States and in Australia. And despite missing his posh digs overlooking his boat in the marina at Sydney, he’s even planning to put down some roots here in the Southwestern U.S.
At least one displaced driver with nitro experience in both Top Fuel and Funny 
Car has expressed interest in driving for Santo Rapisarda in 2012, but the Australian industrial magnate said whether he fields one car or two, he would like to keep veteran racer Cory McClenathan in the fold if he can.
As of last month’s NHRA season finale, the popular “Cory Mac” and Rapisarda, owner of a prosperous crane company, still were a team — with an understanding that curiously put both in limbo a bit.
Asked if McClenathan will be his headliner, at least in the United States, in the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series’ 2012 season, Rapisard said. “Yes. I am hopeful that Cory will be driving for Rapisarda Racing next season.
“I told him that if he gets a sponsor and he wants to do his own thing, he’s got my blessing. He’s not obligated to me,” Rapisarda said. “I know he’s trying to get a sponsor. If he wants to keep that sponsor for himself, I’ll bless him.”
But Rapisarda said without hesitation that he would welcome McClenathan back for another go, which at this point figures to be about a dozen races.
“I’ll have him back,” Rapisarda said after the two had a meeting at Pomona, Calif., to discuss rumors that were flying around even then about what McClenathan’s future holds.
“He wanted to know, and I wanted to know where I stand,” Rapisarda said in November, knowing that McClenathan’s ties with Don Schumacher Racing remain strong despite sponsor FRAM plucking him from the Phil Shuler-Todd Okuhara-tuned dragster in favor of younger Spencer Massey.
He knew the value of McClenathan’s experience and savvy and understood why Schumacher would agree to bring him back with a viable sponsor.
“There’s always room for Cory Mac, especially if he picks up that sponsor,” Rapisarda said. “They could have one more [dragster in the organization, according to the NHRA rules]. He’s a good driver. He’s a good man. He’s a gentleman.”
The uncertainty remains. And repeated attempts to reach McClenathan this past week have been unsuccessful. But, Rapisarda said, “I believe he [McClenathan] said to me that if a sponsor comes, he’ll bring it in [to Rapisarda Racing].”
“We’re working on a sponsor” to make the package more attractive to McClenathan, Rapisarda said. – Susan Wade
“My biz over there runs very well. We’ve got a pretty good biz over there. It’s running smooth,” Rapisarda said. “That’s why I can afford to be here, away.”
But he needs roots, he said.
“I feel like we’re living like gypsies over here, from one hotel to another,” Rapisarda, 63, said. “I want to buy property in Phoenix. I love Phoenix. I love the place. People try to change my mind, but I love Phoenix. When I come back next year, it’s what I intend to do.”
And oh, how he had envisioned doing all this with son Louie, Luige Santo Rapisarda. They had bought their dragster from Dick La Haie and some engines from John Force.
“We were going to come over here. We had planned it. Business was good. We waited for the right time,” Rapisarda said.
But Louie was just 23 when he lost his life July 22, 1990, at Queensland’s Willowbank Raceway after an engine explosion during a qualifying run. Oil from the engine splattered onto his rear tires, sending the car into a guard wall. He had just two years of drag-racing experience.
In a twist of a sentimental poem, Santo Rapisarda commissioned a special decal for the Top Fuel car with the verse: “If tears could build a dragster and memories form a lane, we would race our way to Heaven and bring you home again.”
“Me and my wife, Louie’s mother, we were separated at the time, but it brought us more together as friends. And we are the best friends now, more than ever before. Louie was . . . for her . . . I tell you, it broke her heart.”
It broke his, too, but he has soldiered on in the spirit of Louie, even purchasing a seat at every racetrack the team competes . . . a seat for Louie.
Reminders of Louie are about the only things that can turn the jovial, often boisterous, Rapisarda to a mournful man missing his son.
“It’s hard. Louie was going to do it. We were going to race . . . ,” he said.
“A lot of people did say, ‘Why would you still want to do this? Why? You lost a son. What more do you want?’ They can’t understand why you’re doing it,” he said. “Some people understand. Some don’t. We’re doing it in memory of Louie.
“Louis has always been there for me, for our whole family,” Rapisarda said. “If it wasn’t for Louie, we wouldn’t be drag racing. It was something we wanted to do with Louie.”
Thinking back to that day 20 years ago, he said, “That was his last race. It made us more determined to keep doing it. If Louie was here, this is what he would have loved to do.”
So this is what Rapisarda does. Daughter Gianna (pronounced “Janna”), half-Australian, half-Sicilian, has encouraged him, even urged him to enjoy his time in the U.S.
“She’s a very strong girl. She’s a good girl. She has encouraged me to stay here,” Rapisarda said of his eldest. “She said, ‘There aren’t many races over here. The boys love it. Why don’t you keep on going? It’s not like you don’t have the money. It’s your money. Enjoy it.”
She might join him in his NHRA pursuit by the end of 2012. She was so fascinated by the NHRA scene that she surprised her dad in Las Vegas this fall — twice. She flew in for a visit, then flew back to Australia “to do the wages for 110 people. She doesn’t trust anybody with money,” her dad said. Two days later she was landing at the Las Vegas airport and startling her father once again.
“Can you believe this girl?!” he asked. She also had some news for him, he said: “She said, ‘Dad, I want to start my own Top Fuel team, all ladies.’ I said, ‘Darling, a Top Fuel team of all ladies is very hard, but if you want to do it, you’ve got my blessing.’ “
Her idea was to run such a team in Australia. But he had a proposal for her: “Instead of doing it over there, we’ve got two cars here. I’ll let you run this car here instead of home. Why not do it over here? Run this team four or five times, get your pleasure.”
They discussed that following the NHRA season-closer and haven’t finalized any plans so far about that.
But they plan to move forward with what they know for sure right now.
“We’re coming back. We’ll probably run one car first,” Rapisarda said. He’s storing two dragsters at a shop at Brownsburg, Ind., during the NHRA off-season.
“We have a few races at home. We’ll be going back and forth. If I decide to run more than one car over there, I’ll bring Cory Mac in,” he said at Pomona. “We might do more meetings. At this point, I’ve got 12 in mind. Not because of money. Not because sponsorship doesn’t work. I’ve got a business to run.”
Santo Jr. turned 18 on Race Day Sunday at Pomona. Even at that ripe old age, he is the youngest Top Fuel crew chief, at lest in modern memory. And he has three years on-the-job experience, having started at age 15. He builds his own engines. Half-brother Santino, meanwhile, handles the superchargers for McClenathan’s car.”
Rapisarda said he likes to “watch everybody” and gets a special charge from being around Lagana brothers Bobby and Dom.
“The Lagana brothers, I admire them and why they’re doing it. There are a lot of other teams doing the same thing. But they rely on sponsors. I could not live like that, relying on sponsors. They need $50,000 a meeting to cut even. But I like those boys,” he said. “They love doing what they’re doing. The father used to run, and he’s 70 years old. Ahhhh . . . unbelievable. I like those boys.”
He likes them because they have something in common, although it appears with his abundance and their hardscrabble existence they’re nothing alike. They have passion.
