Mike Salinas smiles as the notion hits him.

If someone had walked up to him before the 2022 season and said, “By the midpoint season, you’ll be the number one points guy, and you’ll be the most dominant Top Fuel driver in the class this year to this point.” 

I would have responded, “It would be nice in my dreams. It’s something we’re working on.”

Who could blame Salinas’ skepticism? He’d just lost his iconic tuner and his 2022 season was nothing short of a huge question. 

Three crucial attributes kept Salinas seeing the big picture. 

“Persistence, perseverance, and a positive mental attitude,” Salinas added.

Pretty much, Salinas confirmed, the trio has been crucial in his approach to life and the success of his businesses. It has not been an easy road. 

“My brother and I, we were talking about that,” Salinas said on Friday before qualifying began. “We would work a full shift at our companies, and then we would go work for other companies at night. We continued to do that for almost 20 years. The people that we used to go work for, we wound up buying them out because we saw how they weren’t running their businesses right, and ours were just getting bigger and bigger. 

“Even though our companies got to be a pretty good size, we still never thought about it any different. We were still the same guys, the same small guys in business.”

Salinas’ family-owned business is now 71 years old, and the company he and his wife started recently turned 42 years old. From Day One, Salinas said the determination to succeed couldn’t be measured. 

“We never listened to anybody that said you couldn’t do it, you can’t, won’t,” Salinas explained. “Those words aren’t in our vocabulary. We don’t listen to the noise around us. We don’t listen to all the critics in business. We go up against the very large waste companies every day. They stopped messing with us years ago because we work around the clock.

“It’s our businesses, and we do whatever we got to do to make it work. There is no second. There is no giving up. There is no quitting. We’ve struggled. There were times when we couldn’t pay the bills; we couldn’t do this. But if you go talk to the people, it’ll work out. It’ll always work out as long as you’re honest and you have integrity.”

Those principles have fueled Salinas’ business success and employee retention. 

“Just treat everybody how you want to be treated, and your customers are the business,” Salinas said. Take care of them. We have three generations of customers who have been dumping trash at our place and doing business with us. All of our rental businesses, all the real estate, all of everything, we just take care of people.”

Case in point, during the midst of the pandemic, when teams were furloughing and laying off crewmembers, Salinas enabled his team to go to work for his companies to keep the paychecks coming in. 

And right there, amid the mayhem, Salinas was working alongside them. 

Salinas considers himself an ordinary man, though his perseverance and determination actions say nothing but that. 

“We always looked at the big guys, there was a time where we couldn’t afford one truck, and it had used tires, used everything on it,” Salinas said. “It was a used truck. We couldn’t afford that stuff. We got to where we could afford it and were always the next step, next step, next step. Then you wake up one day, and now you own hundreds of trucks and hundreds of pieces of equipment. You’re buying million-dollar pieces of equipment like it’s nothing. But it is something. 

I think we were so wrapped up in our businesses, still to this day, that we still work in our companies. You forget that they’re yours. You just go in, and you just take care of business. 

“Our longest [tenured] employee we have is 40 or 41 years. That’s because we work with them, right with them, right in the ditches with them. They see us. Impressive that I don’t ask anybody to do what we won’t do. We were training some new kids. I say kids; they were 30 years and under. We were training some new guys that work at our company, and I did the training because one of our guys was out. They asked me, ‘How do you keep this pace up?”

“I’m like, ‘This is our normal pace. I’m a little bit slower than I used to be. This is just life.”

HE’S THE BOSS – Mike Salinas smiles as the notion hits him.

If someone had walked up to him before the 2022 season and said, “By the midpoint season, you’ll be the number one points guy, and you’ll be the most dominant Top Fuel driver in the class this year to this point.” 

I would have responded, “It would be nice in my dreams. It’s something we’re working on.”

Who could blame Salinas’ skepticism? He’d just lost his iconic tuner and his 2022 season was nothing short of a huge question. 

Three crucial attributes kept Salinas seeing the big picture. 

“Persistence, perseverance, and a positive mental attitude,” Salinas added.

Pretty much, Salinas confirmed, the trio has been crucial in his approach to life and the success of his businesses. It has not been an easy road. 

“My brother and I, we were talking about that,” Salinas said on Friday before qualifying began. “We would work a full shift at our companies, and then we would go work for other companies at night. We continued to do that for almost 20 years. The people that we used to go work for, we wound up buying them out because we saw how they weren’t running their businesses right, and ours were just getting bigger and bigger. 

“Even though our companies got to be a pretty good size, we still never thought about it any different. We were still the same guys, the same small guys in business.”

Salinas’ family-owned business is now 71 years old, and the company he and his wife started recently turned 42 years old. From Day One, Salinas said the determination to succeed couldn’t be measured. 

“We never listened to anybody that said you couldn’t do it, you can’t, won’t,” Salinas explained. “Those words aren’t in our vocabulary. We don’t listen to the noise around us. We don’t listen to all the critics in business. We go up against the very large waste companies every day. They stopped messing with us years ago because we work around the clock.

“It’s our businesses, and we do whatever we got to do to make it work. There is no second. There is no giving up. There is no quitting. We’ve struggled. There were times when we couldn’t pay the bills; we couldn’t do this. But if you go talk to the people, it’ll work out. It’ll always work out as long as you’re honest and you have integrity.”

Those principles have fueled Salinas’ business success and employee retention. 

“Just treat everybody how you want to be treated, and your customers are the business,” Salinas said. Take care of them. We have three generations of customers who have been dumping trash at our place and doing business with us. All of our rental businesses, all the real estate, all of everything, we just take care of people.”

Case in point, during the midst of the pandemic, when teams were furloughing and laying off crewmembers, Salinas enabled his team to go to work for his companies to keep the paychecks coming in. 

And right there, amid the mayhem, Salinas was working alongside them. 

Salinas considers himself an ordinary man, though his perseverance and determination actions say nothing but that. 

“We always looked at the big guys, there was a time where we couldn’t afford one truck, and it had used tires, used everything on it,” Salinas said. “It was a used truck. We couldn’t afford that stuff. We got to where we could afford it and were always the next step, next step, next step. Then you wake up one day, and now you own hundreds of trucks and hundreds of pieces of equipment. You’re buying million-dollar pieces of equipment like it’s nothing. But it is something. 

I think we were so wrapped up in our businesses, still to this day, that we still work in our companies. You forget that they’re yours. You just go in, and you just take care of business. 

“Our longest [tenured] employee we have is 40 or 41 years. That’s because we work with them, right with them, right in the ditches with them. They see us. Impressive that I don’t ask anybody to do what we won’t do. We were training some new kids. I say kids; they were 30 years and under. We were training some new guys that work at our company, and I did the training because one of our guys was out. They asked me, ‘How do you keep this pace up?”

“I’m like, ‘This is our normal pace. I’m a little bit slower than I used to be. This is just life.”