If Tommy DeLago didn’t think the phrase “When one door closes, another opens” had merit when he was fired as a crew chief for Kalitta Racing in 2018, he did one year later.
The idle time gave the personable DeLago a chance for reflection. It provided the opportunity to chase a dream he’d dabbled with during those rare downtimes in the challenging world of drag race tuning.
The longer DeLago was unemployed, the more in tune he became interested in charting a new pathway.
DeLago and his wife Rachel embarked on a new career in creating beef jerky, and now their Beef Jerky Unlimited venture supplies many customers who enjoy the product.
“Throughout my career, I’ve always thought I needed a backup plan/retirement plan,” Delago said. “And the farther up that I moved as far as from crew guy to car chief to assistant crew chief to co-crew chief to crew chief, the farther up you move, the fewer jobs available. So when you get flipped off the top — basically get fired or whatever — sometimes it might take a while to find a job. There’s a time out there, especially when there were not very many independent teams; there were a lot more superteams. So you get fired from one place. Well, that’s five options off the list.”
“You got another superteam that may have four teams. So that’s one owner but four teams. So there you go. Pretty soon, it’s almost 10 teams with two owners. In the old days, that would’ve been 10 different teams you could have had an option to work at. So I felt the options were limited, and I was just trying to protect my family and our future.”
The interesting aspect of DeLago’s path to success in the jerky world almost didn’t materialize. He initially focused on remaining in the automotive community by manufacturing fuel pumps.
“When I did a cost analysis of it and looked at what was available out there, I didn’t,” DeLago said. “I could have sold some. Sonny Leonard wanted me to build some for him, but when I looked at it, that wasn’t enough to really make a business on, and I just didn’t think it was a good time to get in the fuel pump business.”
DeLago passed on fuel pumps, and shortly after that, the beef jerky opportunity presented itself
“I waited a little bit longer and did a little more research. Then, this thing fell into my lap where this jerky business was available,” DeLago said. “I’ve always loved cooking. I’ve always experimented with different flavors and marinades and basically used my family and friends as guinea pigs 35 years out of my 55-year-old life. And so it just made sense. I enjoy making different flavors for the jerky, and it was a great business before COVID.”
The pandemic nailed DeLago’s business, which also featured a brick-and-mortar location that bore the brunt of the nationwide lockdowns. Once the restrictions were lifted, the store battled to regain its previous business levels. He started to notice more of a shift to online business.
‘It’s definitely taught us a lot,” Delago said. “It’s tested how strong we are mentally, for sure.”
And, sometimes, the merry-go-round of tuning swings back around. In 2021, tuner Mike Green called DeLago to inquire if he was interested in coming back to drag racing.
DeLago, who had immersed himself in the non-racing world, returned to drag racing with Rachel’s encouragement.
“We figured it out and we were able to balance it, and it’s been awesome to be back in racing too,” DeLago said. “Obviously, racing’s been a big passion and love of mine, and now that I’m back, I hope I can do it ‘til my health doesn’t allow me to.”
Beef jerky wasn’t the only aspect of life DeLago immersed himself in. He decided to fix himself, and DeLago stopped consuming alcohol except for a glass of wine now and again. He also stopped smoking and began going to the gym for more self-improvement.
“Rachel and I, we believe God will point us in the right direction, and we believe He has a plan for us,” DeLago said. “Even though you may not know why or not agree with everything He puts you through, there’s a reason. And I think if you can take those types of things when they happen, and I think one of the reasons you have to go through some negative things in your life, and that’s what He wants you to do because he wants you to get stronger and learn from it. And I definitely think that I’m in a better place than I’ve probably ever been in my life as far as mentally.”
Being on the road for 20-plus races annually is a grind. And for DeLago, 55, he’s hoping he has another 15 years left in him.
“You got to fight,” DeLago said. “You got to prove your worth every day, and it can be stressful, but there’s a certain group of us that are so super competitive and love challenges that we accept that challenge, even though knowing that our heads are on the chopping block at any moment. And being a crew chief, it’s part of the challenge, it’s part of the job. You got to be willing to take it, and it’s right up my alley. So now we’re racing and doing jerky, and we’re trying to work our way back to where we were, where we had the business. The business was killing it in 2019. We’re trying to get back there, hopefully in another couple of years.”
DeLago’s reset, he believes, has made a world of difference.
“If they’ll let me do it for 15 years out there, that’s where I’m at right now, but I don’t know,” DeLago said. “I think it’s made me better at my business. I think it’s made me better at racing, and I don’t mean better at performance. I just mean better at multitasking and handling all the different tasks that go into running a business and helping to run a race team. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot to it. Obviously, I don’t do as much as Mike Green because he’s there all the time.
“But I definitely think that everything that I’ve done, especially the last two years, has been a process that I’ve been going through since 2019.
“And I also think it helps keep a better headspace and more positivity. At my age, I don’t want any negativity. Even though you can’t control it all, and it’s going to happen sometimes, I try to keep everything as positive as possible. It just seems to be more successful if you can just look forward and stay positive no matter what happens.”
And right now, as the holidays approach, DeLago is definitely in beef jerky mode. His focus is to encourage drag racing fans, especially those who enjoy jerky, to consider his Beef Jerky Unlimited brand, as opposed to some of the big-store brands — many of which, he points out, are manufactured outside of the United States and shipped in to attain the USDA packaging label.
“You don’t even know what kind of meat they use or what they did,” DeLago explained.
DeLago said many big-store brands use sugar because it makes the meat more dense.
“The reason they do it is because sugar is cheap,” DeLago explained. “It doesn’t evaporate, so they can make the meat more dense. It’s almost like cheating in a bass tournament, putting lead weights in the fish’s stomach basically because they inject it with so much sugar that they go to evaporate it. So basically, if you’re to take a square inch of theirs and a square inch of ours, ours is going to be lighter.
“So there’s going to be more real estate of meat in a bag of 3.25-ounce bag of ours versus a bag of 3.25-ounce of theirs. You’re going to have more to eat with ours because we’re not trying to make the meat more dense with a bunch of sugar in those flavors.”
DeLago understands that drag racing fans are loyal to those companies that support the sport because, after all, he’s the same way.
The DeLagos have two stores in Michigan, and an online store where customers can buy bundles in pound packs.
“We offer our normal 3.25-ounce packs like you get in a convenience store or a grocery store,” DeLago added.
Last month, Beef Jerky Unlimited began offering a subscription service where the product is delivered monthly.
“People can basically put in their order and not have to worry about it, and it’ll automatically generate every month, and whoever signs up for a subscription will get their jerky every month and not have to worry about remembering to order,” DeLago explained. “Plus, if you pay for a subscription, you get a discount.”
