EDITOR’S NOTE – For the next year, CompetitionPlus.com will celebrate its journey to 25 years of reporting drag racing news you can trust. The Road to 25 Series will present a story from each year that impacted the drag racing world. Today’s installment focuses on Joe Amato stepping away from driving.
Joe Amato’s ability to think outside of the realm of normalcy propelled him to incredible success in drag racing. But it also could have been what did him in as a driver.
Amato revolutionized Top Fuel wing technology amongst other areas of nitro racing and figured the same could be considered true if he stepped up with a larger parachute on his dragster and used a size commonly used for Funny Cars.
After all, Amato was a five-time Top Fuel champion and appeared invincible until he wasn’t. Decades later, Amato couldn’t say with certainty that the larger parachutes led to detached retinas.
Amato had just completed a run at an event in 2000; the exact one escapes his memory when he felt like he had an issue with a contact lens. He thought maybe it was damaged. A visit to the doctor and he found out the contact wasn’t the problem.
At the first opportunity, Amato visited an ophthalmologist who quickly diagnosed his issue.
“That’s not the problem,” Amato recalled the doctor’s diagnosis during an upcoming Legends episode interview. “Your eye has a membrane over the top. And as people get to be 60 years old or somewhere in that age, that membrane becomes thinner.
“Somebody could just bend down to tie their shoes, and just that movement could actually make a tear in that. It’s because it’s so thin. That’s what happened to me. I went and they laser surgeried my eyes together, filling in the cracks with the laser.”
Decorated NHRA champion Gary Beck stepped in as a substitute while Amato recovered, but after sitting out for just one race, Amato returned and won in his first event back. Still, his eye issues continued. He even tried to adjust his driving style by using the brake and easing into the parachute. It didn’t work.
“It was an ongoing thing that happened again,” Amato said. “I was getting nervous because the doctors telling me I could go blind in that eye if they can’t reattach the retina. I’m thinking, ‘This is not so.”
Amato had already planned his 2001 retirement tour, but the grim prognosis sped up the process.
“We already had drawn stuff,” Amato said. “We had stuff going, hats, shirts, but I was thinking if I’m going to retire next year, I think I should just retire this year and be done with it. And that’s what I did.”
Amato admits not being able to go out on his own terms bothered him some.
“It was what it was,” Amato said. “It was more about my eyes not making me blind. You have to just do what the right thing to do is.”
When Amato retired at the end of 2000, he did so at the time as the winningest driver in Top Fuel with 52 national events. He was also a five-time NHRA Top Fuel champion.
The thrill of driving in competition is something Amato knew he’d miss, but he replaced that with being a team owner, something he retired from as well.
“There’s so much out there in life to go out and see, and I’m so blessed — very, very blessed — that at my age that, A, I’m healthy enough to go do it, and, B, that I can afford to do it. I started running my father’s speed shop when I was 11, at 16 I took it over and made it into Keystone Automotive, got lucky and sold it and got a coupla pennies,” Amato told CompetitionPlus.com. “So now I’ve got enough money to go play, and believe me, I’m playing hard.”
2000 Drag Racing Highlights
* Tom Compton becomes the third NHRA President
* John Force surpasses Bob Glidden as the winningest pro driver
* Shirley beats Garlits in AUTOFest debacle
* Gary Scelzi, John Force, Jeggie Coughlin, Angelle, Bob Panella Jr. win NHRA titles
* Paul Romine wins third IHRA Top Fuel championship, Fred Hahn delivers Jim Oddy first IHRA Pro Modified championship. Hahn becomes only the second supercharged driver to win a championship.
* NHRA introduces 90-percent nitro rule for Top Fuel and Funny Car categories following Doug Herbert’s horrific 1999 starting line explosion.
#ROADto25 – TONY SCHUMACHER’S IMPROBABLE 1999 CHAMPIONSHIP
