Mike Castellana Savors Pro Nitrous Success

 PITTSBORO, N.C. May 13, 2015: When veteran doorslammer racer Mike Castellana posed in the winner’s circle at the recent PDRA Cajun Nationals at Thunder Road Raceway Park, it was a whole new experience for the man from Long Island, New York.

Just to clarify, during his long and successful career Castellana has celebrated major wins, as well as championships, at race tracks around the world. But that night at Shreveport, Louisiana, he was savoring his first victory with the Professional Drag Racers Association, the sport’s premier eighth-mile racing organization.

Castellana, 51, drove to the Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous class win behind the wheel of his Jerry Bickel Race Cars-built 1969 Camaro, another in a long line of great cars he has driven since the early days of his career.

These days Castellana actually has two cars. His Cajun nationals-winning eighth-mile car is the aforementioned Bickel-built first-gen Camaro, which features an automatic transmission and a 959-cubic-inch Sonny Leonard bullet with Speedtech nitrous. To date the car has turned in a best elapsed time of 3.75-seconds at 201 mph.

“We’re still working out a new transmission deal right now,” Castellana said in regards to the car’s performance potential. “It has an

automatic lock-up and as soon as we get everything the way we want it we feel it’s going to be extremely fast.”

The transmission Castellana is referring to is a Bruno/Lenco unit put together by fellow racer Todd Tutterow.

As for the other car, it’s also a ’69 Camaro that Castellana uses for quarter-mile competition, but that car will be replaced in the very near future by a new Corvette, also from the Bickel shop.

Castellana has been involved in fast doorslammer competition for years, kicking off his professional career with the IHRA just a few years after they introduced the Pro Modified class back in 1990. Things go back even farther than that, however, as he related.

“I got into racing through my older brother, who drag raced and would take me to the track with him,” Castellana said. “In those days they would allow the drivers to take a passenger in the car, and I would ride along as he went down the track. By the time I got to high school I had the bug, and started messing around with cars on my own. As time went on I did what I could to keep improving, keep going faster.

“Early on I did a little street racing but as things evolved and we got a little too fast for the streets I started racing at the track. I tried bracket racing for a short while, maybe two races, and I found out real fast that it wasn’t for me. From there I built a pro car and just kept going.

“That first car was a 1969 Camaro that Jerry Bickel built for me in 1992,” Castellana said. “At first I had a small block and an automatic in the car and did some match racing, but later I dropped in a big block and went the Pro Mod route with the IHRA. I didn’t do so well in the beginning, but I was out there having a good time and learning. Eventually I went to clutch cars and bigger motors and went from there.”

Castellana may not have had a lot of success in his earlier years but all of that would change when he teamed up with Alabama doorslammer legend Shannon Jenkins.

“Things turned around after Shannon and I got together and formed Awesome Motorsports,” Castellana said. “We started winning races, and he won two championships in one year – one in NHRA and one in IHRA. I won my first race in 2003 and went on to win the IHRA Pro Mod championship in 2005.

“A couple of years later we got the deal to race overseas with Al-Anabi and Sheik Khalid (Sheik Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar). That turned out great for us and we did very well. We won four Arabian Drag Racing League championships over there, the latest one just this past February.”

Castellana and Jenkins raced a limited PDRA schedule in 2014, but have committed to making their presence felt a lot more this season.

“We raced a bit with PDRA last season, but this year we’re putting in a stronger effort,” said Castellana when asked about his participation in the PDRA program. “I personally think it’s a great place to race. The owners are all racers and they are a great bunch of people. They treat you very well and I enjoy racing with them. Getting my first win at Shreveport was a really big deal, and one we hope we can repeat real soon.

“Racing is a big puzzle, and you have to put all the pieces together the right way,” said Castellana as he shared his personal recipe for success. “For me the first piece is Jerry Bickel and his cars, the next piece is Sonny Leonard and his engines, and then there’s Speedtech Nitrous. Without a doubt, though, the biggest piece of the puzzle for me is Shannon. He puts everything together and makes it work.

“I have to thank Western Beef, our family company that has been behind me all along, Al-Anabi Racing and Sheikh Khalid, who has supported us for the last eight years, Jerry Bickel, Sonny Leonard, Lucas Oil, VP Race Fuels, and Speedtech. I want to say that without the outstanding people behind the scenes at all of these companies we couldn’t do what we do. There are lots of talented and dedicated people involved with our racing program, people you never get to see, and that’s what makes us successful.”


Article by Brian Wood

ABOUT THE PDRA
Based in Pittsboro, North Carolina, the Professional Drag Racers Association is the top sanctioning body in the United States for the sport of eighth-mile drag racing. The PDRA’s professional categories include Pro Extreme, Pro Nitrous, Pro Boost, and Pro Extreme Motorcycle along with Top Sportsman, Top Dragster, Pro Jr. Dragster, and Top Jr. Dragster. The 2015 PDRA schedule consists of ten national events. For more on the world’s premier eighth mile drag racing organization visit www.pdra660.com. Follow the PDRA: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.


 Photo: Gary Rowe / RaceWorks.com / PDRA660.com


PRESS CONTACT: Lisa Collier
Professional Drag Racers Association
lisa@pdra660.com