“I owe it all to the top-quality fabrication of my car and to the safety equipment I use,” DeCerbo said. “I hit that wall at Rockingham at 180 miles an hour, and quite honestly I hardly felt a thing inside the car. We left the track Sunday and on Monday I was at work with no ill effects at all. Yes, I was very fortunate, because if you hit anything at 180 miles an hour you stand a good chance of serious injury. As I always say, that goes to show just how important top quality cars are and how necessary it is to have the best safety equipment you can buy. I have to say that all of the top chassis builders fabricate extremely safe cars these days, and that’s critical considering the fact that weights are coming down while speeds are going up.

“As you probably can tell by now, I am all into safety, and I will do whatever I can to make my car as safe as possible,” DeCerbo said as a way of underscoring the importance he places on making sure that he is doing everything possible to reduce the risk of being seriously injured in a crash. “I never complain about any sanctioning body safety requirements and I’m the first one to use the latest safety products. I believe you can’t scrimp when it comes to your health, and possibly your life.

“In addition to the outstanding car that I drive, which was built by Tim McAmis, I use a number of state-of-the-art safety components, including a HANS Device and a Racetech seat, which is like what they use in Formula 1.I was one of the first to have it in a Pro Mod car. It is like a poured-in seat, completely molded in one piece and it cradles your head and your whole body. Like I said, if it’s available then I have it. I will not cut corners where safety is concerned.”

Amazingly, DeCerbo’s Camaro wasn’t out of action for long, thanks to the hard work of a group of dedicated individuals.

“After the crash we stripped the car and took it to the McAmis shop in Missouri, where we discovered that the damage was minor,” said DeCerbo. “I know it looked really bad with the huge fireball and everything, but in fact at that point in the run most of the fuel is used up since we only carry a gallon and a half because of the weight. All that fire was the synthetic oil burning. A small line from the dry sump tank came loose and that’s what all the fire was from.

“The car was repaired and back in Ohio in a week and a half and me and my friends put it all back together. We worked real hard getting the car back to the track. I have a small crew and we really put in the hours so that we wouldn’t miss any races. Blake Housely, who also races Pro Mod and is a good friend, helped a lot, too. It just proves that there are a lot of good people in the sport who will help you when things need to be done.

“I don’t dwell on what happened, ”DeCerbo said. “The way I look at is if you do this stuff long enough you’re bound to experience some kind of mishap, and that was a big one for me. Thankfully the safety crew at Rockingham did a great job getting to me after the crash and thankfully we had a well-built car and all the right equipment.”

DeCerbo, 45, who races under the nickname of “Hitman,” lives with his wife Lisa in Canfield, Ohio, about halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. He owns DeCerbo Construction, a commercial construction company.

“I started racing while I was still in high school,” DeCerbo recalled. “I was 15 or 16 years old at the time. On the weekends some of my friends and I raced street cars at Quaker City, which was our local track. It was mainly at test and tune sessions, though, and since they didn’t really have a points program for us to race in we got tired of just running down the track all the time. Eventually, we started racing in Top Sportsman at Norwalk and the biggest event of the season for us was the IHRA World Nationals. It was a big deal for us at the time.

“I eventually left racing when I started DeCerbo Construction,” DeCerbo said. “The business took off really well and because of that I didn’t get back in a race car until years later. In 2000 I had Tim McAmis build me a new car so that I could get back into action. Tim is a personal friend of mine, and he has been building my cars for nearly fifteen years now. I really enjoy the process of building a car because I am very particular and detail oriented and I know that Tim will build just exactly what I want. As time went by we just kept getting faster as the motors got bigger and the cars got better and lighter.
“We eventually started running Pro Nitrous with the ADRL and now we’re running Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous with the PDRA. My latest car, which is sponsored by DeCerbo Construction, is a 1969 Camaro with an 855-cubic inch Reher-Morrison engine and a Switzer Dynamics nitrous system. We use a Rossler transmission and a converter that we make ourselves.
“At the first PDRA event at Rockingham we qualified sixth with a 3.86 and went out in the second round to Tommy Franklin. It was a real close race - he ran 3.79 and we ran 3.81.

“I really think the PDRA is going to be a great organization to race with,” DeCerbo said. “The confusion we saw the last couple of years with different sanctioning bodies is totally gone now, and the PDRA is on a solid foundation. Jason and Mitchell Scruggs are racers and good, hard-working people and there’s no other place I would rather be than this series right now. The first event at Rockingham went great. It was very well organized and I was really impressed with it, especially with it being a new organization’s first race. It was a family-oriented event and everyone had a fantastic time. I just want to thank all the PDRA owners and the track owners for giving us a safe place to race, because safety always has to come first.”

Photo Credit: Gary Rowe / RaceWorks.com