FEATURE- From the Tower by Bob Frey

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Fri, 1 Oct 2010, 05:58 PM

From The Tour in '94 to The Win in '10

By Bob Frey
Photo copyright 2010 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Steve Benoit with his three "Wallys"

As my role as an NHRA national event announcer and writer for DragRaceCentral.com I often get asked questions, trivia questions that sometimes have no answer. Like when did the first rear-engine car run, or who had the first aluminum engine in a car, or where did the term "drag racing" come from. Others, like who won the first NHRA national event, or who did John Force beat to get his first national event win are a little easier to answer. So is the one about when did the first "Wally" get awarded? The "Wally," for those who don't know, is the name of the trophy that is given to the winners of every NHRA national event. Every national event, that is, since the U.S. Nationals in 1969 when Don Prudhomme was presented with the very first "Wally." Of course back then it wasn't called a "Wally," that term didn't come into existence until a few years ago. Anyway, the "Snake" did get the first gold statue and it's been presented to every national event winner since then and that's a lot of trophies. Of course there is one exception and that's races that are celebrating their 25th anniversary, like the recently completed O'Reilly Fall Nationals in Dallas. At those races special silver "Wallys" are presented, since silver represents the 25th anniversary. So all the winners in Dallas got very special 25th anniversary silver trophies. And while that may have been special to most of the winners it was normal for one winner. You see, Steve Benoit, who won the Top Sportsman category, has won three races in his career and they have all been silver anniversary races. "I won the 25th Gatornationals and the 25th Englishtown event," he said after the race. "I have three national event wins and no gold 'Wallys.' What are the odds?" That's my line, Steve, but you're right. For one guy to win three races and have them all be silver anniversary events is, well, almost unheard of.

Benoit in his '65 Belvedere.
Steve Benoit has been racing for a long time and most of the time he has done it with his son, Steven Jr., who he calls "Stevie." But before the second-generation racer came along, dad raced some very successful and some very exotic cars. "My father was really big into stock car racing," Steve said. "But he knew that I was into the drag cars so he bought me a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere and I raced that. Think about it, the very first car I raced was a Hemi-car. It ran in the high eleven-second bracket and it was a lot of fun." From there, like so many before him, Steve decided to step up in class and he bought a B/MP Dodge Challenger. "I bought the entire operation, truck, trailer, car, engines and the whole lot. I ran the car in B/MP and it went 9.91 and it was a lot of fun." After racing that car for a while Steve made his first venture into the Competition Eliminator class. "I got a D/MP Corvette that had a 305 cubic-inch engine and a five-speed transmission. I was very competitive and I thought I was pretty good. That is, until I ran into Mike Edwards at Green Valley Raceway and he clobbered me. I want to tell you, he was really good."

Edwards vs. Benoit at Green Valley Raceway
A series of cars followed that and Steve eventually found himself racing a dragster, or more correctly, lots of dragsters. "I bought another car but I told the guy I didn't want the engine, I wanted to do my own." The end result was a screaming little 305 cubic-inch engine that set both ends of the national record back in 1985. Steve raced four cylinder, six-cylinder and eight-cylinder dragsters and he had a great deal of success with all of them. "I don't want to brag but I think I may be the only guy ever to set national records with a four, a six and an eight-cylinder car," he said. One of his cars, a slick little number that had a full canopy on it, was one of the hottest and most radical cars of its time. "We called it the 'V-6 Streamliner' and I even got comments on it from Don Garlits. We had the small wheels on the front, the fully enclosed cockpit and it was very fast." That car also won two Best Engineered awards, one when it was a 4-cylinder and one when it ran with the V-6 combo.

Stevie with his go kart.
While Steve's father liked stock cars and oval tracks and he liked drag racing, his son, Stevie, had another passion. "He loved racing go karts and he was good, very good." The two traveled all over the country for years racing at national championship events and the younger Benoit excelled at the sport. "We ran Daytona, Santa Maria, California and everywhere in between. I got to spend a lot of time with him and that was the best part of it." The two still travel together and Stevie may be the next Benoit to hit the racing scene. "I bought him a SS/CS car and a SS/BS car and he liked it so I'm going to build another car for him. My brother, Luke, is building one, too, so if all goes well there will be three of us racing next year."

Benoit celebrates Gainesville win.
Steve's best year of racing had to be 1994, a year that he and Stevie went on tour. "We set out to race as much as we could and we took the dragster all over the place." Two of the places they hit were Gainesville and Englishtown, two tracks that just happened to be celebrating their 25th anniversary. "I had formed a nice relationship with Ed Weddle on the West Coast and he helped me a lot with the chassis on the car, and Bill Maropulos and I used to talk all the time. He was the best and I wanted to learn from him and we became good friends." When Steve took the car to the Gatornationals in '94 he won the race, beating Wayne Henderson in the final round. And when he went to Englishtown history repeated itself and Steve won that silver anniversary race as well, and this time he beat Steve Johns in the final round. That's two races, two wins and two silver trophies.

Benoit at '94 Gainesville.
After the tour the team raced locally but didn't hit the national scene again until this year. Steve was busy running his two businesses, Rocket Engine Services, a company that re-manufactures engines, and Rocket Performance Machine (RPM), a company that does high-performance work. "We do big motors, nitrous engines and things like that. Stevie works with me and it's usually about an eighteen hour day." A lot of Steve's knowledge about engines came from the time he worked with David Nickens on the Mopar Pro Stock cars. "That was a real learning experience,' he said. "Those things are so labor intensive. I was working on the dyno and I can't tell you how much stuff I blew up." Good thing it wasn't your stuff, Steve.

Benoit celebrates Englishtown win.
When Steve heard about the Top Sportsman program he knew he wanted to be a part of it. "It's a great class and it let's the little guy run right there with the teams with a lot of money. You can go fast and be creative." The car that Steve won with in Texas used to belong to Clark Smiley, the runner-up in Comp at the Motorplex. "He had crashed the car in Houston and I literally bought it before he stopped spinning." After fixing it up and getting it updated Steve said the car has a little bit of Pro Stock and little bit of Pro Mod in it. It's a Todd Bevis car and I took it to Vic Custer to have it fixed. Vic and I are good friends and he does a great job on all the cars he builds or works on. Then Steve Johnson at Induction Solutions did the nitrous on it and we took it out and ran a bunch of eighth-mile races. We really hadn't done any quarter-mile racing until we got to Dallas." Steve was actually a late entry into the Dallas show. "We entered on Monday, at the last minute, and I told everyone that since this was a silver anniversary race that I was going to win it. I had the winner's circle pictures from the other two anniversary races taped to my dashboard and I looked at them every time I ran. I know I was going to win, I just knew it. Stevie couldn't believe it when we won and he was so excited he was crying."

Benoit celebrates Dallas win.
The fifty-four year old Benoit admits to having a very good life. "You hear people talk about what's on their bucket list, well I'm living mine. I'm a licensed pilot, I scuba dive, hunt, fish and get to spend time with my son. What more could a guy ask for?" About the only thing I could think of might be a gold "Wally." They do make them, Steve, even if you haven't seen one.yet.

"I want to thank Forrest and Charlotte Lucas because they're friends of all the sportsman racers." Steve added special thanks to Goodyear for all of their help and support over the years, Dave Farwell his current engineer and Jerry from Carter-Maxwell. "Without Goodyear no one could go as fast as we do and we all do it safely." Also thanks to Stevie's mother, Debbie. "For year's she literally worked side-by-side with me on the engines. She even drove the rig to the track and allowed me to sleep after working all night on the dyno." And, finally, he says he couldn't do any of this without Stevie. "His tireless dedication to our racing effort is something that can't be taught. It's great as a father to say that my son is my best friend."