DiBartolomeo also served as editor of Drag Racing Action and Drag Racing Edge magazines.
- John DiBartolomeo served as editor of Drag Racing Action and Drag Racing Edge magazines.
- The versatile drag racer not only competed and fielded a couple of entries, but he also was a parts manufacturer and distributor.
During the PRI Show week at Indianapolis, probably a dozen years ago, John DiBartolomeo was attending a dinner with a massive tableful of friends at an upscale downtown restaurant.
Amid all the clamor of happy chatter that rose from a wide scope of diners having their own conversations, DiBartolomeo had his table’s rapt attention. The editor of Drag Racing Action had his chair pushed back, and he was sitting on the edge of it, his left foot raised high in the air about table-height and his right foot pantomiming trying to hang onto an imaginary rope. With his hearty laugh nearly keeping him from getting the words out of his mouth in his native-Bronx accent, he was demonstrating maneuvers he had to make during some sort of recent boat ride.
After the dinner, one of his staffers said, rather forlornly, “I wish I could be a great storyteller like John D.”
Few are. John DiBartolomeo had the knack for making a simple story the grandest adventure you wish you had been on with him. And with his death Sunday at age 68 following a battle with pancreatic cancer, those rollicking stories have become treasured memories.
DiBartolomeo, of Beaver Springs, Pa., leaves behind wife Dottie and children Franklin and Christina.
As skilled a raconteur as he was, DiBartolomeo was much more. He was an innovator, manufacturer, parts distributor, owner of DRC Race Products, and winner of six NHRA national sportsman-class events, dating back to the early 1990s.
His most recent victories came in back-to-back triumphs in 2018 and 2019, at Norwalk, Ohio. At now-defunct Old Bridge Township Raceway Park at Englishtown, N.J.—a dragstrip he considered his “home track”—he won in 2009. Son Franklin DiBartolomeo had won that event two years before, and Dad said, “It marked only a small number of times when a father and son had national-event victories to their credit.”
John DiBartolomeo had Wally trophies also from NHRA wins at Gainesville, Fla.; Indianapolis; and Reading, Pa.
What distinguished DiBartolomeo from other racers, or even parts manufacturers or drag-racing journalists, was his status as an influencer, or social commentator. He always had his finger on the pulse of all phases of the drag-racing community (including non-NHRA-sanctioned programs and series). He continually expressed concern for the future of the sport, worked to improve communication between sportsman-level racers and the sanctioning body, and served as an ambassador for the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series across the country. He even took to the microphone occasionally at Beaver Springs Dragway, the Northeastern Pennsylvania racetrack that was within earshot of his home.
Perhaps FOX play-by-play announcer Brian Lohnes said it best in his Facebook tribute to DiBartolomeo:
“Almost as quickly as my eyes open and that proverbial trans-brake button gets released in my mind, I’m sub-one-second 60-foot going at it. I don’t know how to stop it. And I’m not sure I want to,” DiBartolomeo said.
Cancer stopped it – the same day the NHRA also lost well-respected and longtime announcer Dave McClelland.
After his diagnosis, DiBartolomeo said, “Early detection is important. It still bothers me that years ago, the NHRA dropped the requirement of a medical exam for certain competition licenses. I know numerous people who have been diagnosed with a problem because they were ‘forced’ to have a medical exam. Get checked. Please. You have no idea what may be lurking in your body. It’s no different than let’s say, cutting open an oil filter to get a glimpse in an engine.”
But his sense of curiosity, fun, and storytelling will live on.
During a race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, DiBartolomeo shared a conversation he had with his wife, who was at home that weekend but loved to gamble. He said she called him just as he happened to be heading into his room at one of the casinos on the non-racing Strip. She urged him to go back downstairs and put just one quarter in a slot machine for her. He said no.
She kept after him, and he finally told her, “I don’t have to. They have those kinds of machines in your room here.” She was astonished – and skeptical. He said to prove his point he told her, “Here, listen to this.” DiBartolomeo said, “I walked over to the toilet and flushed it. I said, ‘There – it does the same thing.’”
And that was John DiBartolomeo’s common sense rising above it all.
Keyword: Drag Racing Team Owner/Driver, Journalist, Parts Manufacturer John DiBartolomeo Dies at 68