Do not take him with you if you want to win money at the casinos. 

The Top Fuel racer hasn't had the best of luck since he earned his license in March of 1997. If only he could shake this string of catastrophes, Lagana -- who was the winner on TV's cheesy "Eliminate" program in November 2002 -- might be drag racing's hottest sensation. 

So he isn't faster than a speeding bullet -- but he did record a career-best elapsed time of 4.65 seconds on the Rockingham Dragway quarter-mile last November on the way to a semifinal finish in the IHRA finale. That's a major accomplishment for the grossly under funded but overeager Twilight Zone team competing at both NHRA and IHRA events.  

Is Lagana more powerful than a locomotive? Well, not exactly, but if power means commanding the respect of your peers for your perseverance, then . . . sure, he's powerful.

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Click to visit our sponsor's website

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? C'mon. But the Scarsdale, N.Y., driver has been able to leap lots of hurdles just to make it to the race track.  

On the Top Fuel racer's website is a photo of Lagana in Superman garb. Oh, he's handsome enough, with his thick, wavy hair, his artfully chiseled face, those rich Italian features, and that charming smile to be Superman. Those who know him would have to say he's compassionate and brave enough, too, to spring from a telephone booth and battle for truth, justice, and the American way. 

However, with Lagana's track record, he'd be more likely to crash through the booth's malfunctioning door, cut himself on the jagged glass and require stitches in the emergency room. 

Don't laugh. He has been there before. Probably the most disastrous time was July 11, 1998, when the throttle on his dragster hung open, sending the car sailing off the end of the track after a run clocked at 233.64 miles an hour in the opening round of qualifying for the IHRA CARQUEST Empire Nationals at New York International Raceway Park in Leicester, N.Y. 

Lagana was transported to a hospital in Rochester, where doctors tried feverishly to re-attach three of his fingers and mend his broken right ankle. He lost one finger on his right hand. 

But he returned to the track, continuing to carry his dragster on the 1969 Ford ramp truck that had hauled dad Bobby Sr.'s "Twilight Zone" nitro Funny Car for nearly a quarter-century. A dinosaur among the fancy Featherlites, the ramp truck couldn't protect the dragster from the elements. The car's tires, rear wing, nose, and even cockpit would get a thorough washing if he drove in a rainstorm on the way to a race track or home (and all fans know it never rains near a dragstrip) 

Finally Lagana got a dually, a 1985 Ford F-350, along with a 42-foot Gold Rush trailer, last year. The team had joined the 20th Century -- never mind that it was the 21st already. They were going to travel at least a little more in style for 2004, the campaign he called his "All or Nothing Tour." 

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Click to visit our sponsor's website

It was the finest of his career. He finished fourth in IHRA points and even raised some eyebrows when he defeated favored Brandon Bernstein in the first round of the NHRA race at Englishtown, N.J. He improved his career-best E.T. five times and raised his personal speed marks on four occasions. He qualified at 10 of the 12 IHRA races and started second at Epping, N.H. Lagana was hot in the second half of the season, qualifying at all six races and in the top half of the field at five of them en route to one runner-up and two semifinal performances.    

Lagana was hot. Unfortunately, so was his truck. It burned completely this spring, just before he left to go to San Antonio last month for the IHRA season-opener. 

"It took us so long to get this truck and we depended on it so much. Now it's gone and we aren't sure what happened to start the fire," he said. "But we lost everything -- my clothes, my digital camera, my paperwork, everything. The only thing left is a Care Bear, and it needs a skin graft." 

Lance Larsen, team manager and co-crew chief for driver Clay Millican, bought him a new wardrobe. And Lagana received 75 phone calls and 35 e-mails from friends and strangers alike, offering to help him with a replacement truck. He made it to Texas in a loaner from Top Dragster's Don "Gio" Giovannone, of Warren, Ohio. He went about 1,600 miles just to experience some more misfortune. 

High winds reduced Top Fuel qualifying to only two sessions, and Lagana needed that last one Saturday morning to make the Texas Nationals field. His car performed fine through the burnout, and as he staged he saw Paul Athey in the other lane, continuing after his burnout. Lagana was pulled off the starting line and given another chance to qualify an hour later. But by that time, the track temperature was 14 degrees higher, messing with his set-up. Not only did he not qualify, but he also blew up his engine on the run. 

In the meantime, he had become the beneficiary of buddy Brady Kalivoda's sudden and mysterious dismissal as driver of Bill Miller's BME/Okuma America Dragster on the NHRA tour.  

Lagana said he is convinced that one day he is "going to get a phone call that will make me drop to the floor. I just feel it" but added, "maybe I lead a fantasy life, I don’t know. Maybe I'm delusional." 

Miller called, and, Lagana said, "I almost fell over in my chair. That was a huge call." He said it is "a great honor" for himself, crew chief Jay Lewis, and his family. But he knew Miller, bought his pistons and connecting rods. Miller knew him well, too. "Bill didn't just pick my name out of a hat," Lagana said. 

Miller said he chose Lagana "because he understands what it takes for an independent team to be competitive in the NHRA Powerade Drag Racing Series. He comes to the team with high recommendations from people I respect. We expect his years of racing experience to enhance our performance." That, Lagana said, paid respect to his team's  doggedness in dismissing disappointment to improve from ninth- and 10th-place finishes in IHRA from 1999-2002 to fifth in 2003 and fourth last season. "It should be a great fit with two independent racers teaming up to take on the world," Lagana said.  

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Click to visit our sponsor's website

So he went to Houston to race Miller's dragster among NHRA Powerade Series' high-profile racers. Then another fluke occurrence sidelined him.  

In Friday night qualifying at Baytown, Texas, he turned in a 5.512-second pass in the right lane with T.J. Zizzo in the left. Lagana's car lost its brakes at half-track and unknown to him at the time, he had blown a head gasket. A flash of fire darted from the motor at the end. About 400 feet into the shutdown area, he had to maneuver that brakeless car to a halt.  

A track worker reportedly gave Zizzo the signal that it was OK to turn off the track. Lagana tried to avoid hitting Zizzo by aiming between his car and the wall. But he crunched Zizzo's front wing and hit the guard rail, wadding up the front end of the BME Dragster badly enough to knock him from competition and warrant another trip for the car to builder Don Long's Gardena, Calif., shop. "It was the sickest thing," Lagana said.   

They'll try again this month at Topeka. It will be the first of 11 dates Lagana has scheduled with Miller's dragster.  

In the meantime, IHRA competitor Doug Foley loaned Lagana his truck so he could make it to Rockingham for the second race on the Hooters Series calendar.  

"If you're a die-hard racer and you don't like Bobby Lagana, there's something wrong with you," Foley said. "He races from the heart." 

Peter Lehman, the young Chicago businessman who owns Millican's operation, said, "I get as much pleasure out of watching Bobby succeed as I do anyone else. We still want to win as much as possible, but there are certain individuals you want to help.  

"Take a guy like Bobby Lagana. He and his family have been drag racing for 30 to 40 years and they have more or less done it as independents the entire time. Their level of resources, compared to our level of resources, is very small," he said. "But they are a group of guys who really want to do this badly, who want to learn and who are going to take whatever you are going to give to them and run with it as long as they can. He and his crew chief, Jay, have learned so much from Mike (Kloeber) about running the car.

"These guys," Lehman said, "now run in the 4.60s at well over 300 mph with some regularity. They are now a serious threat. Bobby finished fourth in the points last year. For a guy who up until last year didn't have a trailer, for him to take a lot of our used parts and some of our coaching and run with it as far as he has is gratifying for us and for him."  

Even drag racing legend Don Garlits has remarked, "Every time I see Bobby Lagana racing Top Fuel, I'm amazed at how much he can do with so little." 

Lagana has said a hundred times how grateful he is for everyone's support. "All the people I've dragged into this, it has cost them to know me."  

Carolyn Creech, a secretary from North Augusta, S.C., and a drag-racing fan, showed up in Rockingham with a replacement Care Bear like Lagana had lost in his truck fire. He tied it to a wing strut for good luck before his final qualifying chance and was No. 3 in the eight-car field. Just making the race felt as triumphant as winning. 

"I won the race. To me, I won the race," he said, not knowing at that time if he even had spare parts, if needed, to come back for eliminations the next day. "We're doing it old-school: one motor, one set of pistons, one set of heads." He knew he couldn't afford to buy anything. He said he had just $300 in his bank account: "It's sad, but it's not a joke." 

He said, "I would have had to go get a regular job to pay off the bills. I'm not afraid to go to work . . .  but my biggest fear in life is that I couldn't race. That would be like my life being taken away from me. This is where I absolutely want to be. I would be devastated if I couldn't race. I would lock myself in my room for about a week." 

He said he knows people wonder about him, especially his neighbors. He's pretty sure real-estate brokers aren't nuts about him. "We're the de-valuers of the block. If a home is listed for $650,000, people will say, 'who lives in that house that needs a good painting?! I'll give you $600,000.' " 

But he's in love with racing, and that's what gets all his attention. If he does it "old-school," that's dandy with him. "I almost wish we could race back in the '60s," Lagana, 27, said. "I tell people I'm an old-timer in a young guy's body." 

If he does it the high-budget way someday, that's fine with him, too. Either way, he said he has a speech planned out for when he accepts a championship check. But he said he wasn't quite sure how he would react to his first event victory. 

"I might just pass out," he said.