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The Chris Applegate Story

by Barbara Intelisano
3/9/04

ome passions are just impossible to let go of. Such was the case for my husband, Len, and his passion for drag racing. It had been many years since Len participated in the sport, but a few years ago, a couple of friends nudged him into building a car, "just for fun".

Well, one thing led to another and before you knew it, he had an order in for a one-of-a-kind Jerry Bickel-built Super Stocker, but that is a whole other story.

Len figured that he was past his prime with his driving skills, so he looked for a young, talented driver for this new and exciting car. One young star got tired of waiting for the car to be completed and approved by NHRA for competition. Another had talent, but just not enough driving experience, so it was decided that Len needed to get his license back if this car was ever going to get down the track.

Len signed up for Doug Foley's Drag Racing School and that is how we came to be at Atco that lucky weekend of June 24, 2003.

We had put in a very hot, very busy day with John DeBartolomeo, the instructor, and had just sat down for dinner, when Tom Hart, a friend, pointed out this young girl who was changing from street tires to racing tires on an '87 Mustang. What caught Tom's eye was the skill and confidence with which she wielded that lug wrench. She really knew what she was doing, and Len and Tom figured she was wrenching for her boyfriend or husband. (How's that for chauvinism?) Their curiosity got the better of them and they went to see if the Mustang was an automatic or a stick shift; it was a stick.

Our new car was a stick, and we had learned over the years that drivers with the skill to drive one well in competition were few and far between. Tom Hart talked to several of the officials at Atco Raceway regarding Chris's reputation in the bracket racing arena and was pleased to hear she was highly regarded both as a person and as a competitor.

The guys were actually a little intimidated by her as she was a regular competitor and quite often a winner at the track. Her dream was to become a professional in Motorsports. Shirley Muldowney, the Top Fuel driver, was her inspiration. Chris's dream was to compete in Top Fuel.

I was standing next to her when Len asked if she would be interested in taking our car down the track. I could see that she was scared and nervous and excited all at the same time, but she never missed a beat and said, "Are you serious? Sure!"

That evening we only had the opportunity to make one pass down the track, but Chris did such a great job that we made arrangements to meet at Lebanon Valley, NY the following weekend.

Over the weekend at Lebanon, we got our first glimpse of Chris's attitude. She asked us if she didn't measure up to our expectations for the driving position, could she still be on the team in another capacity.

Every time Chris buckled up, she drove the car faster and faster at every meet we went to. We entered every divisional meet we could drive to from Lebanon Valley, NY to Cleves, OH and from Bristol, TN to Englishtown NJ, with Numedia PA and Atco, NJ in between. Chris needed to get seat time and to accumulate the required points she would need to enter the car in NHRA National events and in particular to race at Indianapolis in the fall of 2003. Chris always drove well and she qualified in the upper half of the field and occasionally even in the upper 25 percent. This accomplishment alone is one that drivers with many more years of experience could only dream about doing.

It was a learning curve for both Len and Chris, so there were times that Len dialed her in too slow and Chris would run too fast and break out, but they usually had the opportunity to win a couple of rounds. As a driver, her focus was amazing to watch. In the very beginning, she would sit either in a chair, our golf cart or in the car and just practice "making a pass" over and over again so that when she was in the car, the motions would become second nature and so routine that she would not have to think about what she needed to do when she got to the starting line. Chris would talk herself through each step. Nobody told her to do that ... she just did it on her own. Chris was gobbling up the information that Len and our friend, Jere Stahl, a former National Champion, gave her to learn and kept asking for more.

Len had built a full size simulator in his shop that had the same driving configuration as the Cavalier. The simulator was connected to a full size Porta-Tree Christmas tree. One weekend, Chris drove up from New Jersey and picked up the simulator and the tree so she could practice at home to improve even further her already excellent reaction times.

Applegate keeping the Cavalier clean.

Chris was a delight to travel with and to work with. She was never a "princess" and pitched in to help clean the car and to adjust whatever when the car needed changing. She always was the first to lend a hand when it came to setting up at the beginning of a meet and the last to leave when breaking down and packing up at the end of the day.

Chris even helped cook when the need arose, although, by her own admission, she is a better driver than she is a cook! But that was okay, too; not everyone has the talent to drive a car like Chris could.

In such a very short time we considered each other family and it is difficult to believe that we were only together for such a short period of time. It seemed like we had known Chris forever and she was a member of our family. We jokingly adopted "Girl Power" as our unofficial slogan, and to this day our 4-year-old granddaughter, Emily, uses it with great regularity, and informs those who will listen that when she grows up, she is going to be a race car driver, just like Chris.

Applegate and a fan, my granddaughter, Emily

In her short career with us, Chris was already building quite the fan club. For such a young woman, she was always polite, poised and gracious to those who came to ask for her autograph or to admire and ask about the car. Chris made time to talk to everyone because she felt that everyone was important, no matter what his or her questions were. We even had one fan who wanted to trade his "secret" chili recipe for a Stahl Engineering T-shirt, and even though we were done for the day, Chris climbed into the nose of the packed gooseneck trailer and dug out a shirt for him. However, she graciously passed on taking his chili recipe.

On September 16, 2003, the Tuesday before Chris was to fly out and meet us at the racetrack in Chicago, she was hit by a drunk driver who was traveling at almost 100 mph. Chris was in her beloved Mustang that we first saw her racing at Atco. As of today, Chris remains in a coma, and we can only pray that she will come back to us one day soon.