Top Fuel and Pro Stock Bike --- Anthony Vanetti does them both!

By Dale Wilson
Photos by Jeff Burk
6/23/05

ro Stock Bike and Top Fuel racing don’t mix. Oh, yeah? Tell that to Anthony Vanetti.

Vanetti's the guy who after each pass of Dixon's dragster can be found back in the pits, lying flat on his back changing out nitro-hot rods and pistons and getting them ready for the next round. “I do all the bottom end work, and I’m the short block assistant, motor assembly,” he says. “When it’s a thrash, I’m there. I service all the pistons and rods and mount and balance all the rear tires. I’m pretty busy. I’m thrashing all the time.”

Vanetti may be the bottom-end man on Larry Dixon’s fueler, but his heart is racing on two wheels. Two fast wheels, as in Pro Stock Motorcycle. Just last month, Vanetti qualified at a 8th in the field Pro Star motorcycle race at Gateway International near St. Louis and went out in the second round and ran a best of 7.38 on friend Gary Tonglet’s Suzuki.

Born and bred in Loyalton, in northern California, Vanetti got linked up with Prudhomme, LaHaie and Dixon through his cousin, Brian Vanetti, who worked with fuel Funny Car pilot Ron Capps and the Copenhagen car. Brian knew that there was an entry-level position in 2001 on Dixon’s car, and Anthony had always wanted to race the big time, “every form of motorsports,” he said. “I was working construction and racing motocross at the time, pretty competitively, just a step below pro. My cousin gave me a call and asked if I wanted to try something new.” He went to the 2001 NHRA Sonoma race and was hired on the spot. He soon moved to Indianapolis.

But it's Vanetti's dream not to race a fueler, but to follow the NHRA Pro Stock circuit some day. Dixon et. al. are okay with that. Otherwise, Vanetti says, he would have been gone long ago. They are behind him 100 percent.

“It’s the greatest opportunity I’ve ever been given in my life. It has opened the doors to so many other things that I can do in life. I’m just marching on to accomplish my dream that I’ve had since I was a little tyke,” he says. “And that dream is to race a Pro Stock Bike. But when I’m with the Top Fuel car, all my concentration is on winning an NHRA championship with them.”