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"Hugo Herz, my great, great grandfather, founded the Fel-Pro Gasket Company in 1918," he recalled. "He originally worked at Western Felt in Chicago where they made horse blankets, horse and buggy kind of stuff. You know that not everybody had cars then and there were still a lot of people who went places by horseback. "But basically what happened was that Henry Ford came into Western Felt and wanted someone to make gaskets for his Ford Model-T cars and that led to the company setting up my grandfather in the gasket business. He stamped out gaskets for Ford and that was the beginning of Fel-Pro. "In 1998 when my father Ken, sold Fel-Pro to Federal-Mogul, we had 70-percent market penetration."
At about the same time, Lehman's dad had acquired TCI transmissions, a company that sponsored IHRA Sportsman racer Clay Millican. The Drummonds, Tenn., driver, happened to be making an appearance at the Fel-Pro headquarters in Skokie, Ill., and the two got together socially. "We hit it off pretty good," Lehman said. "We flew to Memphis that weekend and I immediately got hooked on him, the sport, and the subculture. I decided to write my term paper on his exploits. "In October, we drove all night from Chicago to an IHRA race in Darlington, yakking all the way. He won that race and it was at that point that I recognized Clay as a talented driver who just needed an opportunity, and for myself, I decided I wanted to get involved in racing. I knew we were going to sell Fel-Pro and knew that we could, at the very least, come up with a presentable team and field a performing race car. So far, we've surpassed my expectations for the team and I feel that we can give the other teams a run for their money towards the IHRA title." The inevitable question comes up - when will the stealthsponsor.com/"Top Secret" gang step up to NHRA competition? Lehman doesn't see that such a move is necessarily a step up or that big a deal currently. "I don't see IHRA as some sort of training ground for our team," he said. "They offer a strong $200,000 purse at year's end, just like everyone else, and I genuinely like the organization. When we came aboard, they held our hand, so to speak, and helped us out in a lot of key areas. For the time being, I don't see us going anywhere else. Also, in regards to our as yet unnamed sponsor, IHRA's program matches up very well with the company's marketing goals. One of the company guys was at the IHRA meet in Canada and really liked it." So for the time being, the stealthsponsor.com/"Top Secret" fueler will be an IHRA fixture - which, of late, can be found in the winner's circle. |
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Copyright 1999-2001, Drag Racing Online and Racing Net Source |
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While "genetically," there may have been some rough automotive pre-determination
for Lehman, his actual entry into drag racing came through college,
of all things. In his senior year at Northwestern, a professor assigned
him to write a non-ficition narrative as a class project.