Drag racing is a sport not just won on the track.
It is not just won in the pit area or back home at the shop. Success in drag racing starts behind closed doors with handshakes, signed agreements, and mutual understanding.
The fact of the matter is the best racers in the world don’t get where they are on skill alone. It takes savvy marketing men and women, successful public relations and relationships with the right people and businesses to turn driver skill into actual round wins.
Paul Lee knows that fact perhaps better than most.
A longtime racer and savvy businessman himself, who owns his own Paul Lee Racing operation alongside a trio of companies under the Wharton Automotive Group, which includes McLeod Racing, FTI Performance and Silver Sport Transmissions, Lee knows that to take his operation
to the next level, he needs the right people by his side.
“I am passionate for this sport,” a confident Lee said. “I’ve loved it since I was a little kid and I am still that little kid today almost 50 years later. This has not been an overnight thing. I’ve been working toward this since I was 13 years old. The lifetime commitment that I’ve made to doing what we are doing is something I am proud of, but I hope for more and that is what we are out here doing now.”
Lee recently paired with industry executive Steven Cole and added savvy marketing person, Top Fuel driver and team owner Krista Baldwin to the Paul Lee Racing team. Baldwin, who not only drives the McLeod-sponsored dragster, but is also the Creative Director for the Wharton Automotive Group, helps take this race team from a single-car operation to a hopeful megateam in the making. Lee hopes marketing a pair of cars from each of the premier nitro categories within the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series is the next step in the team’s progression.
