10/23/2000
AFTER A HEARTBREAKING END IN 1999, CATALDO RECOVERS TO
WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP IN 2000...
by Tracy Chirico
Few fans
will forget the heartbreak experienced by Henry “The Phantom” Cataldo
when the Blunderbust points championship slipped away from him in the last
race of 1999, but Henry will long remember the feeling of accomplishment
that came with capturing the title in 2000.
According to Henry, he has always been an oval track race fan.
“That made me an outsider when I was a teenager,” Henry
commented. “I wasn’t into
ball sports or hockey, and I always had pictures from Hot
Rod magazine on the walls in my room.”
Like many teens, Henry took to racing on the streets, and he recalls
more than one instance of getting into trouble as a result.
It wasn’t until Henry went to work for Beato Fuel in 1987, however,
that he got involved in organized racing.
At the time, Beato Fuel sponsored a Top Fuel funny car, driven by
Bruce Larson. Although
Henry’s true love was always for oval track racing, he helped the team out
in 1988 and 1989. In 1989, they
won the Top Fuel funny car championship.
In 1990, though, the team folded.
Henry’s
own start in racing came in 1993 after he drove a friend to the auto parts
store, and, Henry comments, “he got out of the car and kissed the
ground.” Several days later,
the friend delivered Henry a 1974 Chevelle that would become Henry’s first
Enduro car. Henry ran a number
of Enduros at Riverhead. He
recalls that he never finished a race, but he always felt that he was doing
well. “I always seemed to
lose tires at the end,” he says. A
wreck in an Enduro in 1994 had a dramatic impact on the driver’s life.
As he recalls, the wreck occurred in turn 1 and it was so severe that
“I ripped the restraints right out of the floor and I shattered the side
of a full face helmet. By the
next day, I knew I was in trouble.” Henry
ended up being unable to move from the neck down and spent several weeks in
the hospital, where they ran a barrage of tests.
“Finally,” Henry says, “the doctor told me that there was fluid
around my spine and that it could be five years before I would walk normally
again. They said it could be a
year before I walked again at all. That’s
when I said, ‘Get my stuff and get me out of here.’”
Henry, whose wife was six months pregnant at the time, went home and
began the long road to recovery on his own.
He set personal goals each day to accomplish something different.
“I have to thank Beato Fuel for standing by me during those months
when I was out of work. They
were so good to me that, once I could walk again, they hired a person to
drive me around so that I could work.”
The wreck
did not damper Henry’s desire to drive, though, and in 1995 he purchased a
Blunderbust car from Chris LaSpisa. “I
called the track and got a list of every available number. Then I sat with a pen and went over every number.
There was just something about the number 9.
Some people think I’m a big Bill Elliott fan or something, but
that’s not why I chose that number,” Henry comments.
According to Henry, his team was completely unfamiliar with the
process of setting up a race car during the first season, but they always
had a nice appearing car. “We
skinned the car seven times during the first year,” Henry recalls.
The nickname “The Phantom” came as the result of the amount of
body work the team did to the car. As
Henry tells the story, “I wrecked on the backstretch during the consi...Parts
of the car went over the fence. A
kid even came up to me in the pits after the races and asked me to sign a
piece. We skinned the car and
came back out the next week. Someone
commented to me, ‘What are you, The Phantom?’
It just kind of stuck.”
Henry’s
meeting with Ron Langdon came at the end of the 1998 season, when Henry
borrowed a rear from fellow competitor (and 1998 Blunderbust points
champion) Ray Dominguez in order to run his car at Riverside Park.
According to Henry, “Ron kept looking at the car and then looking
at me. Then he looked under the
car again.” Henry and Ron
ended up getting together to build a car for the 1999 season, and the rest
is history. In 1999, Henry held
the points lead in the Blunderbust division from the second week of the
season until the last race, when Ed “Bubba” Zwickel gained the points
lead and the championship. “The
first year was a real learning curve,” notes Henry.
The crew at Langdon’s Automotive introduced Henry to concepts that
he was previously unfamiliar with. “I
have no one to blame for what happened in 1999 but myself,” say Henry.
“The last three weeks were bad for me.”
The
disappointment would not be repeated in 2000.
Henry stressed in his interview, “I’m not online, so I don’t
see all of the things that are said (on the popular Long Island Raceway
message board), but people do tell me about the things that are on there.
I just want to stress that my car is not a cheater.
My motor is built by Lars, and Ron has been working with race cars
since before he had a license. He’s really good with setup.”
Henry stresses that he prides himself on trying to run his fellow
competitors clean. “Sometimes
I make mistakes,” he says. “When
that happens, I try to get a hold of the person that I have wronged to
apologize and make it right. That’s
what makes this championship such an accomplishment.
I didn’t pound anyone to get it.”
Henry
credits the cam rule change made in the division in 2000 with making the
competition more fierce among the Blunderbust drivers.
“I noticed that the racing was much tighter,” he commented.
“It came down to setup.”
In
2000, Henry notes, his team changed significantly.
Crew chief Kenny moved to Florida, leaving the team without a crew
chief. “I thought Ray (who
the team fondly refers to as “8-Ton”) was the best at putting concepts
together and making sense of the numbers,” says Henry, so he was named
crew chief. Other members of the team include B.J., Nick, and Tara.
Nick and Tara, Henry notes, are both new additions to the team.
“Tara was my biggest fan,” notes Henry, “and Nick is at the
shop every night – until 2, 3, or 4 a.m. if I need him to be.
My team is intensely devoted.”
The team also consists of Ron Langdon (who, Henry notes, “makes it
out to the track when he can, and is very hands-on at the shop”) and
former driver Ray Dominguez, who often lends a hand.
Primary
sponsors for the #9 team include Beato Fuel and Langdon’s Automotive.
Other sponsors include Grandview Auto Body, The Cookie Factory
Outlet, and Dan Miller Snap-On Tools. New
to the team in 2000 was USA Durable Sales.
Henry does
not have any definite plans for 2001 yet.
“Earnestly,” he says, “I don’t know what I’ll be doing.
I will be out there in some capacity, but I don’t know that I would
run for the championship again. I
accomplished the goals that I set out to accomplish.
There are so many other good guys out there.
I wish everyone out there could win the championship to experience
that high.”
