Donnie Bender is one of the guys that gets a lot of respect tin the nitro pits of NHRA drag racing. He has been around the sport a very long time, has worked for and tuned on some of the most famous cars and teams the sport has seen, and he’s still a guy who plays an integral part of the show, now for Paul Lee’s funny car team. At the track he can usually be found in or around and engine, making sure the crew is getting the work done right and also working to make tuning calls on the car he’s working on. These days he has been holed up at home like the rest of us, but Donnie Bender has an ace up his sleeve that we certainly didn’t know about.
He’s turned his suburban garage into a bad ass little machine shop!
This small space is packed pretty tight with the parts and tools one needs to get the job done with the main shop is closed. This is not something he did last week, Bender has had this operation for a while and does work for teams in varying capacities in terms of machine work. He can fix parts, machine manifolds, and keep the team’s parts inventory on track right from home. How awesome is that?!
People wonder what drag racing will look like after this whole mess is over. I know one thing. The sport is filled with the most awesome, brilliant, resilient, and smart people I have ever known. Stories like this prove to me that no matte what happens, drag racing and drag racers figure out a way to get it done. Fun stuff here and we want this little garage shop!
This guy is a genius.