Dinner one recent Saturday night consisted of many surprises. Because it was in the seafood-rich Northwest, all of the offerings were once denizens of the deep.
The choices were a grilled Australian lobster tail, roasted rosemary salmon, grilled chili-mustard salmon, seared-chili scallops, pan-seared tiger prawns and a mixed seafood pasta.
This was accompanied by a mixed sauté of organic vegetables consisting of cauliflower, broccoli, French carrots, fingerling potatoes, asparagus, sugar snap peas and heirloom tomatoes.
The bread was herb-rosemary focaccia, and there were six different varieties of wine to choose from.
Dessert was cheesecake covered with a mixed berry sauce. The cheesecake came from Seattle's Devonshire Bakery, while the berry sauce, as well as the rest of the meal, was prepared on site.
Was this repast offered by some trendy new bistro? No, it was being served in the hospitality area of Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) at the recent CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at Pacific Raceways in Kent.
The Kent stop was the 14th of 23 events in the $50-million NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, and DSR is the largest team in NHRA history, with nine racing vehicles.
They're led by the United States Army Top Fuel Dragster driven by Tony Schumacher and the Skull Gear/Torco Race Fuels Top Fuel Dragster with Melanie Troxel at the wheel. Next come the three nitromethane-powered Funny Cars of Gary Scelzi in the Mopar/Oakley Dodge Stratus, Whit Bazemore in the Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge Stratus and Ron Capps in the Brut Dodge Stratus. Richie Stevens drives the Mopar/Valspar Pro Stock Dodge, and Jeg Couglin drives the Jeg's Mail Order Pro Stock Dodge.
Although Pro Stock Motorcycles weren't part of the show at Pacific Raceways, Angelle Sampey and Antron Brown both ride U.S. Army-sponsored machines that are part of the team.
When the Schumacher teams pull in to a racetrack, it takes 13 semi trans-porters to haul all of their equipment. Professional drag racing has come a long way from the days of a pickup truck with a toolbox in the back and the racecar on a flatbed trailer.
Schumacher was once one of the fiercest match racers ever to compete in a Funny Car. His popular Plymouth Barracuda, dubbed "Stardust," was innovative in safety, engine and aerodynamic advancements. In 1974, Schumacher retired from the sport to develop his family business, Schumacher Electric Corp., one of the world's leading manufacturers of battery chargers.
He returned to the sport in the 1990s, with son Tony behind the wheel of a Top Fuel dragster. Recognizing that additional teams, running the same equipment, could share information and occupy even more of a limited number of qualify-ing spots, thus leading to a World Championship, Schumacher began acquiring more and more race teams.
As I moved through the racing pits on Friday, I noticed two men working at the edge of the DSR area in chef uniforms covered with sponsor patches much like those on a driver's uniform. They turned out to be Dustin Gagna, executive chef, and Dan Murphy, sous chef.
They had charge of a kitchen area made up of two 6-foot-long grills, a stand-up convection oven that can handle 200 pounds of meat at a time, a Cold Tech lowboy cooler system, a sauté station and a couple of counters containing spice racks and other food-preparation paraphernalia.
Talking to Gagna, I learned that he's 26 years old, single and from a large, tight-knit family in Denver, Colo. He's been cooking for DSR for eight months, starting with the final two races of last year.
"Do you still live in Denver?" I asked.
"Right now, my home base is Indianapolis, where the DSR team is headquartered. I moved last year just after Thanksgiving."
Me: "Do you travel then with the team, or fly home after every race?"
"Traveling with the team on the road has become a mainstay just because of the amount of equipment we have to transfer from race to race. I fly occasionally and try to get back into Denver as much as possible. I have a great apartment in Indianapolis that I only get to see a couple of months out of a year."
I wondered how many people they would feed in the DSR hospitality area.
"We feed all the crews on the DSR race teams," Gagna told me. "That's 125 people. Then, at some of the smaller races we'll feed at least 1,000 DSR sponsor guests per meal and at the bigger races, like Indianapolis, we'll feed 3,000 guests."
Gagna went on to tell me how he had trained under French chef Greg Mexiner at the Golden Valley restaurant in Denver. "This is the guy who taught me everything, rather than [my] going to a culinary institute."
"How did you get a start cooking for large groups?" I asked.
"This job has put cooking for large groups up another step on the ladder. Other restaurants I've worked in have been small, 100-seat places all the way to one of the largest restaurants in Boulder, called the Mediterranean, that would turn about 1,000 people a night. So every place I have worked fortunately has let me experience little pieces of the big-group-cooking deal. But this job is tops."
"What other teams have large hospitality areas, beside DSR?" I wanted to know.
"Kalitta Motorsports have a big area," Gagna told me. "The John Force teams have a chef named Johnny, a great guy. Purdhomme has a guy - though I don't know his name. Jeg Couglin has a guy that's been with him for the past four years named Nickey. It's fun because we all try to help each other out whenever we can with whatever situation is going on. We have all talked about 'battling it out' in a cooking competition, but it hasn't happened yet."
"I imagine the planning and then purchasing of all that food is immense," I commented. "How is that done, and how is the food delivered to you?"
"Planning is the toughest part of my job," Gagna stated, "because we're on the road so much, but it works out well because I have U.S. Food Service accounts in every city we go to. I set my menu, call in my order and have it delivered to the track on the Thursday before the race."
"Do you stop at Costco-type warehouse stores?"
"Going to Sam's Club is the other key element to our success. Anything I don't need to get in huge amounts, we go there. Plus, we get snacks for the crew."
"Do you do breakfasts, too?" I wanted to know.
"Yes," replied Gagna, "every Sunday morning on race day, we do a crew breakfast for 100 - all the usual suspects. Eggs, French toast, pancakes, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, biscuits and gravy, French toast soufflé.... I always mix it up so every weekend they're getting something different."
Boy, I thought, drag racing has sure come a long way from a couple of hot dogs and a Coke, or my mom building a whole table full of ham-and-cheese sandwiches.
Bon appétit![[In-content Ad]]
