Not the Retiring Type : After a Seven-Year Hiatus, Drag Racing’s Ken Dondero Has Returned to the Track

This time of year, Ken Dondero is just another resident enjoying the peace and quiet Balboa Island offers during the winter. To relax, he rides his bike or walks along the bay during the off-season for the Newport Beach community.

But this is also Dondero’s off-season. Like the rest of the island, his life during the spring and summer is crowded and loud.

From early February to late September, Dondero, 46, listens to the constant roar of high-powered cars as they accelerate down quarter-mile tracks while competing in the Pro Stock Division on the professional drag racing circuit.

“My seasons are busy and noisy,” Dondero said. “When I come home the main thing I’m looking for is quiet.”

In 1977, the noise and traveling of the 25 seasons were enough for Dondero. He retired from racing at 38, and went into the tire business in Orange County, where he has lived since 1971 on Balboa Island in Newport Beach.

It was not a retirement forced on him because of failure. In 1975 and ‘76, Dondero won the National Hot Rod Assn. Pro Stock title while driving sponsor Bill Jenkins’ car.

“I thought I’d better learn a trade,” Dondero said. “When I retired, I always wanted it to be my choice, I did not want someone to tell me I was no longer good enough and it was time to get out.”

But in June of 1983, Dondero and Bob Panella, who had been friends since they raced against each other in the old B Gas class in the early ‘60s, talked about returning to racing while at a car show in Newport Beach.

About the time of the offer from Panella, Dondero was getting out of the tire business. He had already started procedures to sell the store to relieve himself of the burden it had become.

“Coming back this time was my choice,” Dondero said. “It’s not my living anymore. Before, it was how I ran my life. Now, I don’t need to do it. I do it because I enjoy it and I enjoy the people.”

In February of 1984, Dondero entered the Pro Stock class again and qualified for the first race he entered at the Winternationals in Pomona. Although it was his first competition in more seven years, he was not as rusty as he expected.

“A lot of it came back pretty easily,” Dondero said, “but when you let out the clutch and the car pins you to the seat, that was the one feeling you never get used to.”

Dondero competes in the Pro Stock division because he likes the link the cars have with the street. The driver’s seat is on the left, not in the middle like in funny cars or top fuel dragsters. The cars run on gasoline and are much closer in design to street models.

Because the cars burn gasoline there is not the fire danger funny cars and top fuelers face, but Dondero sees the class as being as dangerous as the other two because of the speeds the cars run at.

“Anytime you start to cover a quarter of a mile as quickly as these cars do, there is danger there.” he said. “Everybody is aware of it. You just have to block it out . . . but then again there is danger every time I walk out of my house and cross the street.”

In his first season back, Dondero finished seventh among 77 drivers and last season he was sixth among 80.

Next year, Dondero will have a new car, a 1986 Oldsmobile Firenza, and a new 67-foot truck and trailer to haul it built by Panella’s company. Both Dondero and Panella think the new car should really make a difference.

“You would like to think you can be No. 1,” Dondero said. “But saying it and doing it are two different things. So much has to go right over 15 races.”

Said Panella: “Last season we felt he was being held back by the car. Now with the new car we think that our problems should be solved and Ken will be able to move up.”

Besides driving the trailer from race to race, Dondero does most of his own mechanical work and has covered more than 50,000 miles on the road each of the last two seasons.

Dondero thinks nothing of getting in the truck and driving up to 15 hours at a time.

While some drivers fly in just to run the car, Dondero gets to the event by Wednesday, and from Thursday to Saturday he challenges the clock to try and get one of the top 16 times to qualify for the money race on Sunday.

“I like to stay pretty involved,” Dondero said. “I don’t think I could be the guy who just shows up and races the car. That’s just not how I am.”