As clear as day, Joe Clemente can remember when he was a child watching his father work on his classic cars and wheel them around their neighborhood in New York.
He told himself that he, too, would have one someday, and that day came when he turned seventeen and purchased a previously-owned 1989 Mustang, and after asking Jim LaRocca to build a small-block Ford for it, Clemente began racing it at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in New Jersey and on the street.
“Unfortunately, within two and a half years of getting the car, it succumbed to a street racing accident, said Clemente. “Within six months, I was dying to get back into racing, and I didn’t want to build another street car, so I got a 1992 Mustang, and we put a small-block Ford engine in it, along with a ProCharger, and Jim LaRocca, who was invaluable in getting the most out of ProCharger combinations, helped me and we ran low 9s and did well in NMRA Renegade. In fact, we won the NMRA race in Bradenton with a 9.63.”