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Sometimes the shortest route isn’t always the best path, and after winning his first 91���� Funny Car event at the NHRA Arizona Nationals in Phoenix, no one knows that better than Paul Lee.

Quite honestly, anyone who knows Lee realizes that taking shortcuts is just not his style. He is a hands-on guy who believes that anything worth doing is worth doing correctly. That logic not only resulted in his recent Phoenix victory, but it’s also made him very successful in the business world.

Lee’s path to his first nitro win follows a long and circuitous path. An NHRA member since the late 1970s, Lee enjoyed success in the Top Alcohol Funny Car class with a trio of wins during the 2004 season. He ultimately moved to the nitro classes, driving for a number of top teams and team owners, including Kalitta Motorsports, Jim Dunn, and Don Schumacher Racing (DSR). 

Ultimately, Lee decided to build his own team, and after a five-year growth process, he’s clearly reached his longtime goal of having a top-five outfit. 

“I was doing well with the Kalitta team, but I had a heart attack and had to take a step back,” Lee said. “After passing all the tests and getting cleared to drive by my cardiologist, I wanted to go back, but there just weren’t any opportunities available. That’s when I did this deal with DSR and started my own team.”

Success was not immediate, and it required a lot of personnel changes, but Lee eventually hit on the right combination when he hired two-time Top Alcohol Funny Car champ Jonnie Lindberg as his crew chief and paired him with highly respected veteran John Medlen. 

“This took a while; a bit longer than I liked, but I’m all-in,” Lee said. “I’m a competitive person, and I don’t take failure lightly. There was a time when I thought, ‘Maybe I’m not so good at this whole team ownership deal, but I got a lot of good advice from Don [late team owner Don Schumacher] and managed to make the right moves.”

When it came to roadmaps to success, Lee simply followed the same path that has made him a successful businessman. He currently owns the Wharton Automotive Group, which features an impressive array of performance aftermarket companies, including McLeod clutches, FTI Converters, Silver Sport Transmissions, Competition Clutch, PowerTrain Technology, and Independence Driveline.

“I previously worked for the Boninfante Friction, and I learned a lot from the Boninfante family,” Lee said. “When McLeod became available, I bought the company and moved to California. My goal was to be like [team owners] Connie Kalitta or Joe Amato, who had successful businesses, which allowed them to race and control their own destiny.

“Today, we have the infrastructure and the people necessary to run six companies in five states,” he shared. “Thankfully, I have a great VP and a great CFO and a lot of great employees. I’m at the office from Monday until race day, and I don’t mind it because I love what I do.

“I also love to see others succeed with our products,” Lee said. “We have a lot of NHRA racers who use our stuff, and I take a lot of pride in that. Actually, I love drag racing, but our products are also universal. We road race, and we go drifting; you name it, and we’re involved.”

Lee’s interests go well beyond drag racing and success in the business world. He’s also into exotic sports cars, and he’s a competitive poker player with a solid résumé in high-stakes tournaments. Lee doesn’t have to look far to see a lot of parallels between poker, business, and the mental side of drag racing.

“They are all so similar,” he said. “They’re very competitive outlets where you have to use your brain and make decisions on the fly. In poker, you need to understand mathematics and deductive reasoning. Most people don’t know the amount of time I put in. I often spend hours at night working on game theory and math. It’s just like drag racing and business, you can’t just show up and expect to be good at it. You’ve got to put in the work, and thankfully, I enjoy that.”