Dean Guido Antonelli, crew chief on the Castrol GTX Ford Mustang driven to a Top 10 finish last season by Ashley Force, the NHRA tour’s Rookie-of-the-Year, was uniquely prepared for a career in drag racing.

While it’s true that he had great racing genes as the son of the late fuel altered driver Joe Antonelli, he had something else, too. That something was experience as a destruction engineer at the U-Haul Technological Center and Test Laboratory.

That job, which he got straight out of high school in Tucson, Ariz., is not too far removed from his present vocation, one in which he tries to get an 8,000 horsepower race car down a concrete-and-asphalt track without losing traction and/or blowing up.

In both instances, the goal is to find the limits—and then not exceed them.

Antonelli developed his skills at the MIT of acceleration, John Force Racing Inc., where he studied under the tenured professors of high performance, Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly. Nine times during his 12-year apprenticeship, he celebrated NHRA championships with Coil, Fedderly and Force. As a result, when Ashley began her Funny Car orientation in 2005, Antonelli was the logical choice to oversee her development. He grew up in the system, he trained under the best and he proved himself last year by getting Ashley into the Top 10 and Rookie-of-the-Year.

Indeed, despite mid-season problems that kept her out of the Countdown to the

Championship, Ashley enjoyed a spectacular first year in which she became the first woman ever to appear in an NHRA Funny Car final and in which her Castrol GTX Ford posted the quickest average quarter mile time on full-power runs.

This year, Antonelli hopes to add another milestone by putting the former high school cheerleader and the 8,000 horsepower Castrol GTX Ford in the winners’ circle.

Antonelli laid the team’s first year success on the crew and on his driver.

As for his driver, Antonelli marveled at the way she handled the pressure.