\u201cI love getting to hang out with badass, hardcore nitro racers,\u201d says Gallegos. \u201cPro Mods and all that new stuff is cool, but this is the heart of drag racing. The old-school ways, hanging out with the older crowd and just having the opportunity to race with some of those people. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything else that tops it.\u201d<\/p>\n Gallegos grew up watching his father, Dave Gallegos, race, and recalls going with him to the Bakersfield March Meet. There, Joseph saw his first pair of nostalgia Top Fuel dragsters, and decided right then that was what he was going to do as well. He first tested his very own front-engine nitro dragster in late 2022, and had it ready for competition in the Nitro Chaos series in 2023.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the driving aspect that fascinates Gallegos, however. When he\u2019s not wheeling his own car, he can be found working on the nitro Funny Car his dad drives or helping NHRA teams like Scott Palmer and Mitch King. He prides himself on having the ability to service every aspect of the cars, not just a specialist in one or two areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI love knowing how things work,\u201d Gallegos says. \u201cI think it\u2019s just my personality. We don\u2019t have a lot of money to pay for crews or tuners, so we figure out ourselves how to do it. That\u2019s the only way we\u2019re able to survive doing this. And I won\u2019t drive, or let my dad drive, any car unless I know it front to back. You don\u2019t want to go into something not knowing; that\u2019s how people get hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the years, Gallegos has become particularly close to Palmer, and in August 2023, potentially saved his life. Palmer suffered a horrific crash in his Studebaker nitro Pro Mod at Mid America Dragway in Arkansas City, Kansas. In a video that went viral afterwards, Gallegos \u2013 who was on the top end at the time \u2013 could be seen grabbing a fire extinguisher and rushing to help drag Palmer from the vehicle. Despite constant praise from others \u2013 and most notably Palmer himself \u2013 Gallegos doesn\u2019t feel like he did anything heroic.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t even think of it like that,\u201d admits Gallegos. \u201cHe calls me all the time and I\u2019m like, \u2018Nah, dude, everyone who gets in one of these cars knows what can happen.\u2019 Time just stopped. It happened so quick, but to me it felt like hours. I don\u2019t like it when people blow me up or call me a hero. I know if he was down there and that happened to me, he\u2019d do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n When he\u2019s not at the track or in the shop, Gallegos funds his racing addiction by helping his father run a masonry company. As a fifth-generation bricklayer, he jokes that his siblings were all smarter than he was and went through college \u2013 but his profession allows him the freedom to pursue his dream of racing with his family.<\/p>\n While Gallegos enjoys working with other NHRA teams, it\u2019s not something he wants to pursue full-time. His priority right now is continuing to race with his dad, whether it\u2019s in the Nitro Chaos and Funny Car Chaos series or old-school match races across the country. But he admits he has one long-term goal that he\u2019d like to achieve.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cChris Graves puts on one of the greatest shows in America,\u201d says Gallegos. \u201cBut if we ever end up hitting the lottery, I know what we\u2019re doing. My end goal is to campaign the Funny Car we have in NHRA. That would be my dream. I want to step up our program and show the big boys that hey, some dumb bricklayers from Kansas can do it too.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally published on February 7, 2025. The post DI 30 Under 30 2024: Joseph Gallegos<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite only being 26 years old, Joseph Gallegos carries himself with an old-school mentality. Whether it\u2019s the front-engine nitro dragster he drives, or his relentless work ethic, Gallegos is a perfect representation of the legends of yesteryear that inspire him. [Editor\u2019s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #191, the 30 Under 30 Issue, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Gallegos_Joe-Gallegos-Nitro-Chaos-FED-Driver-and-tuner.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n![\"Drag](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DI_flat_red-e1711481551475.png\")
<\/p>\n