He's a Paramus boy living a country dream at 120 miles an hour — and on dirt

John Criscione is a master of the Paramus jughandle. He is a Jersey Slide connoisseur. Criscione can drive his bulky Dodge pickup to the tangled parking lots of Garden State Plaza — on a Saturday! — without a care.

But right now, the rules of Paramus asphalt do not apply. Right now, Criscione is driving his race car 110 miles an hour, on dirt.

Not fast enough.

On the racetrack ahead, Will Dupree leads the race. Dupree throws his car into turn one. The blue car fishtails. Dupree’s tires blast mud into the visor of Criscione’s helmet.

To win, Criscione must pass Dupree. Here, on the final lap, Criscione sees his chance.

Coming down the back straightaway, Dupree’s car hugs the outside wall, leaving the inside lane open. This is a mistake. Criscione spots the gap. He shakes his steering wheel left, lays on the power. His car resembles a child’s sketch of a car, all oversized tires and fluorescent skin chopped into crazy angles. Gaining speed, Criscione pulls even with the leader.

Half a lap to go.

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In three seconds, Criscione will make a decision.

He can win this race. A first-place finish tonight might even win Criscione the season championship.

But to win, Criscione must bump Dupree out of the way.

No need for anything violent! Don’t slam Dupree into the wall. 

Just smack him. Scuff his paint. Play dirty. Hell, on this cool Saturday night at New Egypt Speedway in Ocean County, out here on the borderland between New Jersey’s sprawling strip malls and the country quiet, plenty of racers would send Dupree to the hospital for a chance to become the champion.

Two seconds left. If Criscione keeps his right foot pinned on the gas, he wins.

The dirt track racer of Paramus

Criscione grew up a suburban boy dreaming a country dream.

For most car-obsessed people, Paramus is an excellent place to live. The borough seems to have more parking spots than people. With three highways bisecting its 10 square miles, Paramus has dealerships selling everything from Chevrolets to Lamborghinis.

Criscione never cared for cars on asphalt. Any car not spinning its wheels in mud is wasting his time.

“To me, a regular car was just a vehicle to get from point A to point B,” said Criscione, 30. “Growing up, I was always the kid listening to country music. In Paramus I didn’t fit in. To me it didn’t matter. All I wanted to do was go racing.”

When Criscione was small, his family attended races at Orange County Fair Speedway in Middletown, New York. It was a non-obvious choice. On weekdays, they lived in a town synonymous with suburban America.

On weekends, they immersed themselves in the car culture of the country. A dirt track race car is a mess of bright colors and off-kilter shapes. It’s like a regular car deconstructed by Picasso. From the side, it resembles a doorstop. From behind, the body leans to port, like a barn blown off its foundation by a tornado.

These wild asymmetrical shapes evolved to perform a single task: the powerslide.

Dirt race cars do not corner like other cars, with all four tires pointed generally in the same direction. Rather, they slide. Approaching a turn, the driver mashes the gas and cocks the wheel to the right, forcing the rear end to kick out. This channels the car’s inertia, using its own weight and speed to yank it around a corner at almost full speed, no brakes required.

The powerslide — not the dirt — is the beating heart of dirt track racing.

“I love the way they go sideways through turns,” said Criscione’s father, John, 56, an electrician who volunteers on his son’s pit crew. “That’s what drew me to these cars when the kids were young. The fierceness of it.”

Pulling a powerslide is as hard as it sounds. Too much gas, and the car spins out and crashes. Too slow, the car gets rammed from behind. Then come all the delicate details. The driver must place the rear right tire — the one with the greatest downforce — in an appropriately wet and grippy part of the track, while avoiding all the other drivers, who themselves are bouncing sideways, in mud, in overpowered cars, everybody on the verge of losing control.  

“You’re turning left, but most of the time you’re actually counter-steering to the right,” Criscione said. “Dirt racing is not like asphalt, where you’ve got all this grip. Dirt racing, you’re always searching for bite, searching for traction.”

What’s required to become a great dirt track racer? Oh, not much. Simply fearlessness, intelligence and a subtle hand on the wheel — things that occur as naturally to Criscione as breathing.

Other requirements include decades of experience, plus lots of money to fix your car after you screw up. Of these, Criscione possesses neither. He entered his first race, four seasons ago, at age 25.

Some of his competitors got a two-decade head start. The smallest dirt race cars are called “quarter midgets.” They resemble go-karts wrapped in steel cages. They go 50 miles an hour. Drivers start as young as 5.

“John starting at 24 or 25? That’s unheard of,” said David Fenn, a writer for Area Auto Racing News, a weekly newspaper that covers dirt racing in the Northeast.

Criscione’s dad was a dirt track fan, but he never raced. This, too, is a disadvantage.

“You see this yellow car coming up here? That’s David Van Horn,” said Fenn, standing in the pits at New Egypt. “His grandad was Carl ‘Fuzzy’ Van Horn. He raced in the ’50s. Some of these guys are born into it. They have these family legacies.”

With no family connections, Criscione worked his way in. He started as a caddy at Ridgewood Country Club at age 12. Soon he was saving all his tips to buy a race car. It took a while. For a decade, he worked for other drivers as a mechanic. He studied commercial recreation and sports management at Penn State, with a minor in business administration. After graduation he moved home with his parents in Paramus, worked two or three jobs at a time, all to save money for a car.

“We’d been together six months and he said, ‘I’m going out and buying a race car,’ ” said Devin Monahan, Criscione’s girlfriend of six years. “I didn’t think he’d actually do it.”

One afternoon, Criscione drove home in a borrowed truck, pulling a car on a borrowed trailer. He had no trailer of his own, no pickup to pull it, no place to store the car, and no garage to work on it.

“The car was used. It was rough,” said his dad. “He just did it.”

Fearless? Check. Criscione is a focused dude. His body is thin, muscled, angular. His face alternates between a smile and a scowl, of equal intensity. His girlfriend calls him “anal.” Before each race he uses a compressor to hose himself off with pressurized air, sweeping dirt from his red fire-repellent racing suit.

“I am hellbent,” Criscione said. “I race because I want to win. The only thing that matters is winning.”

Gentleman John

On a recent Saturday night, Criscione’s blue-and-white car hustled down the New Egypt straightaway in a five-car scrum. Together they peeled into turn one. Skidding, two cars darted back and forth, both drivers wrestling with their steering wheels.

Criscione’s car held its line like an anchor on a swinging rope.

“Now, listen to John coming in here” on turn one, Fenn said. We stood on a steel pedestal overlooking the back stretch. Criscione’s car peeled away.

“You hear that? So smooth. A little turn of the wheel, dial in the power, and just hold it,” Fenn said. “Most young guys, their mistake is going too fast too soon. John comes in steady.”

Some racers hold the opinion that Criscione drives a little too steadily. His nickname at New Egypt is “Gentleman John.” In races, Criscione spots open gaps that he fails to exploit. Other drivers claim spots by bashing competitors out of the way. Criscione hangs back. If he’s lucky, he figures, a crash ahead might send both cars to the pits, allowing Criscione to advance by attrition.  

“Look how straight his car is and how banged-up mine is,” said Mike Butler, Criscione’s friend and competitor. “He’s a little too passive. He wants to save his equipment. That’s what I’m trying to teach John. He needs to take more chances.”

Criscione is not a coward. He merely abides by the Golden Rule, which at New Egypt hustles along at 120 miles an hour. Drivers who yield, drivers who would rather lose than crash — these drivers receive gentle treatment.

Conversely, try flicking an opponent against a wall. Charge the inside lane, flip the other man, and send him skidding across the finish line on his roof.

Such acts will never be forgotten. It may take two laps or three seasons. Revenge will find you.

Last summer, Criscione screwed up. Flying too fast into turn three, he rammed Joe Toth’s white No. 9 car out of the lead. It was the final lap, and Criscione won the race.

Minutes later, Criscione ran to find Toth in the pits.

“John was very quick to apologize, and he was remorseful,” Fenn said. “If you’re a guy who’s known to be real rough, Joe Toth wouldn’t have accepted it. But people know John. They know it was an accident.”

Criscione has the skill to drive dirty. He just has no conscience for it, nor does he have the money. He works for Behrent’s Performance Warehouse, selling parts to other racers. The job pays him to talk cars, but not enough to race them. So his car’s aluminum skin is covered in ads for Ajar Auto Body in Bloomfield and Jersey Chemicals, a pool supply company in Paterson.

Sponsors like clean racing. They don’t like wasting money on a driver’s vanity. Taking it easy, Criscione might spend $15,000 a season on tires, fuel and parts.

Or he could drive hard. Start a little pushy-shovey. If tempers fly, Criscione could flip his car, crack the frame, burst into fire, and melt his engine, all in a single crash.

“If you really junk a car, it’s an easy $40,000,” Criscione said. “I’m on the conservative side. It costs so much money to put these cars together.”

Criscione compensates for his poverty of experience and money with data. Before racing on Saturdays, he straps a video camera to his roll cage. Sundays are spent like a football coach, watching tape, noting the position of his hands on the wheel, the angle of his helmet.

“Last year I watched the footage, listening to the harmonics of the engine. I was lifting too early,” taking his foot off the gas pedal way before the turn, he said. “It was frustrating, because I know better.”

After a race, most drivers like to drink beer. Criscione works. He stalks the pits, pigeonholing friends on other teams. Which tires did they use? Did they tighten the suspension as the sun set and the track cooled?

“At night we like to party,” Fenn said. “John, he’s not drinking or having fun. He’s studying.”

Powerslide statecraft

Two seconds to go. Criscione and Will Dupree sprint down the backstretch. Whoever hits the corner first wins the race, maybe the championship.

Criscione flies in low. Dupree keeps the outside lane. He refuses to relinquish. Criscione must initiate his powerslide now. But if he slides, at full power, his car will skitter free and ram Dupree. For the second race in as many seasons, Criscione will win by crashing an opponent on the final lap. Were his apologies to Joe Toth a bunch of lies? Ahh, the drivers of New Egypt will say. Gentleman John wants to play rough, does he?

Criscione holds steady. His visor fills with the red Coca-Cola billboard at the end of the backstretch. His head pivots left, peering into turn three. His foot stays hard on the gas...

... and he lifts. Coming off the power, Criscione’s car drifts up the banked track, opening a lane down low. Steve Davis surges forward. His white No. 13 car claims the gap. Two more turns and it’s finished: Dupree wins. Davis takes second, and the season championship.

Criscione finishes third.

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His blue car rumbles to the pits. After midnight, the dirt track racer of Paramus hitches his trailer to his Dodge Ram pickup. He pulls his race car out of the country and returns to the suburbs of New Jersey. The roads are dark and empty. On the Garden State Parkway, the speed limit signs read 65 miles an hour. Criscione obeys them.

Email: maag@northjersey.com