York drag racer made his national TV debut on Discovery Channel's 'Street Outlaws'

Enrique "Kiko" Claudio spent three years building his dream car in York, and just recently, he drove it right into Discovery Channel's wildly popular "Street Outlaws: Fastest in America."

The new season, with Claudio competing on the Northeast team, debuted Oct. 19.

The show pits teams from across the country against one another for $300,000, drag racing on streets, not tracks, in places like Wyoming and Arkansas. But Claudio stands apart from most of the other racers because he has no sponsors, no one with deep pockets to pay for the complete construction and maintenance of his car.

"Most of the people that I race against, they’re like wealthy, really wealthy people. To get to this level, you got to have big money in order to go fast," Claudio said. "To me, it was a struggle because I don’t have that kind of money. That’s why it took me so long to build the car ... I’d rather do it myself because it’s gonna be perfect. I do it from the heart."

The birth of El Kiko

At 46, Claudio shares his spotlight on "Street Outlaws" with his 1969 Camaro, El Kiko. He bought the shell a few years ago from Kevin Lauer at West End Auto Sales for about $15,000, then he earned the money to build it, one piece of the car at a time.

"I bought my block, bought a crankshaft, bought pistons," he said. "I kept buying stuff little by little by little. Had to save a lot of money, flipped a lot of cars, buy them, fix them up and sell them."

At the time, he was working for Lauer, who allowed him to keep the car in the West End shop. Claudio built the engine there.

"The guy is a scientist when it comes to that stuff," said his best friend Edgardo Centeno of York. 

Speedway legend Gene Knaub, who Claudio calls " the baddest dude in late model in the entire state of Pennsylvania," built the chassis for the Camaro, and Jeremy Roach of York painted it.

Competing under the name Kiko Racing, Claudio has raced all over the region. He took his rebuilt Camaro to Reading last year for a drag race competition at Maple Grove Raceway. That's where he met Chris Rankin, who heads the Northeast team that competes in "Street Outlaws."

Rankin learned that Claudio built the car himself. Racers often have their own teams, who manage each piece of the car. 

So when Rankin called him a few days later, asking him to join the Northeast team, Claudio said, "Hell yeah." He'd been spending his Monday nights watching the Discovery Channel show, never dreaming he'd play a part in it. 

He and best friend Centeno also didn't own anything that would transport El Kiko out to Wyoming for the first races, so they found a cheap ride on Craig's List. "I’m out there on a 15-year-old truck and 20-year-old trailer, no spare parts," Claudio said.

He watched racers roll into the first stop of the show's series of races with spare motors and spare transmissions, even extra oil and gas.

"There's me rolling in there without even spare spark plugs," Claudio said.

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The races are held on roads that the drivers have never tested. On a racetrack, the track itself is made of materials, like rubber and wax, that help the car's traction, but normal roads have no special surfaces and hold bumps and dimples unknown to the racer. 

On the show, the relationships and arguments among the teams are part of the show's appeal, hosted by racer JJ Da Boss (his real name is Jonathan Day).

"I made the greatest friendships from great legends," Claudio said. "I did not cheat. I didn’t have to jump the gun. I had to drive my car on the streets. It was pretty satisfying to me to do what I did, with the little budget that I have."

His competitors had sponsorships - some paying $100,000 for a single sticker on the back of the car. El Kiko was there on a wing and a prayer.

Learning the business

Claudio has been working on cars since his days at York County's vo-tech school, now called York County School of Technology, where he learned to be an auto mechanic.

When he graduated in 1992, Claudio had already faced big challenges. His family had moved to York when Claudio was 16 and didn't know a word of English. At that time, the vo-tech didn't offer the kind of language integration it does today. His father's career with a tool company had been transferred to Lancaster, and at the time, his mother was battling leukemia. 

He worked hard, landing a job at a York car dealer when he graduated and studying more about his craft at Harrisburg Area Community College.

Puerto Rico called him back when he was in his late 20s, after his mother died, for a decade. He raced there and made a name for himself, but when his father began his own cancer battle, Claudio returned to York to be with him. 

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He now owns Kiko's Garage and Auto Sales in Dallastown. That's where he keeps El Kiko, which is undergoing a bit of a rejuvenation.

He has been asked to continue on with "Street Outlaws," and his friend Edgardo Centeno is working to help him find sponsors.

"Anybody can say, 'I have 2,000 horsepower in my car,'" Centeno said. "Anybody can say that, but can you take that 2,000 horsepower down the streets?"

Both the architect of El Kiko and driver, Claudio hopes, one day, to share his story with students at the York County School of Technology, where he learned mechanics, teaching them his lesson in working hard, in chasing his dreams. 

"This was my dream, and it took plenty of time but I never gave up. My dream was to have my own garage and to have a race car to show my skills, to show what I can do,” he said. "It’s been a long road. It’s been a struggle. I struggled every day, but I just focus on my goals."

Kim Strong can be reached at kstrong@gannett.com.