Sometimes the best decision made is the one that — at the time — doesn’t seem to make any sense to the average person.

Allan Patterson had a chance to secure his family financially by going into management at Boeing after working on and off for the airplane company for more than 12 years; but his love of drag racing took him down a different course.

“I never finished high school, so I didn’t think I had the education and I figured they’d eat me up,” Patterson said. “I just made the decision to start my own company. What’s kept me going is that I’m not a quitter. I used to have an old saying I’d put on my race car: ‘Whatever it takes’. If I make up my mind that I’m going to do it; I’m going to do it. I might not hit the first shot, but I’ll get there.”

Patterson, who was the 1971 and 1973 American Hot Rod Association champion in the super stock division, started Patterson Racing in 1979 in his garage in Augusta. Now the business has grown to become one of the top racing engine builders in the country and moved out of the garage, with the shop at its current location at the Augusta Industrial Park since 1994.

Patterson and his son, Todd, continued to race for a few years after starting the company before Allan decided in 1983 to take over more of the business aspect of both their drag racing team and the family business. Todd was able to win the competitor eliminator class a number of times during the 1980s and 90s.

“I had to look at it economically that it’s not smart to run two cars,” Allan said. “Why not go to one and be more dominant and afford to do it better. He started winning big because we became dominant in the division.”

The business has several different rooms that handle different parts of an engine, and each part is marked for one particular engine that may not work well, or work at all, with another one.

“We have as many as 15 engines that we work on here at any given time,” Todd said. “(June) is usually a slow month, but people send their engines here for us to work on to get them better because it’s the halfway point of their seasons.”

Now the business of building racing engines has become so complex and technical, that something that may not seem to be a huge part of how to help an engine go faster or make more horsepower, ends up being a huge difference to a precision motor.

“The technology has changed so much, it’s unbelievable,” Allan said. “I’m the only person that can’t run a computer. You have to be able to run a computer to work here; I just get away with it because I’m the owner. Every year, there are new things to keep going faster.”

One recent example was when Allan was talking to one of his customers who kept trying new things to build up horsepower in his engines. Allan and one of his suppliers, Carl Foltz, suggested changing the intake manifold — where air goes to the cylinders — and found 11 more horsepower for the engine.

“(My customer) just about dropped the phone,” Allan said. “He had been spending a lot of money, and I suggested using these because it was somebody I had worked with and he knows I’m good for results. In this sport, you build this credibility and certain people like to go with you because they get to believing in you; that you can give them the answers they need.

“The key is to finding the right pieces with the right parts; and being hooked up with the right people that will supply you the right parts and work for you and trust you in giving something good.”

Todd now runs most of the day-to-day matters as the family business continues to grow and he brings his mindset of when he’s racing to the family business.

“It’s just a natural transition since I grew up with it,” Todd said. “Through the years, you get relationships with customers and vendors that we buy from and people who you deal with in a day-to-day business. Obviously, I’m at a point in my career that I’m 45 years old and I have two sons and a wife to support. I had an option to go down a different road 20 years and I decided this is where I wanted to be.

“It’s only going to be as good as we can make it; so if we come in here every day with energy and thought process and always trying to stay a step ahead of the game, then I think it’s one of the things that has allowed us to have our engines go out and perform at such a high level.”

Todd is looking to continue building the good reputation of their engines, not just in the United States, but internationally.

“We have customers in places like Sweden and Denmark,” Todd said. “I’m going to be going to Australia in September with some engines that people are buying from us. Some (engine builders) send off engines that aren’t great and they’re not worried about it because they’ll never meet those people face to face. That’s not right when somebody is spending $60,000 for an engine.

“Our reputation in those places is because of our reputation here in the United States. If someone wants to spend that much money for a racing engine, you should give them the best product that they are paying for; and I’m going to go there and shake hands with people there and if they have any questions, I’ll be right there, not on a phone halfway around the world.”

Every once in a while, Todd does ask his father for help in some situations when it comes to a vendor or a customer.

“All I do is make calls,” Allan said. “He just comes in and says ‘You need to make the call.’

“It’s great (to see the family want to continue the business). When you sit and know that not only are you feeding your grandsons; but everyone else up there working for you, then you get to feeling that you need to keep it going.”

Now that love of drag racing and the business continues on to Todd’s oldest son, A.J., an Augusta sophomore who works part time at the business and got his first taste of action last night when he competed in super stock to Wichita International Raceway.

“It’s all I’ve been thinking about for a week,” A.J. said Friday morning as he prepared for his initial run. “It’s pretty amazing. I’ve been in my street car; and it’s definitely going to be a good experience (in the super stock).”

A.J. already has plans on attending Pittsburg State for an engineering degree; and his father and grandfather hope he can use that degree to help continue to improve the family business. Both Allan and Todd said in 10 years, they hope to see Patterson Racing making more custom parts for their own engines instead of having to go through supplies for those parts.

“I’ve asked my grandson: ‘What do you want to do?’” Allan said. “He really wants to be an engineer and that’s his goal. He can go out from our world and then come back to our world. He needs to go out in that world and then maybe learn something that he’ll bring back to our world.

“As for our engines, we’re going to have to start working more on getting fuel-injected engines. Drag racing, right now, still uses more carburetor engines; but the drivers of the NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) are looking more into fuel-injection and we’re going to have to be able to do that are we’re going to be left behind.”

Todd also sees another aspect of growth for the business in 10 years is to diversify into a broader range of types of racing engines; but he said the key is to keep an open mind, all the way to the point of designing lines of products that are manufactured here instead of being the middle man for other companies.

“I hope one day, we can come up with some kind of crate engine that we can sell three different types of racing,” Todd said. “(And) Not just drag racing guys, but those who are street machine guys who want to have a pretty car to take the car show, open the hood and say ‘I have a Patterson engine.’ I remember when they raced and dreamed of having a Patterson racing engine, and now I have a street machine and I have one under the hood.

“We know it’s not going to be at the level where guys are willing to spend $60-$70,000 for a full-fledged race engine; but if we can design an engine that $10-$15,000 that the average guy can justify buying, I think we can market for something like that. We’re just going to see about that in the next few years and see where it goes.”