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Merrick Life • Bellmore Life • Freeport-Baldwin Leader • Wantagh-Seaford Citizen

Dina Parise beside her Pro-modified Corvette, which cooks the competition.

1985 Kennedy High School graduate Dina Parise practiced hard for many years at Newbridge Road skating rink to become a professional figure skater.
   
“I skated with the Ice Capades for four years,” she told this newspaper. “I was the one who would fly on ropes 20 feet above the ice,” among many of the famous acts Ice Capades skaters are known for – especially during Holiday season. “I would fly across the ice, too,” she added.
   
She also enjoyed doing gymnastics in high school. “I was a bit of a daredevil,” she reflected with a slight grin, which made her ice skating movements perhaps all the more dramatic – and skillfully choreographed.  
   
But then she crashed into a wall at a high rate of speed – yet was able to walk away from the wreckage without a scratch...to make lunch for everyone.

A new career
Married 11 years, Ms. Parise (nee Saccoccio, whose father is Angelo Sacciccio of the Bellmore Fire Department) met her husband Andrew, an aficionado of fast cars – as in drag-racing fast.
   
“After we got married we built a 1967 Camaro to race, and we got it up to 150 m.p.h. in 8.9 seconds” on the tracks, she said.
   
Just like that, without skipping a beat, she went from fast-on-the-ice to fast-on-the-track, transforming her life from professional ice skater to professional drag racer – a choice she has never regretted.
   
Driving in the classification of pro-modified, in which the cars she races  look like real cars and have doors that open, she has ‘stroked’ her Corvette car to reach 240 m.p.h. in little under 6-1/2 seconds, a dizzying acceleration that pins her completely to the seat.
   
But she claims she doesn’t feel anything, as in the time she hit a wall at over 150 m.p.h. “The car tipped over on its side and was scraping along the track before it hit the wall.” The force shattered the car, but the construction of the seat, with its harnesses, roll bars, pads and body contours that fit her snug into the seat kept her from being injured – even in 150 m.p.h. impact.
   
I didn’t feel a thing,” she said of the impact. “Once I got out of the car I made lunch for everyone in the pit.”
   
Yet, the track brought her close to a feeling she gladly shares during this Holiday season, and any season: an appreciation for the armed forces soldiers who protect the freedoms this country enjoys.
   
“When we went to the tracks, those tracks are close to military bases and installations,” she said, and she met literally hundreds of military families and soldiers who have served their country. She met young soldiers in their early 20s who were in wheelchairs and would be in them the rest of their lives for the sacrifices they made.
   
Compassionate mission
Drawing on that compassion, she dedicates much of her racing to the soldiers who sacrifice their lives everyday so that American society, indeed the free world, can continue to enjoy the freedoms the soldiers fight for.

“What better way to wake people and remind them about the sacrifices soldiers make for this country than to speed along at 240 miles per hour,” she said.
   
When she and her husband, who make up the Parise Racing team at www.pariseracing.com, travel to tracks along the Eastern seaboard and into the Midwest, she approaches the tracks to secure a suite to host events. “I get these suites free,” she said.
   
“I go to local food establishments and ask for donations and then I use those donations to host parties for soldiers, from Wounded Warriors, to Vietnam vets to ambulatory soldiers in wheelchairs,” she said.
   
“I just want to give them a day to be out at the racetrack enjoying their lives; they have sacrificed so much for the freedoms we have,” she said.
   
She takes it a step further: On the racing team’s website is an image that, once clicked on, provides contact information on high-ranking official Lee McKinney of the 101st Airborne in Bagram, Afghanistan, who sponsors  the “Support for the Troops” program.    

He will provide details about what kinds of provisions the men and women soldiers in Afghanistan need to remain comfortable in hostile environments, such as snacks, hand sanitizers, baby wipes, gum, magazines, movies, phone cards to call home and, of course, team T-shirts and hats – and where to send them.
   
Last month Ms. Parise and the racing team held a Toys for Tots event, and the team has more fundraisers planned.
   
The team is seeking more sponsorships to advocate for more troop-related outings, and to promote the idea of how racing can support the armed forces.
   
Visit www.pariseracing.com to learn where the team will be next in support of the troops for the holidays – and year ‘round.

By Doug Finlay

Doug Finlay is the assistant editor for Bellmore Life newspaper. He is also an award-winning writer for L&M Publications.