The truck arrives at the Brownsburg, Ind., race shop. Larry Dixon’s eyes light up, and that familiar flash of straight, white teeth spreads across his face.
 
It’s not the ice-cream man. It’s the delivery-service driver, and Dixon is hoping for a package full of Top Fuel dragster parts that will help him and his new team get to the racetrack faster.
 
“Every day when the UPS, FedEx, and the Postal Service show up and they’re bringing boxes, like Christmas,” Dixon said, “you’re hoping it’s the right one so we can get out there to be able to go to the Winternationals.”
 
The three-time Top Fuel champion has joined forces with Australian industrial tycoon Santo Rapisarda, whose Rapisarda Autosport International operation also fields a dragster in the ANDRA (the Australian National Drag Racing Association) series, and renowned tuner Lee Beard. And he’s hoping the team can prep the car in time to enter the first race of the season and the NHRA’s freshly re-branded Mello Yello Drag Racing Series, Feb. 14-17 at Pomona, Calif.
 
“There isn’t anything more I’d rather do than be able to go out there at the start of the season. We’re all tied for first place at this point, so I could be in the mix,” Dixon said as one of Joe Castello’s guests this past week on the WFO Radio program “NHRA Nitro.”

 
However, Dixon said, “Right now, we’re really at the mercy of the manufacturers. We just ordered the parts, and really, we’re last in line. Everybody has had a winter, months ahead of time, to prepare. We haven’t.” Beard brokered the deal only about two weeks ago, and Dixon said, “They tell you four to six weeks on some of the parts.”
 
Nevertheless, Dixon said, “Lee’s really working hard on trying to update” all the Rapisarda stock that was left in Brownsburg from the last time in the fall of 2012 that Cory McClenathan, Dixon’s one-time on-track nemesis, drove this dragster. With Beard at the helm, understudies Santo Rapisarda Jr. and brother Santino (Tino) probably won’t recognize the car when it first rolls out, likely in March at Gainesville, Fla.

 
“Anything that he’s got, that he tunes or works on, it’s going to have his thumbprint on greatly,” Dixon said. “It’s not just changing a button, turning a knob, and now he’s the crew chief of the car. I mean, it’s tear the car down to the bare bones, tear the hauler down to the bare bones, and starting from scratch, hiring more people, and just getting everything in shape, order parts and new equipment. Some of the stuff they have is not the most up-to-date.

Three-time NHRA world champion crew chief Lee Beard (left) and Australian team owner and crane magnate Santo Rapisarda brokered the deal this off season that will bring Dixon back to racing behind the wheel of the Rapisarda AutoSport International dragster. Images courtesy NHRA/National Dragster

 
“It’s been a whirlwind, not so much on my part as on Lee, because he’s starting form scratch,” he said.

This deal came together in a manner that Dixon had not expected. The popular racer, after leaving Al-Anabi Racing more than a year ago, had stayed in front of the fans by providing commentary on the public-address system alongside legendary Bob Frey and appearing occasionally on NHRA’s ESPN2 telecasts — all while working behind the scenes to form his own team and secure marketing partners.
 

And he appeared to be well on his way to accomplishing that.
 
“I had a contract signed by a company in November to go full-time racing,” Dixon said, declining to name the all-but-wrapped-up sponsor. “I kind of hung out, waiting,” he said, for the money to come through. But as so many sad drag-racing tales end, this company never produced the funding.
 
“I’m moving forward,” Dixon said. “I’m moving forward with Rapisarda Autosport International and Beard and this team right here.”
 
How they all came together involved another team break-up. Shortly after Beard won the final Funny Car trophy of last season with Cruz Pedregon, their partnership abruptly ended and dissolved into a bit of mudslinging. Pedregon served nothing publicly about the firing beyond the usual going-a-different-direction pablum, but Beard snarled, “The only thing I can tell you about Cruz is his ego is way bigger than his talent.”
 
It was a union both Pedregon and Beard knew had raised eyebrows, even attracted bettors guessing how long it would last. Both are champions, but both are strong personalities. For a season, though, they pulled in the same direction and as essentially a single-car operation, they landed a fourth-place finish in the standings.

 
Beard, 59, who with his distinguished grey feather-cut mane resembles Thoroughbred racing’s celebrated trainer Bob Baffert and has just about as many accolades with a far more potent kind of horsepower, still has the magic touch and a deep passion for taming a nitro-burning beast. And like Baffert understands his horses and jockeys, Beard knows his cars and his drivers. And he gravitated to the best, like Baffert at a Keeneland yearling sale.

 “After Lee and Cruz had parted ways, Lee had contacted me, just to see where I was, as far as putting my own program together,” Dixon said.
 
“What do you think about doing something with Santo’s team with me calling the shots?” Beard asked.
 
Interested, Dixon took Beard up on his invitation to meet and discuss details. Said Dixon, “Long story short, he went on vacation down to Australia and brokered a deal with Santo to go racing with him. He put a deal together and here we are “
 
Beard said, “I see a lot of potential with the Rapisarda Autosport International team. I’m anxious to work with Larry after all of our years as competitors. He is one of the greatest Top Fuel drivers ever. My job as Director of Operations is to oversee the team and teach my skills and craft to Santo’s two sons, Santo Jr. and Santino. I see them as the future of our sport.”

 
Dixon sees the team as a marriage of a three-time championship tuner and a three-time championship driver, a bridge between Beard’s engineering excellence and the Rapisarda brothers’ raw potential, and a fantastic opportunity to return to competition in a quality dragster.
 
Dixon, at 46 the second-most successful Top Fuel driver in NHRA history with 62 national-event victories, said he couldn’t pass up the chance, “first and foremost . . . to get back out there and race on a more consistent basis — and in a quality car, one that’s being prepped by Lee Beard. He’s done so much through his career for NHRA drag racing . . . and to have an opportunity like that, to get out there and stand on the gas and have a shot at round-wins and hopefully race wins.

“I’m a competitor. I want to get out there,” he said. “When you pull into the gates with your team, you want to know that you have the ability to compete, not just hope to qualify, but compete for wins. Once you’ve done that, a bunch, that’s your par. Tiger Woods doesn’t show up just to play a round of golf. He wants to go out there and win it. Whether he does or not is one thing, but having all the resources behind you to be able to not have an excuse, I think that’s what this program is here.”
 
Moreover, he said, “Santo, he’s excited. He’s got a passion for this sport. His kids, Santo Jr. and Santino — both love drag racing, and they’re going to be able to learn how to run and tune a Top Fuel car from one of the best guys that our sport has seen in Lee Beard.”
 
Santo Rapisarda said he believes this combination will bring him his first United States triumph.

 
“Both Larry and Lee have some of the greatest resumes in NHRA drag racing history,” the industrial-crane magnate from Sydney said. “Although they have never teamed up together before, we believe their leadership and competitiveness will lead us to victory lane this year. I’m extremely excited to have this pair as part of our organization.”
 
The team isn’t funded for a full season, but Dixon said to expect to see him at anywhere from 12 to 18 races on the 24-event tour.
 
“For sure, we’re going to be up and going by Gainesville. That’s no doubt,” he said. “All of us would like to go to Pomona and Phoenix.”
 
The late formation of the team has put that plan in jeopardy, but how many races the Dixon-and-Beard duo make might depend on them. He said Rapisarda “put the onus on myself and Lee to try and find that extra money.
 
He stepped from the announcing booth last fall to drive the Dote Racing Dragster at three races. And besides thanking team owner Connie Dote for that chance, Dixon also thanked current Dote driver Leah Pruett.
 
“Had she had a Top Fuel license at Indy,” Dixon said, “I wouldn’t have got that shot. They were ready for her then. She just needed a license. So I got to do those three races with that team. I wish them all the best.”
 
But then the competitor in Larry Dixon kicked in: “But everybody’s doing their own thing and trying to be ready for 2013.”
 
Now, if only the delivery men would show up today with all the pieces of his new puzzle.