Car #68
LCRacing/Ford Racing Performance Parts Ford Focus

Leo hails from Lenox Township, MI with his wife Sandie and their two sons (Craig and Chris).

He's been working in the automotive industry for over 30 years with Chrysler engineering, Roush Performance, Ford engineering and presently with Visteon, work on Interior prototypes.

Leo began his racing career years ago at the age of 13, when he bought his first racing sprint kart with the earnings from his paper route. The fascination with speed and the excitement of competitive driving has kept Leo on the racing circuit in one form or another since then.

In his early 20's, he and wife Sandie decided his racing hobby could evolve into a full time business when they established LC Racing, Inc. For the next decade they operated their own racing fabrication/machine shop and engine parts mail-order business. During this same period Leo established his outstanding reputation in kart racing by winning (7) National Karting titles.

Eventually selling their business, Leo accepted an offer of employment from Ford Motor Company as an engineering technologist. Predictably, it didn't take long for the racing bug to hit Leo again, as he and Sandie decided to race in the SCCA Spec Racer Series. He spent three seasons as a consistent front runner at the National level before moving into the Spec Racer Pro Series. In 1997 he won the St. Petersburg Street Circuit, achieved 3 top 10's, and finished fifth in points in a season series that featured over 90 competitors. In 1998 he again finished fifth in points for the series while only participating in a limited racing schedule.

With racing fuel coursing through his veins Leo's future looked bright. But the road to the top was bumpy as the other competitors had all learned. It was no different for Leo who in August 1999, after 2,500 man-hours of chassis fabrication and component development, tasted the bitter side of racing again in his career as he moved into the World Challenge Touring Car Series where he ran the Mercury Cougar for five years.

In 2004 with Ford Motor Company's decision to halt production of the Cougar, Capaldi - a former Ford employee who is now with Visteon; has worked in production and race-vehicle development, and has been a test driver - made a decision to swith to Ford Focus. He built a 2.3 liter Focus for SCCA Speed and continued to campaign this until sponsorship monies was difficult to secure due to the economy. He now is working with Ford Racing and NASA developing Spec Focus which he has built three cars for this series which finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd at the NASA Championships at Mid-Ohio last September.

The team that works on the car at L.C. Racing's facility and track consist of many people of which is list is too long to mention everyone. Some of those people are Sandie Capaldi (LCR sales/team coordinator); Craig Capaldi (World Challenge Crew Chief and CAD work); Chris Capaldi (NASA Crew Chief, Lead mechanic); Ron Myers (Web site/store master); Leo Capaldi (Technical support/driver). Shawn Spear (mechanic) Bill Recker ( truck driver) and Andy the Bear - Mascot.