In many parts of the continental United States, race car builders become known for one particular style of car.
Another Camaro. Another Mustang. Another Pro Mod built around a familiar engine and transmission combination.
Repetition allows a builder to refine the same basic blueprint. The crankshaft centerline, driver position, suspension geometry, weight placement, and countless other measurements become increasingly familiar with every car that leaves the shop.
At PMS Race Cars in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, that kind of repetition has never been guaranteed.
One customer may bring them a Toyota Starlet. The next may want a rotary-powered import. Another may need a six-cylinder combination, a steel-bodied Mustang, or a full-scale Pro Mod capable of competing against the best chassis builders and race teams in the world.
“I have two jig tables, and my two jig tables are for everything,” PMS Race Cars co-owner Erik Maldonado explained. “We’ve got a fixture for everything.”
That versatility is one of the characteristics that has helped PMS Race Cars grow from two young machinists working after their regular jobs into a globally respected chassis shop with record-setting cars competing across Puerto Rico, the continental United States, and Australia.
It has also made the company an important part of a Puerto Rican drag racing culture that many racers on the mainland still do not fully understand.
Five O’Clock Until Midnight
Maldonado and business partner Georgie “Chucky” Gonzalez met while studying machining and tool-and-die work in college.
They shared an interest in racing, traveled to the continental United States to see what other builders and teams were doing, and eventually decided to begin building race cars themselves.
PMS Race Cars officially began in 2000.
Neither man immediately abandoned the security of his regular job. Instead, they worked during the day and reported to their own shop when most people were preparing to go home.
“We had our day jobs,” Maldonado said. “Then after five o’clock, we worked until midnight. Every day.”
The schedule was demanding, but the work began arriving quickly. Within approximately one year, they had enough projects to leave their day jobs and commit to PMS Race Cars full time.
More than two decades later, Maldonado does not romanticize the path they took.
“It hasn’t been an easy road,” he said. “But we’re passionate about it, and we like doing things right.”
For Maldonado and Gonzalez, doing things right was never simply about producing a car that looked good or ran a quick elapsed time.
It began with recognizing who would eventually be sitting inside it.
“Since the beginning, we knew there’s a father sitting in that race car,” Maldonado said. “It’s a person—a human being. You’ve got to take care of him.”
That responsibility influenced the company from its earliest days. The goal was not simply to fabricate something that would pass inspection. It was to build a car they believed could safely carry another person into an environment where thousands of horsepower, violent acceleration, and very little margin for error are accepted parts of the job.
Puerto Rico Does Racing Differently
The phrase “sport compact” can sometimes sound like a niche category to racers raised around big-block Chevrolets, Fox-body Mustangs, and traditional domestic drag cars.
In Puerto Rico, it represents something much larger.
Small Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans, and rotary-powered combinations have been at the center of the island’s racing identity for decades. Toyota Starlets are especially prevalent, while Mazda rotary engines have been placed into nearly every platform imaginable.
Performance Racing Industry has described drag racing as Puerto Rico’s most popular form of motorsports, with sport compacts filling the staging lanes and rotary-powered combinations holding a particularly important place in the culture. Maldonado told PRI that, from his perspective, Puerto Rico helped establish the foundation of sport-compact drag racing long before it became widely recognized elsewhere.
That environment forced PMS Race Cars to become adaptable.
The shop builds approximately three or four complete cars each year. It also handles repairs, rear sections, front clips, chassis updates, and smaller fabrication jobs when the larger projects permit.
One car may require a four-cylinder engine. Another may use a 2JZ, an RB, a rotary, or a large-displacement V8. The engine, transmission, wheelbase, body, intended class, and desired weight distribution can change completely from one project to the next.
For a chassis builder, that means there is no opportunity to operate on autopilot.
Maldonado and Gonzalez must understand how each combination will behave, how the power will be delivered, where the weight should be located, and how the chassis must be designed around the intended use of the car.
That broad experience eventually allowed PMS Race Cars to move beyond its sport-compact foundation and enter the Pro Mod world.
In 2010, the company built a 1963 Corvette for Hector Estrada to compete in ADRL Pro Nitrous. The car was recognized at the time as the first Pro Modified constructed entirely in Puerto Rico. It placed Maldonado and Gonzalez into direct competition with cars produced by the most established chassis builders in the continental United States.
The accomplishment carried significance beyond one race car.
It proved that a purpose-built Pro Mod did not have to originate in one of the traditional racing centers of North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, or Florida.
It could be designed, fabricated, and completed in Puerto Rico.
Everything Is a Phone Call Away—At a Price
Operating from Puerto Rico does not prevent PMS Race Cars from obtaining the materials or components it needs.
It does, however, make careful planning essential.
The shop sources chromoly and many of its major components from the continental United States. Maldonado said PMS uses U.S.-spec materials and has developed longstanding relationships with companies such as Jerry Bickel Race Cars, Stroud Safety, Liberty’s Gears, FuelTech, and Pro Line Racing.
“Everything is a phone call away,” Maldonado said.
The challenge is what happens after the phone call.
Shipping individual components to Puerto Rico can become expensive quickly. Instead of ordering every part separately as it becomes necessary, Maldonado often assembles a large order and brings everything over together.
“You have to put everything together—a lot of money in parts—so you can bring it all at once,” he explained. “If you go little by little and use UPS every day, it gets expensive.”
Those costs are largely invisible once a finished car arrives at the track.
People see the paint, bodywork, fabrication, and performance. They do not necessarily see the additional coordination required to move raw material, components, and specialized racing equipment across the water before construction can even begin.
Yet PMS Race Cars has continued to produce cars capable of competing internationally.
A Rocket Factory With International Reach
PMS Race Cars refers to itself as the “Rocket Factory,” and the name is more than social-media branding.
Its cars have repeatedly produced numbers that demand attention.
At the 2023 World Cup Finals at Maryland International Raceway, Rafael Famania’s PMS-built La Natty Racing Toyota Corolla ran 5.546 seconds at 263.98 mph. Driven by Jesus Melendez, the 2JZ-powered car established a quarter-mile import elapsed-time record and later recorded a 264.49 mph pass during eliminations.
That car demonstrated the depth of Puerto Rico’s six-cylinder import programs, but PMS Race Cars’ reach has continued far beyond the island.
The company was also involved with the Australian Big Mack project, an RB30-powered Pro Import built through a collaboration involving Mack Racing, Maatouks Racing, Platinum Racing Products, and PMS Race Cars. The car has run 5.68 seconds at 260 mph and has been recognized by the team as the quickest RB-powered drag car in the world.
The Australian project is particularly meaningful because it shows how far the reputation of a Puerto Rican chassis shop has traveled.
PMS Race Cars is no longer building only for customers who can drive to San Lorenzo.
Its work is being selected by teams on the opposite side of the world.
Learning at the Racetrack
Despite the international projects and record-setting performances, Maldonado and Gonzalez remain directly involved in racing.
The partners rotate responsibilities when necessary. Sometimes Maldonado travels with a car while Gonzalez stays in Puerto Rico to oversee the shop. At other events, Gonzalez makes the trip while Maldonado remains behind.
The employees continue working while one of the owners is away, although Maldonado admits the shop is never quite the same without one of them physically present.
Traveling with the race team creates its own value.
It allows PMS Race Cars to support customers, develop relationships, gain experience, and see firsthand whether its work is performing as intended.
“You get to race and see if what you did is working right,” Maldonado said.
That process has brought the company into one of the most competitive doorslammer environments in the world.
PMS Race Cars is spending the 2026 season supporting Raymond Matos and Nazareno Racing in PDRA Pro Boost. The Puerto Rico-based team’s centrifugal-supercharged Camaro has already produced a 3.57-second pass at approximately 210 mph while competing against deeply established American Pro Mod operations.
The latest posted PDRA standings place Matos sixth in Pro Boost championship points—a strong position in a category filled with championship-winning drivers, experienced crew chiefs, and highly developed combinations.
For Maldonado, competing at that level is the next logical step.
“The goal is to be competitive with the best here in the world,” he said.
More Than a Small-Island Racing Scene
Puerto Rico once had more drag strips than it does today. Economics and changing circumstances have reduced those options, but they have not reduced the enthusiasm surrounding the sport.
Maldonado said major events still bring large crowds, and racers continue shipping cars between Puerto Rico, the continental United States, and other Caribbean islands.
Salinas Speedway remains the center of much of that activity. Large events attract hundreds of entries, while Puerto Rican teams regularly ship cars to major races in Florida and Maryland. The process often involves loading several race cars into a single shipping container and having logistics companies deliver that container directly to the track.
The exchange increasingly works in both directions.
Cars from the continental United States are being shipped to Puerto Rico for major events, while racers from St. Croix and other Caribbean islands also view Puerto Rico as a central destination for high-level competition.
For many mainland racers, Puerto Rican drag racing may still feel like a distant or separate world.
It is not.
The same companies supply the parts. The same tuners travel between teams. The same cars appear at Orlando, Bradenton, Virginia, Maryland, and PDRA events. The same desire to go faster drives the people working long after the shop doors should have closed.
The platforms may look different, and the dominant combinations may not be another Camaro with another big-block V8, but the commitment is unmistakably familiar.
PMS Race Cars is evidence of what has been developing outside the continental United States for decades.
Two machinists began working after five o’clock and continued until midnight. Within a year, they had created full-time jobs for themselves. Twenty-six years later, their cars have set import records, competed in Pro Mod, traveled to Australia, and lined up against some of the best doorslammer teams in the world.
The company’s future is focused on becoming even more competitive at that level.
But PMS Race Cars has already proven the larger point.
World-class race cars are being built in Puerto Rico.
They have been for a long time.
Good luck to Gabriel Andino and his PMS built 69 Camaro running in PDRA.
