 | | Greg Fornelli understands that every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. Credit: Courtesy photo |
By Marty Smith, NASCAR.COM
June 27, 2005
11:40 AM EDT (15:40 GMT)
The depth of my hatred for cancer is indescribable, unreachable even. It resides in an unapproachable portal of my soul. And it resides alone, in solitary confinement. Fortunately, I've not personally been afflicted by the disease. But I have experienced its bitter wrath first hand. Seven years ago I watched as cancer infiltrated my mother's body, and in two months' time thieved a gorgeous thatch of lush auburn hair and an innate joy as infectious as a toddler's laughter. I don't talk about it. Ever. And that's the most I'll ever write about it. It is because of that experience that I feel compelled to share Greg Fornelli's story, one of triumph over insurmountable odds that I happened upon while perusing a friend's book. Julie Yenichek gave me a copy of a book she co-wrote with Paul Huff called Make Your Own Miracle: Surviving Cancer. Each of its 55 excerpts is quite inspirational, but none more than No. 10: My man Fornelli. I'd known Fornelli for five years, even played on a couple rec league basketball teams with him. I knew he was a life-of-the-party type, knew he had a steel company in racing, knew he was close buddies with my close buddies. But I never knew who he truly was. I had no idea he'd beaten cancer, much less that his jaw used to be his leg. Fornelli, 40, owns Stock Car Steel & Aluminum, the sole supplier of metals to Nextel Cup, Busch and Truck series teams, as well as countless Late Model Stock teams and other short track teams in and around Charlotte. He is also the American Dream. "One of the goals of everybody out there is for work and play to morph into one," Fornelli said. "I'm living proof it can happen." But it didn't just happen. It required time, dedication, and the willingness to follow through on a vision many considered a pipe dream (pun intended). Until he did follow through, it totally consumed him. Bar None Fornelli always carried an entrepreneurial mindset. His goal throughout college was to own a bar. But after school, a short stint on the breakfast shift at the Hyatt Regency wasn't cutting it. So he went to his father -- a lifetime blue-collar steel mill worker in Kansas City -- for help with a sales position. Dad obliged, and Fornelli went to work selling steel for Ryerson Steel, which he says is the largest steel service center in the world. While at Ryerson, Fornelli went back to school to get his MBA, all the while remaining focused on opening that bar. MBA in hand, job offers came pouring in from the steel industry. The dream had to wait. It was 1992, and Fornelli opted to take a job at Sunbelt Steel in Charlotte, N.C. He was a stick 'n ball guy. By no means was he a race fan. But this being the first outside sales job Sunbelt ever hired, the world was his territory. And it just happened to be NASCAR territory. One day, while tooling around uncharted territory in Concord, N.C., Fornelli happened upon Lowe's Motor Speedway. "I totally freaked out, like, 'Wow! Holy crap! What the hell is that?' " Fornelli said. "I spent all day milling around the speedway and checking it all out. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen." Enamored, he had an idea: supply steel to race teams. "When I was cold-calling businesses I'd go around back and look for metal chips, then if I found some I'd head around the front door and try to get in," Fornelli said. "So one day I happen upon Hendrick Motorsports. "I was quite amazed at the size of this race team, and I go around back and find all these metal chips. I was like, 'Holy s--- this is a gold mine!'" Fornelli moseyed around front, and after several unsuccessful attempts to get inside and make a sale, he finally got his break. Gary "Sarg" Polling granted him entrance. "Sarg really helped me get my foot in the door in NASCAR," Fornelli said. "I spent a lot of time talking to him. He said it's really hard for race teams to buy metal. "That was odd because 12 of the largest steel service centers were located in Charlotte N.C. But race teams were a pain in the butt. Race teams need a ton of different stuff, and that's hard for a service center." Though it was quite unaccommodating to Sunbelt's delivery truck drivers, Fornelli's boss accepted his proposal. He immediately went to work devising fliers and marketing materials to hand out to race teams. The market share was his in no time. But the truck drivers began to complain. Driving to Hendrick Motorsports to deliver a $20 order was tedious. The complaints were incessant, and the boss man scrapped the initiative. But the groundwork for a much bigger initiative was established. Fateful Toothache During that same time Fornelli had begun experiencing numbness in his face, lips, chin and the left side of his tongue. He ignored it for a time, but eventually made the decision to see his family physician. The prognosis? Take two Advil and call me in the morning. "I didn't take the Advil, and it didn't go away," Fornelli said. "I didn't think about it. I went to same doctor four months later for a cold, and brought it back up. He was concerned and sent me to specialist." The specialist ordered a brain MRI, which revealed nothing. Then, while on vacation in Florida some time later, Fornelli was bothered by a toothache. Upon return home he went to the dentist, who X-rayed the painful upper area of his mouth. The X-ray revealed no cavity, but a much worse problem: a tumor. "By sheer chance that X-ray caught that particular portion of the bottom of my jaw, too," Fornelli said. "From that point, my life became a whirlwind." The dentist thought it was a cyst, but to be sure had it sent it off for a biopsy. "It came back the worst possible scenario," Fornelli said. "I go in for a toothache and month later I'm on my deathbed." The biopsy revealed that Fornelli had a rare form of cancer most often found in the femurs of small children. "When it happens in head and neck it's a bad prognosis," Fornelli said. "They gave me a 17 percent chance of survival." Step 1: to cut out the jawbone.
Step 2: cut out the fibula.
Step 3: build a new jaw from the extracted fibula.
Step 4: massive chemotherapy. Disillusioned he pondered the future. He was 30 years old, with a beautiful wife and precious, 1-month-old daughter. There was no choice but to win. "I never thought I was going to die, but I'll tell you, chemo kicks your ass," Fornelli said. "It really messes you up. It wears you out physically, and it's really tough on you emotionally, too. Just once there was the whole, 'Man, I don't wanna die and I want to see my daughter,' and all that crap. "The rest of the time it was, 'Hey get up off your ass and make some money so you can give Hayley a great wedding.'" Kick Start my Heart While trudging through chemotherapy, Fornelli incessantly contemplated starting his own steel business. He already had relationships in racing, and he knew if he could garner enough clientele and treat them right, he had a lucrative idea on his hands. So instead of wasting time wallowing in self-pity, he got to work typing a business plan for Stock Car Steel. "When I wasn't puking or sleeping I was typing out this business plan," he said. "It kind of gave me hope. I didn't want to think about dying. I wasn't thinking there's an 80 percent chance I'm gonna die. Therapy for me was planning long term. This business gave me something to live for. "I had an army of friends and family and love. I had an onslaught of love. Plus, I had this one-month old angel. Screw the business plan. I had that little girl to live for. It was so much motivation you wouldn't believe it. "So as soon as my chemo was done -- I was still bald -- I quit my job and set out to do this. My wife thought I was completely insane." At the time, Fornelli had 10 grand to his name and a handful of customers from his days at Sunbelt. One of those customers was Rick Hendrick, who gave Fornelli his word that the moment Stock Car Steel was functional, all HMS metal would be purchased there. Thing is, banks wouldn't touch him. He had a killer business model -- "Work of art, man," he said -- but no financial history with which to garner financial assistance. His father gave him $15,000 and co-signed the loan. Game on. Full-Bore So he bought a truck and a trailer, rented some warehouse space, bought a suit and tie and went out on sales calls. "They basically laughed at me," Fornelli said. "Randy Earnhardt, Dale's brother over at DEI, I walked in there and said, 'Hello Mr. Earnhardt, I'm going to sell metal to you guys.' "Here I am, this big bald-headed guy with a suit on in a race shop, and I walked out of the room and they all looked at each other and laughed their asses off, like, what the hell was that?" Dale Earnhardt Inc. is now a top-five client. The first year Stock Car Steel & Aluminum did $240,000 in sales, and nearly broke even. But the following year, growth was incredible. In Year Two, they went from $240,000 to $1.2 million in sales. Year Three yielded $2.4 million. "We doubled in revenue almost every single year, and it was all because these guys believed in me," Fornelli said. "One thing about racers, they're extremely loyal. As long as you treat them right, they'll stick by you for life." They've certainly stuck with Fornelli. These days he supplies NASCAR teams with shop materials like tubing, sheet metal and aluminum, roll cage bars, clips and brackets. "It's hard to get a monopoly, and we pretty well have everybody," he said. "We sell to 100 percent of the teams. And our largest single customer is the [local] racer who needs to repair the sheet metal he tore up last weekend." The Reason Success hasn't come without sacrifice. While growing the business, Fornelli wasn't home much. "I had a family that supported this or it would have never happened," he said. "My daughter and my wife understood what it took. I couldn't have done this without them sacrificing that way. And that was for three or four years." These days Fornelli's focus is more strategic than operational. He has 20 employees in sales, purchasing and accounting. And it's only growing. Three years ago he bought a fledgling company called SRI -- Supplies for Racing and Industry --- which supplies fabrication supplies and body shop supplies to teams. "Basically, the stuff that works on metal," he said. "They had no backing, and that company was a mess. I asked if I could help, maybe buy in as an investor or something. "They were in dire straits. But they had the same customer base as Stock Car Steel, so I felt like it had some serious growth potential. The first year sucked. It was horrendous. Now it's fantastic. "I am so blessed. I have a poster behind my desk that talks about new beginnings. Cancer was my new beginning." There's a line in the song Closing Time that says, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." Fornelli is indeed living proof. The opinions listed here are solely those of the writer. | 
