When Joe Amato was eleven years old, his dad opened an auto parts store, A&A Auto Parts, where Joe went to work and began learning what would ultimately become his prime career. Also at that time, some of his dad’s employees were racing on weekends and started taking Joe with them and it wasn’t long before he was hooked. Joe’s first car was a ’53 Ford that he started modifying shortly after he got it. When Joe was 16, his father was forced to quit working after undergoing open heart surgery and Joe made the decision to quit school and run the auto parts full time. Despite the workload of running the auto parts store, Joe found time to go racing on weekends and soon learned that the more successful he was on the track, the more business he did. By the time Joe was twenty, the auto parts store had grown to five stores. Unfortunately, at the age of 32, Joe’s dad died leaving him the job of managing an expanding business specializing in speed accessories.