#out of the frying pan and into the fire for these unsuspecting heroes

[itsworn]

Fuel Dragsters, Funny Cars, and Show Cars Costar in Famoso Raceway’s 27th NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion

Drag racing’s last great spectator bargain is NHRA’s California Hot Rod Reunion. You get a long weekend for about the cost of one day at the big show. Your hard-earned $65 (advance) or $75 buys a beautiful yearbook, access to one of Don Garlits’ favorite swap meets, continuous pit cackling, a vintage-photo contest, and a daily changing assemblage of street-driven cars and trucks that rivals most outdoor shows. You don’t get dinged for parking or assigned seating. The beer is cheaper, too. Arrive early to park close and “reserve” any seat that suits your fancy. Friday night’s honoree celebration and afterparty cackle at a Bakersfield hotel are free.

Moreover, the lion’s share of proceeds reportedly supports a most-worthy cause: operation of the NHRA Wally Parks Motorsports Museum, whose small staff conceived and developed, over a quarter-century, a reunion formula that successfully balanced all of the racing and reuniting. Perhaps coincidental to the heated departure of veteran NHRA competition director Steve Gibbs at the start of the tumultuous 2016 edition, that fragile balance is broken. Weary attendees are consequently questioning whether their favorite motorsports event is too much of a good thing; that is, the event has too much to cram into three days without dragging late into chilly October nights.

No such complaints were heard about the quality of competition in this fourth, final 2018 event. (Tulsa’s prior, scheduled series race was canceled due to a stormy forecast.) Sunday’s smallish crowd cheered Mendy Fry to her third Top Fuel win (defeating Rick McGee); Jason Rupert ruled Funny Car Eliminator (d. Rian Konno); Brian Hope, Fuel Altered (d. Rodney Flournoy); Drew Austin, A/Fuel (d. Wayne Ramay); John Marottek, Jr. Fuel (d. Don Enriquez); Steve Faller, 7.0 Pro (d. Brad Denney); Scott White, AA/Gas (d. Gary Reinero); Roger Holder, Pro Mod (d. Ed Thornton); Bernie Plourd, Nostalgia I (d. Jim Seivers); Robert Johnson, N2 (d. Jaclyn Jones); Lindsey Lister, N3 (d. Wes Anderson); Brian Rogers, A/Gas (d. Frank Merenda); Val Miller, B/G (d. Kevin Riley); Bill Becker, C/G (d. Mark Capps); Bill Norton, D/G (d. Larry Cook); Jack Goodrich, A/FX (d. Ken Moreland); and Alex George, Hot Rod (d. Mark Dyck).

Despite springlike weather each day, more seats than usual went unoccupied for the second year since the troubled 25th-anniversary edition erupted into the biggest crisis in the near-four-decade existence of serious retro racing (see Mar. 2017 Deluxe; Controversy Comes To NHRA’s 25th California Hot Rod Reunion). Saturday night’s 30 push starters were about half of the turnout in peak years. To NHRA’s credit, admission prices were not jacked up to compensate for losses in admission and cackle-car revenue. Instead, five lower sportsman categories previously omitted from CHRR generated approximately 140 additional entries at $125 per driver, $65 for crew, $50 for extra pit space, $100 for first RV, $150 per additional RV (ka-ching!). Inexplicably, Thursday was not added to accommodate the predictable overflow (as done by March Meet promoters years ago, solving the same problem). Considering that extra entry moolah, one more day of track workers’ pay and expenses seems like a small price to pay to keep customers happy and warm and coming back.

Nevertheless, NHRA seems intent on repeating that mistake, along with an older one. A painful lesson learned in early reunions was that November is often too windy or rainy for racing or watching, yet the three-day 2019 edition has been pushed a week closer to that risky month (October 25-27). Even if NHRA gets the memo and starts running on Thursdays, don’t leave home without your winter coat and plenty of patience.

King Cackle Saturday night’s incomparable push-start Cacklefest is undeniably the main event for many fans, particularly foreigners. Photographer Kleet Norris’s pan shot of the original MagiCar might be mistaken for a 1965 solo pass at Lions or Irwindale. Former driver Jeep Hampshire generously loaned his old seat, fire suit, and helmet to grateful crewman John Strom, who travels cross-country to assist owner-restorer Bill Pitts, the Father of Cackle Cars.

Hottest Rods of All The biggest annual meet for traditional AA/Fuel Altereds continues to present some of the same California teams that made “Awful-Awfuls” nationally touring attractions in the 1970s. Here, Randy Bradford’s Fiat and the Hough family’s Nanook, now driven by grandson Kyle Hough, perform a synchronized dance routine for the long lens of veteran photographer Paul Sadler.

Dad’s Doors This 354-Hemified street gasser is a rolling, snorting tribute to Lillard Hill’s late father. The shop’s logo and phone number are accurate for Alvin Hill’s former repair shop on old Highway 99 in nearby McFarland, California.

Royal Table What other hotel restaurant routinely fills with hot-rod heroes as diverse as engine-builder Ed Pink, accompanied by wife Sylvia (left), and the Rodfather and Rodmother, Andy and Sue Brizio? The royal couples were spotted prior to the NHRA Museum’s yearly presentation of lifetime-achievement awards at Bakersfield’s DoubleTree. Both men were early reunion honorees.

Main Attraction One brand new build or another never fails to draw intense attention in the Famoso Grove. This year’s main attraction might have been Vic and Debbi Hager’s Model A, the local couple’s first ground-up project. Five years ago, Debbi paid $400 each for the ’28 body and frame as a 60th birthday present for her high-school sweetheart. Thus began a five-year joint effort that involved learning how to do an old-school paint job outdoors, and discarding four flatheads before finding a French block suited for this Merc’s big bore and stroke. Read all about it in an exclusive HRD feature soon!

Show-Off Piece That’s how Roger Burton describes his nailhead-powered ’28 Tudor that he and his wife, Mary, brought to the CHRR all the way from Hoquiam, Washington. “I didn’t come here to drag race. I came to show off my toy,” Roger says. He built the Model A around the ’56 Buick engine that was “just too neat a piece not to use.” The 0.030-over, Hilborn-injected 322 had some Bonneville and drag-race history before the Burtons bought it a dozen or so years ago. It is mated to a ’37 La Salle trans and a ’57 Olds rearend, both mounted to a stock A frame. Roger bought the sedan body “from a kid who was making a street rod” and built the car’s cage around neat 1948-vintage seats, “either from a B-29 or B-50,” that he found in an aircraft wrecking yard in Tucson, Arizona. “It’s an exhibition car, just for sh*ts and giggles. I’m having more fun making 13-second passes than 9.50 passes.”

The Lady Is a Champ Top Fuel winner Mendy Fry, the 30-plus-year veteran who dominated fast-street-car racing and briefly held NHRA’s Top Alcohol Dragster national record as a teenager, is the first female season champion of any nostalgia-fuel category. She went to all four Hot Rod Heritage Series finals and won all but one round this year (reminiscent of Don Prudhomme’s single-loss, eight-event 1976 NHRA campaign). A perfect outing in Tom Shelar’s slingshot saw her sweep the qualifying pole (5.59 seconds) plus low e.t. (5.55) and top speed (261.62) of the meet.

Hotel Unrest Pity the unsuspecting traveler who retired before the fuelers fired. Friday night’s static cacklers included Bob Contorelli, who flawlessly restored the Speed Products Engineering beauty that Roy Fjasted originally built for Prentiss Cunningham near the end of the first slingshot era. Famed nitro tuner Mike Kuhl helped get the Hemi together and flaming. Veteran freelancer Bob McClurg, who photographed this car when new, came full circle nearly half a century later in the DoubleTree parking lot.

No-Bagger We were glad to see our favorite ’48 Dodge custom return from a piston-induced absence that might have proved permanent had a Bakersfield mechanic and former stock car racer not been willing to tackle its flathead-six. Mark Wilson topped off his rebuild with an aluminum cylinder head and a rare Moon fuel injector that he enjoys tuning as he rolls. A Wilcap-adapted GM 700R slushbox delivers sufficient overdrive to retain the stock rearend (“Chrysler’s long, skinny rods don’t like rpm!”). Ronnie Beam did the scallops, and Kyle Gann laced the lid. Airbags seem like cheating to Wilson, who mechanically lowered his frame to the ride height shown.

Twice As Nice The third cacklefest of every CHRR weekend occurs in front of the first grandstand on Sunday morning, just prior to eliminations. Maybe it was the double dose of methanol that brought tears to old photographers’ eyes as the highly competitive Brunelli & Dunn Pro Comp/Top Alcohol car roared back to life. The late Leo Dunn’s daughter, Vickie Larrow, led the restoration, assisted by husband Chris and friend Wesley Sewell.

Sharp Humor Greg Sharp, the NHRA Museum’s curator and invaluable HRD contributor, interrupted his reunion duties to yuck it up with former Car Craft staffers and multiyear Modified Eliminator division champions Norman Mayersohn (right) and Rick Voegelin. Mayersohn, who went on to a writing career with the New York Times, attended his first NHRA reunion on assignment for Autoweek (Nov. 19 issue). Voegelin was among the honorees awarded lifetime achievement awards.

The post Fuel Dragsters, Funny Cars, and Show Cars Costar in Famoso Raceway’s 27th NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network https://www.hotrod.com/articles/fuel-dragsters-funny-cars-show-cars-costar-famoso-raceways-27th-nhra-california-hot-rod-reunion/ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hot Rod Network