 2011
Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion
June 16-18, Thurs – Sat at Beech Bend Raceway Park
Honorees
Bowling Green, KY. – Legendary
Funny Car Champion Bruce Larson will be leading an extraordinary
pack of NHRA legends to Bowling Green, Kentucky for the 9th annual
Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion slated for Father’s
Day weekend, June 16-18, 2011. Joining Grand Marshal Larson will
be former Super Stock sensation Dave Boertman, former drag strip
manager Jack Doyle, Pro Mod legend Jim Oddy, Top Fuel Championship
team Bill Pryor and Jim Naramore, and multi-talented racer Tom
Raley.
"The Reunion Honorees are
what makes the Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunions so unique,"
said Tony Thacker, executive director of the Wally Parks NHRA
Motorsports Museum, which produces and benefits from the annual
event. "As part of our ‘living museum’ focus,
we’re bringing together these legends in the sport with
fans who may not have seen them for many years, as well as honoring
these heroes for their contribution to the sport."
Also, the Justice Brothers Car
Care Products Reunion Spotlight will shine on the Cluster Busters
Hot Rod Club of Indianapolis, IN, founded in 1948. In 1950, the
Cluster Busters became affiliated with the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) advocating
safe driving and organized racing. The Cluster Busters is the
third oldest, still active, car club in the United States. This
amazing lineup of Honorees and drag racing legends will be honored
at a special reception on Thursday, June 17, 7 p.m. at the Holiday
Inn University Plaza, host hotel for the event. Admission to
the Honoree Reception is always free and open to the public.
Grand Marshal Bruce Larson began his drag racing career as a 16-yr.
old in a chopped fenderless ’32 Ford coupe. He was a consistent
winner on local strips in a ’54 Olds and a ’32 Chevy A/Gasser. He first
gained national prominence in 1965 when he won the NHRA Winternationals,
Springnationals and U.S. Nationals driving a Ford Cobra. In 1966
while working at Pennsylvania’s Sutliff Chevrolet he built
his first match race Funny Car, an injected ’66 Chevelle.
It was the first of his familiar red, white and blue Chevys.
In 1969 he won the prestigious Super Stock Nationals in York,
Pa. driving a Camaro Funny Car. In 1985 Larson teamed with Joe
Amato and raced with his first major sponsor. He won his first
NHRA national event in Funny Car at the Cajun Nationals. In 1989
he led the points from beginning to end to become NHRA Funny
Car World Champion. From 1992 to 1995 he drove Don Garlits Top
Fuel cars. Now retired Larson enjoys restoring race cars, and
has even restored his first ’32 Ford hot rod.
Dave Boertman is a household word in the ranks of
Sportsman drag racing. He  got his start when he and friends visited
Central Michigan Dragway in 1962. It began his lifelong obsession
with drag racing. Along the way he won 17 NHRA National events
in Stock and Super Stock, five NHRA World Championships, and
15 IHRA national events all while acting as his own engine builder
and tuner as well as driver. He was named to the Car Craft All
Star Drag Racing Team four times as well as numerous regional
honors. He has been a National Class Record holder more than
thirty times. After a seven year retirement, he returned to NHRA
competition and earned his fifth World Championship, this time
in the Super Stock category.
Jack Doyle has been actively involved in hot rodding
and drag racing in New England since the early 1950s. He was
one of the founders of the New England Hot Rod Council made  up of car clubs in and around the greater
Boston area, southern New Hampshire, and southern Maine. The
NEHRC rand races at the airport at Sanford, Maine and brought
in big time professional racers to the area. As a competitor
he was a consistent performer driving a competition coupe at
the NHRA Nationals as early as 1959. He later turned to Top Gas
dragsters winning Top Gas honors at the AHRA Nationals in Long
Island with Don Roberts driving. When the NEHRC was dissolved
his focus turned to New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire
one of the premier tracks in the Northeast. He became the first
strip manager then general manager. Content to stand in the background
while others took the spotlight, Doyle is a giant in the history
of east coast drag racing.
Jim Oddy has dominated just about every way possible
on the drag strip. Since his first National event win in B/G
in 1965, he’s won races,  broken records, and earned championships.
He’s been a champion driver, crew chief and team owner.
When he wasn’t winning races, the chances are his engines
were. After his unblown gasser, he showed his talents as a Renaissance
man building a blown Chrysler-powered ’48 Austin on which
he did the bodywork, paint, built the chassis, the engine, and
drove. In the ‘70s he won Comp Eliminator at the U.S. Nationals
driving his BB/GS Opel and started Oddy’s Automotive specializing
in supercharged engines. In the 1990’s when the Pro Modified
category was created his entries driven by Fred Hahn began to
dominate. In 1996 they won six consecutive Super Chevy events
and in 1997 they won ten. In their fifteen years together Oddy
and Hahn won countless events and championships in both IHRA
and NHRA. In 2005 Al Billes became Oddy’s driver running
in the 6.0s at 238 mph until Jim’s retirement from drag
racing in 2006. He moved from Buffalo to North Carolina and enjoys
building street rods.
Bill Pryor and Jim Naramore were three-time NHRA
Division 3 Top Fuel champions in 1975,’76 and ’79 regularly
giving fits to drivers such as Dick LaHaie and Shirley Muldowney.
Bill started his drag racing career in the early ‘60s with
MoPar stockers, a ’57 Corvette and ’55 Chevy  C/Gasser. In ’68 he competed on
the Midwest fuel circuit and in ’72 decided to go racing
full time with a new Woody Gilmore chassis and an Ed Pink engine.
Appropriately, he did his final Top Fuel licensing at Beech Bend
Raceway Park. Following lots of match racing, he won Top Fuel
at the AHRA Nationals in St. Louis and advance to the semi-finals
of the NHRA Springnationals by beating Don Garlits and Clayton
Harris. Jim Naramore bought out former partner Chuck Hurst in
late ’74. In 1975 they had an unforgettable season culminating
in the Division championship over Dick Rosberg, Dave Settles
and Jim Bucher. Seeking a new challenge the team bought a former
Plueger and Gyger Funny Car to match race while running the Top
Fueler at National events. They were Division 3 runners-up in
1978 before winning again in ’79 while finishing sixth in
National points. They parked the car after the ’79 season
and Pryor worked throughout the industry and is now with a top
NASCAR team. Jim returned to his motorcycle dealership in Illinois.
Tom Raley is one of the most skillful and versatile
drivers in drag racing history. He actually began his career
in oval track racing winning the 1963 Maryland state Modified
championship. The following year he competed in the Autolite
250 Sportsman (now  Nationwide)
race at Daytona the day before the Daytona 500. In 1965 and ’66
he won NASCAR Top Fuel championships when they had their own
drag racing program. He also raced in the NASCAR Grand National
(now Sprint) series against Petty, Pearson, the Allisons and
other greats. In 1968 Jim and Allison Lee offered Tom the seat
of their first class Top Fuel operation. He drove for the Lees
for six seasons winning 1969 and ’70 Division 1 Top Fuel
championships and recording some of the sports quickest times
including a 6.51 to 6.54 win over Steve Carbone at Indy in ’69
and a 6.53 No. 1 qualifier at the World Finals in 1970. In 1973
a car in the other lane drove over the top of his roll cage and
broke the car in half ending his drag racing career. After recuperation
he returned to stock car racing until accidents in Charlotte
and Daytona knocked him out of racing for five years. He continued
to run short track events until his retirement and move to Florida
several years ago. Of racers today he says, “My quickest
e.t. was in the high fives at below 250 mph. I’d love to
go in the fours at more than 300 just once.” NOTE: This
year the Reunion has changed the days of the event to give spectators
a day off to celebrate on Sunday for Father’s Day. The new
days are Thursday through Saturday. No need to worry, the same
great activities will remain including the free Honoree Reception
on Thursday night and the sensational Cacklefest on Saturday
night.
The 9th annual Holley NHRA National
Hot Rod Reunion is a 3-day festival of speed, hot rods and American
automotive enthusiasm featuring loads of family-fun activities
such as Hot Heads nostalgic drag racing, the sensational Cacklefest
and SoffSeal Show N Shine. The Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion
brings to life the sights, sounds and people who made history
in the early days of drag racing.
Three-day credentials ($60) are
available at 800/884-NHRA or online, nhratix.com. Credentials purchased before
May 29, 2011 will receive a complimentary “goodie”
bag which includes a glossy Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion
program, a commemorative dash plaque and a collectible souvenir
credential. One-day adult tickets will be available at the gate.
Children 15 and under are free when accompanied by an adult.
For National Hot Rod Reunion
Information, please call 909/622-8562 or email themuseum@nhra.com.
Proceeds of the Holley NHRA National
Hot Rod Reunion benefit the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum®.
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Hanna Officially Open
For Business
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wichita, KS 01/06/2011: Over the past few years Tom Hanna has
taken on the occasional outside project such as the Crosier,
Baltes & Lavato cackler, Beebe & mulligan body, Creitz
& Donovan restoration, the Ivo (post Garlits punt) rebuild,
Adams Wayre & Mulligan, etc.
He is now established as a one
stop restoration and recreation operation. They have a very,
very, extensive parts inventory (15 complete 392s and 2 Emory-Rodeck
billets on the shelf), they are in production on P-S Mach. Prod.
Steering assemblies and spindles, Chassis and body fabrication,
paint by Corey, Tony Nancy replacement upholstery, Graphics and
gold leaf to match any of the old school styles. And, complete
turn key Iron or aluminum engines. They have also developed their
own cam grind exclusive to them.
If you want stuff that looks
and sounds as good as theirs, they are a one stop shop at your
service.
Please understand this is not
some lame swing at self promotion. The fact is Hanna has assembled
and trained a superb team. Their skills are reflected in his
car, the Creitz & Donovan restoration and other examples.
Over the years he has seen others attempt to replicate his work
and most of it makes him cringe. He sees repops of previously
important cars that an insult to the original. The quality and
fidelity of and to an important era is being harmed by these
well meaning but frankly unqualified, failed attempts.
This work ought to be done right.
Hanna has all the resources and talent at hand but only a limited
number of years to produce as many meaningful, worthy and correct
pieces as he can.
For more info Email Tom at: Rose
America Corp.
Or call: 316-371-0333 cell, days,
central time
May 27, 2010 For Immediate
Release From: Titan Speed
Engineering. Titan's All New “Cackle” Clutch With the
growing interest in the building of Cackle type cars these days,
Titan Speed Engineering is now producing an All New “Cackle”
Clutch purpose built for push or self start nitro “Cackle”
cars.
The clutch is a 2 disc pedal
style with high friction discs for Chevy, Chrysler or Ford applications.
It is also SFI approved 1.2 Spec. Titan clutches are made from
aircraft grade 7055-T7 material and are hard coated and heat
treated for maximum performance. Titan Black Star clutches are
light weight and super strong. All clutches come with premium
ARP hardware. There is a limited number of these "Cackle"
Clutches available for the low price of $1750.
All Titan products are made in
the USA of premium materials with Solar Power.
For more information call Titan
at 805-525-8660.
Here is a preview of the restoration
of the Harris-Robins-Mason "Bad Hombre" twin engine
Chevy fueler driven by Jack Harris.
In the Fall of 1970 Harris
ordered this car from Mark Williams, a twin engine configuration
that would house a pair of fuel burning small block  Chevys. With Lyle Mason's and Bruno Perry's
engine in the front and Dennis Saenger's and Bill Robins' engine
in the rear the "Bad Hombre II" was not only unique
but very competitive in Top Fuel. But this timing for this venture
was ill fated as the face of drag racing changed in the next
two seasons to a rear engine world.
Jack Harris (with sunglasses)
currently runs a Nostalgia Top Fuel dragster and Bill Robins
is part of the "Utah Posse" (the crew). Check out the
wild pants! Harris hopes to have the car completed for the 2010
CHRR.
PROJECT 1320 - GET
INVOLVED!
PROJECT 1320 produced by Quarter Mile Entertainment
is an episodic documentary which will capture the history of
drag racing - from the post World War II period to the end of
the 1980s.
PROJECT 1320 will feature interviews of the surviving
pioneers as they tell the story from their unique, personal point
of view. Some of today's heroes will be featured, but it will
focus on yesterday's legends as they tell of their experiences
and explain the Who, What, Why, When, Where and How of
the sport's early days and how it grew. You will also see how
a multi-billion dollar industry - the performance automotive
aftermarket - grew with the sport as ingenious racers built new
parts to make their race cars go faster, and then sold them to
their fellow competitors.
HOW DO I GET INVOLVED!? -- Join
"FRIENDS OF PROJECT 1320"!
Drag racing fans can get directly
involved with the PROJECT 1320 effort by becoming a member of
"FRIENDS
OF PROJECT 1320".
You get:
-- A PROJECT 1320 T-shirt, Cap and Hat Pin.
-- PROJECT 1320 Boxed DVD sets at discounted pricing.
-- The PROJECT 1320 website (www.Project1320.com) "Members Only"
section.
-- Photos and movies from fans and old racers which will rekindle
many memories.
-- As a special addition, you will also see actual interview
pieces of each interviewee before the documentary is even released.
-- Join with a community of fans in the website's social network
area sharing your personal recollections and thoughts with
others around the world.
PROJECT 1320 will feature the important developments
of each decade, how the pro classes came to be, the innovations
in performance parts, the changes in safety and how drag races
were conducted. You'll learn about how the automakers and Fortune
500 companies used the sport to market their products. Plus many
more areas as PROJECT 1320 unfolds!
Join online now at Project 1320
Project 1320 Mail in Membership Form
Project 1320 to chronicle
drag racing's pioneers
Documentaries
to provide an oral history of the sport
Contact: Traci Hrudka
Quarter Mile Entertainment, LLC
Phone: 440.888.0088
Hrudka@sbcglobal.net
(OR)
Steve Cole - 330.725.5462
scole@4writewords.com
Parma Heights, Ohio -Racing fans
and automotive enthusiasts have long had a desire to learn about
the birth of the sport from the legends and heroes of the formative
years.
To this point, there has been a patchwork of efforts but without
an integrated approach to tell the story of how men and women
with mechanical talent, fearless determination and skill built
the cars and events to capture the glory of being the quickest
and the fastest down 1320 feet of asphalt.
The focus of Quarter Mile Entertainment
LLC (QME) and its Project 1320 is to capture first person narratives
about the life and times of these early heroes…from the
period immediately after World War II through to the beginning
of the "modern era". The narratives of the sport's
pioneers will be supported with still images and home movies
of the period to deliver the "Who, What, When, Where, Why"
of the times.
At the heart of the project is
the goal to produce a high quality documentary film centering
on the individuals, manufacturers, sanctioning bodies and the
behind the scenes people…what it took to bring this great
sport to its current level that can be divided into segments
suitable for multi-part TV series use. The individuals and manufacturers
who will be a part of this series will include many household
names but will also include many of the "lesser-knowns"
whose contributions have faded in our minds, but who helped launch
the sport, nurtured it through its early growth and finally saw
it become a major motorsport. The goal is to place the series
on a cable network to expose the greatest number of viewers to
why and how this sport has grown in popularity.
"Our greatest concern is
to capture the stories and personal perspectives of the legends
of the sport that are still living," says Traci Hrudka,
chairman of Quarter Mile Entertainment. "We have lost a
tremendous number of these people over the years, and time is
running out to capture those oral histories in a digital format.
If we ever want to do this, now is the time!"
The initial effort will be to
provide an overview of the historical perspective of the sport
- the key people and moments…the passion and the blood,
sweat and tears it took to evolve the sport from a grassroots,
never quit, "run whatcha brung" level to the point
where corporate America and thousands of racers are involved
on a weekly basis. It will also touch on how successful racers
became successful business owners, supporting the racers with
the products needed to get the finish line quicker and faster.
The blueprint for Project 1320
calls for a breaking down of the sport's dramatic growth…by
decades, the evolution of today's major classes of competition,
plus a look at the growth of the racing parts aftermarket, the
influence of automaker participation and the support of corporate
America, the historic race tracks and their owners and how the
ideas of a small handful of men and women created the sanctioning
bodies that have guided the sport.
The early grassroots support
of Project 1320 has been amazing, fed by a word of mouth, internet-based
network of old racers. A significant number of fans and racers
have volunteered their home movies and pictures to this project.
These images and movies will be digitized and archived for future
use, as well as the first person interviews. The archives will
provide much of the resource material for the subsequent project
episodes.
Project 1320 will be seeking
both corporate and grassroots support to document drag racing's
historic moments and personalities. The "Friends of Project
1320" program will soon be launched to allow individuals
to help produce this undertaking, and to build additional support.
The Board of Directors of QME hope the project will generate
even more support by fans and racers who uncover their personal
archives of yesterday and share it with future generations of
fans and racers.
The Board of Directors of Quarter
Mile Entertainment LLC consists of: Traci Hrudka (Chairman),
Harry Hibler, Don Garlits, Steve Cole and Wayne Wolfe. The Board
of Directors is assisted by an Advisory Board of Wally Booth,
Darwin Doll, Don Ewald, Carl Olson, Stephen Krystek and Bill
Pratt.
NOTE: The Project 1320 website
at www.project1320.com is currently under construction. The target
launch date will be the first week of June, 2009. The present
unofficial home of the project is www.project1320.ning.com.
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