Veteran automotive journalist Jim McCraw brings us his expert perspective on one of the great vintage drag racing meets, the California Hot Rod Reunion.
Legendary cars, legendary personalities…who better to have on the scene at the California Hot Rod Reunion this past weekend than a legend himself, writer Jim McCraw? As editor at both Super Stock and Hot Rod magazines in the golden age of drag racing, Jim was there to see it all. Here’s his report.
California Hot Rod Reunion 2014
Story and photos by Jim McCraw
The season-ending California Hot Rod Reunion at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield, California, is always a treat for hot rodders and drag racers. The event combines a vintage drag race, a giant bench-racing session, a championship battle, a car show of stupendous proportions, an important awards presentation for some seasoned veterans, a swap meet, and a cacklefest so good it will make you cry. Almost everybody who is or was a part of hot rodding and drag racing in California comes here for what really is, underneath all the paint and chrome, a family reunion.
Organized by the Wally Parks Museum of Drag Racing in Pomona and presented by the Auto Club of Southern California, this classic event has been going and growing for 23 years, through good economies and bad, and it never fails to bring out the stars and the cars.
Supercharged Hemis
On Friday night, the museum honored six more veterans with speeches and trophies, including event grand marshal Mike Dunn, television commentator and winner of 10 Funny Car events and 12 Top Fuel events; the late racing clutch pioneer Bob Brooks; street roadster racer Hugh Tucker; the Cortopassi Brothers and Doug Butler, known for their Glass Slipper streamlined dragster; fuel system genius Sid Waterman; and hotrodder and Bonneville racer Dennis Varni.
Qualifying and racing continued on Saturday, but nobody went home until after the cacklefest, during which more than 60 vintage fuel dragsters and fuel altereds were push-started and drove down the Famoso strip to the end, lining up diagonally on the centerline, blipping their engines, driving huge columns of flame into the air until the last car was in place a quarter of a mile away. There is nothing like this anywhere else in the world, and it is soul-stirring to see and hear this much power and sound all at once.
Saturday night cacklefest
The title of world champion in Nostalgia Top Fuel drag racing had already been decided, since New Yorker Tony Bartone won all four of the previous series events and set Low ET and Top Speed at each of them, but Bartone towed all the way out from New York to try to sweep the season, and sweep it he did, again setting Low ET and Top Speed and winning the final round against Rick White’s car. No one has ever swept the season in vintage drag racing until now, so Bartone has made some history here.
Tony Bartone Nostalgia Top Fuel
In Nostalgia Funny Car competition, the red, white, and blue ’65 Mustang funny car of Dan Horan took his championship down to the final round, defeating John Hale’s Camaro, 5.72 to 5.79 to take the season title. And veteran A/Fuel Dragster pilot Don Enriquez thrilled the crowd with yet another victory, this time at 73 years of age.
Dan Horan Nostalgia Funny Car
The five-race Hot Rod Heritage Tour championship for 2015 will start right here at Famoso March 5-8 at The March Meet. As they used to scream on the radio: “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! Be there or be square!”
More from the 2014 California Hot Rod Reunion: 
Rear-engined dragsters are nothing new, as the ancient Bob’s Muffler Shop short-wheelbase Hemi dragster proves so eloquently.
This beautifully restored ex-Wild Willie Borsch Mustang funny car, now owned by Jim Kipp, was judged the best of its breed.
The LA Roadsters club showed up in force at Famoso and set up their car show in the grove behind the grandstands. Wow!
Drag racers aren’t all business all the time: Witness this bright yellow Chevy A/Gasser with the face of a china doll.
In Casablanca, everybody goes to Rick’s, but in Bakersfield, everybody goes to Milt’s, celebrating 50 years of hosting racers.
Nice report by Jim McCraw. If you can’t be at an event, the next best thing is reading about it in a review by Jim McCraw.
Great coverage and great event. If you only get to one event a year, this should be it. Always a pleasure to get to spend some time with Jim McCraw!
On my list of things to do. You gotta love all those diggers at the cacklefest.
Great piece; thanks Jim and MCG! Wild Willie sure knew how to make a Mustang II look mean.