With words and photos, veteran automotive journalist Jim McCraw reports from one of the premier events of the vintage drag racing movement, the California Hot Rod Reunion. This time he’s taken a close-up perspective—check it out. 

 

 

At the vintage drag meets, you can’t do better for a pit guide than Jim McCraw. As the editor of Super Stock and then Hot Rod magazine in the ’60s and ’70s, the golden age of quarter-mile competition, ‘Craw has seen it all. For his visit to last weekend’s California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield, he gave us his up-close and personal perspective, zeroing in on the cowl art and other beautiful details of vintage drag racers. Here’s Jim. -MCG 

 

Hot Rod Reunion Brings Out the Artists
by Jim McCraw

The art of drag racing graphics is a lot different than any other motorsport, with more humor, more chutzpah, and more cool. At the 24^th annual NHRA Wally Parks Museum California Hot Rod Reunion at Auto Club Famoso Raceway near Bakersfield, we wandered around among the dragsters, funny cars, fuel altereds and gassers to take a closer look at the details in the paint jobs, the logo designs, and the overall quality of these beautiful vintage race cars.  We’ve supplied captions to help make you feel like you were there.  If you weren’t, you missed one of the greatest shows in drag racing.  The 25^th annual will come next October, and if you’re one of the cool kids….

 

Part road grader, part airplane, and part dragster was this logo we spotted on the cowl of a gorgeous vintage front-engined dragster.

 

A lot of drag racers are also railroad nuts, and this dragster cowl featured a modified Santa Fe Railroad logo and Thunder Chief graphics.

 

A tradition at Bakersfield is remembering the racers who are no longer with us, in this case, Tommy Allen’s tribute to fueler pilot Steve Carbone.

 

Some of the cars and paint jobs are so old, it’s hard to tell whether this is Nat Quick’s original logo, or a restoration by Whetstone Restorations. Beautiful work.

 

Art and history combine here in The Silhouette, reportedly the very first fully enclosed dragster, built by a pilot in 1953. The steering arm is a Cessna wing strut.

 

Forever acknowleged as a piece of drag racing artistry is the Speed Sport A/Modified Roadster of Red Greth, from Tucson, originally built in 1955.

 

This is one of three wheelie-popping mini dragsters built by Mickey Thompson long ago, this one painted up like the real Champion Speed Shop Chevy Top Fuel dragster behind it.

 

Certainly one of the oldest cars here, the Art and Walt Arfons Green Monster has a monster painted on the tip of its nose and a 1710 CID Allison V12 aircraft engine out back.

 

The oldest funny car body style at Bakersfield is usually Dan Horan’s ’66 Mustang fastback, which is always competitive. Here’s a flag paint job done right.

 

The cars of Jerry “The King” Ruth were among the fastest in the Northwest, and this example sports a very elaborate logo made for Ruth by Gary Ebert.

 

Southern Californian Tom Hanna developed this nasty looking lion logo for his race car body business about 50 years ago.

 

This close to Halloween, we just had to include some kind of ghoul, zombie or monster, this one from a dragster nose.

 

Little Tommy Larkin was a fixture in SoCal gas dragster racing, and his family remembers him on the cowl of the family dragster.

 

A car painter’s nightmare is the rainbow layout on the restored Dunn & Reath fuel dragster.  Many miles of masking tape were invested.

 

One of the coolest T-shirt logos we saw was this one for Gene Adams’ shop.  Adams probably knows more about nitro racing than anyone.

 

Japanese-American racer and car builder Dave Uyehara uses a lion logo in gold leaf.

 

If you’re seeing this logo of a pooped polar bear, you’ve just been beaten by the Nanook AA/Fuel Altered, ‘cause it’s on the trunk.

 

Pure Hell and High Heaven AA/Fuel Altereds wait in the lanes.  Pure Hell’s veteran driver, Rich Guasco, ran his last race at Bakersfield. After more than half a century in drag racing, he’s retired.

 

This black-with-flames beauty was shipped all the way from Fyfe, Scotland, to make exhibitions runs for the crowd.  Crew wore kilts!

 

A rapid work of art was the Shelar/Dunlap High Speed Motorsports fueler that won the race at Bakersfield.  Driver Bill Dunlap is 75 years old.