A Kentucky Reunion

Photos by Dale Wilson
7/7/03

Bill Hulit of Summerfield, Florida ran his "Hulit's Garage" flathead in Oldies Eliminator, ran in the low 13s on gas.

Dale Wilson is a bracket racing "retiree" who was editor of Bracket Racing USA from 1991 to its demise in 1998. His latest dream is to return to racing in either a front-engine dragster, a slow motorcycle or the family Mazda wagon. Everything else he has is for sale.

ou really can't blame Jim Frizzel for getting a tear in his eye.

Sure, it probably had something to do with the dozen or so ancient and modern fuelers that had wound themselves down on the Beech Bend Raceway Park quarter-mile, and the air that hung heavy with the smell and bite of pure nitro and methanol. But there was something else at work here as scores of others wiped their eyes and grinned a Christmas morning grin.

They had just witnessed Cacklefest No. 1 on Beech Bend's asphalt, as part of the first annual Holley National Hot Rod Reunion presented by DuPont Automotive Finishes. Frizzel, a long-time member of the NHRA Safety Safari (he's the gray-bearded chap with the cowboy hat festooned with a dozen or so souvenir pins), was breaking away from a remembrance with California chassis man Tom Hanna, about his gorgeous new front-engine fueler. Jim said it best: "The tears from our eyes aren't from nitro. They're from the emotions of the past."

Oh, yes. The cacklefest, brainchild of former NHRA event director Steve Gibbs, who is now a part of the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, was but a bit of what this hot rod reunion, held at beautiful Beech Bend in Bowling Green, Kentucky over the June 20-22 weekend, was all about. There were street rods galore, meets-'n'-greets from some of the most famous names in all of drag racing, plus racing, racing and more racing, in classes that ranged from Top Fuel (how 'bout a legit 231.99-mph blast from the eliminator's winner, Roger Lechtenberg of Cedar Falls, Iowa?) to Oldies, for flatheads and in-line sixes who ranged from 13-second e.t.'s to the high 8s.

They have held 12 such reunions at Bakersfield, California, over the years, but this is the first time that such a reunion has ventured east. And Beech Bend, as famous as the Famoso track in the Golden State, was the perfect spot to have one.

"We've had repeated calls for a reunion for the east coast guys," Gibbs said. "And there's something about this track that told us, 'This is the place.' We always said that a reunion like this should be for everyone, and it is -- historic cars, a thousand street rods, but most of all, it's the people, like Raymond Godman, Connie Swingle, Hubert Platt, Dale Funk, Goob Tuller, Don Garlits, Larry Dixon Sr. and Jr., Dick LaHaie. This could be (track manager) Dallas Jones' signature event." Gibbs said he and his museum crew will return here in 2004.