With Marc Meadors

Innerview By Darr Hawthorne
3-17-04

A lot of Vintage Drag Racing associations have come and gone in the last few years, but one that has survived is the Goodguys Rod and Custom Association.

Founded in 1986 by Gary Meadors and located in the East Bay town of Alamo, California, Goodguys is the nation's leader in producing and promoting events for the hot rodding, vintage drag racing and automotive enthusiast. With approximately 66,000 worldwide members, Goodguys will stage 23 car shows and five Vintage Drag Racing meets in 2004.

Our west coast editor Darr Hawthorne spoke with the Goodguys President prior to the 45th Annual March Meet to talk about the state of Vintage Drag Racing today.

DRO: What's the state of Goodguys VRA today?

M: Well, financially it's not a winner, but our motivation and our enthusiasm for it is over the top. That's why we keep on trucking, keep on going on, you know? We have one big successful March meet and the rest of the events kind of feed off that. At the end of the year our accountants come in and say, "why are you guys doing this? Why do you do these drag races?" 'Cause we love it; it makes us different. We have tons of friends and family that are involved with it and we're just going to continue on, we feel obligated, we started it, and we'll just keep going on.

DRO: So is drag racing more your personal part of Goodguys?

M: Me personally, no, it's more my family. My dad has a passion for it; I have a passion for it, I'm a drag racer. I have a'69 Camaro that I raced in the fastest street car stuff. So I a have passion for drag racing, that's my first love if you will, and it gives our company flavor, it gives our Goodguys magazine flavor, gives us a different spin. We're not just a car show, sitting back in lawn chairs "looking at cars" kind of guys. We like to go fast we like to go to the NHRA Drags, so we're enthusiasts.

DRO: On the competition side, there seem to be fewer Top Fuel teams as in the last few years, is Goodguys VRA in good health today?

M: Yeah, it's in good health, from the economy, it's really hard to say why there is a decrease in cars. You see a lot of guys come out to the reunions, you see 23, 24 cars. Then you see our March meet and we get 20 or 22 cars, but then as the events go on and the events aren't as popular or as well attended, those car counts fall off and I think part of it's the economy. The cost of racing is tremendous, you know, you're not racing for the payout, although we've increased our payout, our whole Top Fuel purse is up by 200 to 300 percent. So we're paying the money, we're giving them ink, we're giving them top trophies, we give them championship points and championship money and and we do a big banquet at the end of the March meet to award the champions. So I think we're doing everything we possibly can.