UDRA

An Innovative and Showy Bang for the Buck for 36 Seasons

by Chris Martin

The late Boyd Pennington was No. 1 Junior Eliminator on the Drag News list in early 1964 and was a star performer at the first Lions UDRA race.

Bob Martin photo.

The second oldest drag racing organization in the country is the United Drag Racers Association (UDRA). It's older than IHRA, NMCA, and even the beloved old AHRA. Only the National Hot Rod Association has dates longer than this venerable organization, which was originally formed by a group of Southern California drag racers after a series of meetings in very late 1963 and early 1964 at the Tahitian Village restaurant in the southern Los Angeles suburb of Lakewood.

Their position was anchored by a beef, in this case that the performers (the racers) needed to be represented by an organization that fought for their rights with the promoters at the gaming tables. In official language, the organization was put together "to foster and promote better competition," but it all boiled down to "we want a little more dough to put on our show." The racers would sit in the staging lanes or the pits and see big crowds of 10,000-plus at places like Lions and Pomona and wanted a bigger cut, pure and simple.

What this movement did in the immediate sense was to lead to the creation of some of the best Top Fuel and Top Gas shows of the middle 1960s and early 1970s, but it also led to other important things as well. A very strong case can be made for UDRA being the birthplace of unlimited Pro Stocks and the Alcohol Funny Car.

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Heading up the first UDRA organization in Southern California were drag racer Tom "the Mongoose" McEwen and specialty machine shop entrepreneur Doug Kruse. Through various meetings and recruitment of membership, they were in a position to actually produce their own event. On Feb. 1-2, 1964, McEwen and Kruse hosted the first UDRA Championships at Lions Dragstrip a week before the AHRA Winternationals in Scottsdale, Ariz. and two weeks before the NHRA Winternationals at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona.

The show was highlighted by two separate Top Fuel shows, one hosted Saturday afternoon and night, and the other Sunday. Something approaching 200 dragsters (blown fuel and gas, injected fuel and gas) took part, playing before a total two-day crowd of roughly 15- to 20,000 fans. Reportedly, Eddie "Parachute" Potter's AA/Modified Fuel Coupe (coupe back end/dragster front end) showed up to get in line for qualifying as early as 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning!

Lions hosted the second UDRA Meet in mid-May of 1964. Two full days of Top Fuel and Top Gas racing filled the dragstrip parking lots.

Bob Martin photo.

The race was a monster success. Virtually every West Coast Top Fueler and a number of Midwesterners filled the staging lanes to produce a show that gave the coming AHRA and NHRA winter meets a tough act to follow. Taking the wins were Don Prudhomme in the fabled Greer-Black-Prudhomme dragster on Saturday night and Gary Gabelich behind the wheel of the Sandoval Bros. and Don Madden's dragster. Reportedly, one of the crew members on the Sandoval car had been famed NFL football coach and now NASCAR/NHRA car owner Joe Gibbs.

UDRA meetings and chapters sprung up like wildfires in dry brush after the success of the Lions meet. In less than a year's time, UDRA chapters were formed in Fresno, San Francisco, Chicago, Phoenix, Baltimore/Washington D.C., and Philadelphia. In May of 1965, the first UDRA race east of Las Vegas was hosted at York U.S. 30 Dragway in Pennsylvania with Bub Reese winning the show in the Reese Bros. dragster.

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