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As all of us that raced or ‘leaned on the fence’ in the 50’ through 70’s know the CHRR is a colossal yearly event.  Junior Thompson was the Grand Marshal--a gasser legend in drag racing.  Let me share my observations as I tagged along for this special weekend.

Junior was there with two of his historic cars. The ’41 Studebaker was there to commemorate Junior’s 50th anniversary of his 1958 Little Eliminator win.  The car is so original that it even has the hole in the hood where the magazines reported blower parts exiting the hood.  Oh the stories this car could tell!  Sitting adjacent next to the Studebaker and in front of the ‘legends signing tent’ was Junior’s “Big John Mazmanian” partnered Opel Kadett AA/GS with a blown Hemi jutting out of the custom built original custom fiberglass body.

Junior and his family and his historic cars were placed right in front of the “Dynamic Legends” signing booth where excitement was a constant occurrence.  All you had to do was look up and there would be another historic racer hammering out old stories with Junior and his son Tommy.  I later told Tommy, “That was the neatest thing to just stand there and have people like Steve Gibbs, Greg Sharp, TV Tommy Ivo, Butch Leal and Gas Rhonda wander by.”  In fact everywhere you looked there was history afoot.  While watching the races with my wife I looked down and low and behold there was someone that looked like Roland Leong with family.  Since my wife is Hawaii born and raised I told her to go down and see if it was him.  Sure enough after talking ‘Hawaii-pidgin’ with Roland she asked for The Hawaiian’s autograph.  Think of that he was just sitting in the stands with who knows who else!



Cars!  There were historic racing cars everywhere that brought back memories to so many of us old timers.  They even had Garlit’s Swamp Rat III and a Garlit’s tow vehicle on display by its new owner Sonny Messner who has himself been wrenching at races since the 1950’s.

And hey here is my personal highlight: I was able to side-kick the Grand Marshall up into the announcer’s booth.  When some official asked, “Who are you?!?”  I just said, “I’m with Junior.”  Then Junior co-announced the gasser competition.  What a spot!  You’re up above the starting line with tire smoke billowing back at you, listing to the crowds roar and then the announcer yells out, “That was another good run for so-and-so, but not good enough to win.  And did you see that he was beat with a 169 mph and a 9.45 et.”  I’ll never forget that moment.

The finale for me was Saturday night in the lineup.  That’s right Saturday night many of the historic race cars were lined up in the starting line, rails, gassers, altered and you name it.  When the evening festivities began they invited Junior Thompson to the stage located right next to the strip and then in honor of the his being the Grand Marshall his son Tommy cackled the red Opel Kadett AA/GS with all its memories down the entire track.  (The Thompson family is thinking of parting with the Opel Kadett. You could own this piece of history.) To quote Tommy, “That was a real honor for NHRA representatives to allow us to do that.  We were the only car besides the rails to that.”  Let me personally thank the whole Thompson Clan (yes all the kids and grand kids were there together breathing barbeque and nitro fumes together) for inviting me to polish and dust their 2 historic cars while enjoying the time of my life!

If you’ve never been to the California Hot Rod Reunion and you ‘remember the day’, then you should read up on it, check the NHRA website for next year and plan to attend.  Well I won’t be hanging out at center stage next year, but boy-oh-boy I did in 2008!