Drag Racing 101
SoCal Diaries T
Former Custom Car editor Tony Thacker lives in California these days, and this month he’s been enjoying the sound of flatheads…
he RPM Nationals has to be one of my favourite events. It’s held at the Santa Margarita Ranch just off US Highway 101, about 100 miles north of Santa Barbara, California and 200 miles north of Los Angeles. The ranch has its own private airstrip which once a year roars to the sound of flathead Fords rather than airplanes. Founded in 2017 and organised by Justin Baas and Russ Hare, the RPM Nats is billed as an 1/8-mile drag race for pre-1936 flathead V8 and four-cylinder hot rods and race cars. Even though the speeds are what you’d expect from 90 to 100-year-old engines, the fun factor is off the scale. If you’re looking to take a trip out west, you could do worse than put the RPM Nationals on your radar. You can learn more at RPMNationals.com or on Facebook at RPM Nationals.
Mike Scaplo, who once owned one of the SoCal Speed Shops and now deals in early Ford parts, travels more than 1200 miles each way from his home in Colorado Springs, home of Pikes Peak, to Santa Margarita
Long time racer Seth Hammond, a member of the Bonneville 300 MPH Club – as are his wife and daughter – races this super ’27 T powered by a four-banger fitted with a rare HAL DOHC conversion
The original ‘Red Baron’ was a 1968 Tom Daniel design for Monogram models but was built into a real car. It’s apparently one of the biggest selling Hot Wheels in history and was Monogram’s number one model kit
You can’t get more patriotic that the course car, Squeak Bell’s ’39 Deluxe convertible sedan. But wait, isn’t Squeak a Kiwi? Yes, but when did that matter? He’s been building hot rods in the US since 1984
Left: Nostalgia Ranch’s ex-pat Jay Dean has been building hot rods in California since 1984 and his T is powered by a big-bore engine based on a ’41 block with Offenhauser heads, a Sharp intake and 3x97 Strombergs Above: Timmy McMaster of Hanford Auto Supply is well known for his Y-block builds but races this ’27 T powered by an Offenhauser-equipped flattie with four Stromberg 97s
There’s nothing quite so tuff as a chopped ’32 3-window on the return road and this dualcarb’d S.Co.T.-blown beast with traditional white firewall and steelies is chopped hard
56 CUSTOM CAR WINTER 2023
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14/11/2022 13:22
