senor honda

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McGuire found the New York-based car on the internet in 2008 — noting “I had to have it” — and developed a friendship with Lewis, who shared a host of old Polaroid photos of its early years in the sale. Some of the suspension and driveline parts have been updated since, but the body and interior — the real character — is unchanged. “This thing was a time capsule for 37 years, Dwight says. “I started racing it about four years ago — it’s been a ball, but it doesn’t have a high-performance motor, so it could be one of the slowest cars out here.”

senor honda

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“It’s really sad he spent all that money on it and never got to enjoy it,” MGuire continues. “Nobody ever saw this paint job until I took it to the Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green in 2008.”McGuire has a 350-inch small-block Chevrolet for power with a four-speed. “It’s a handful — people like to watch because it bounces around going down the track.”Mel passed away a year ago, and as an ode to his role in the cars’ history, Dwight pulled the tie-dye t-shirt out of the box he’d been given in the sale and tied it around the passenger seat — “I put it on there said ‘ol Mel is still here. And the day I did that, it started pulling a wheelie — it had never done that before. So I guess he’s still down here kind of watching over it.”

senor honda

Purely a show car that garnered plenty of attention for its showroom-quality looks and interior and exterior you could literally eat off of, Kingsport, Tennessee’s Don Gray brought out his spectacular Torture 1955 Chevrolet.

Originally built and debuted in 1965, but not initially expected to debut until 1966 — thus the stock-car-style number ’66’ on the door, which is plenty vintage in its own right — the classic 1955 Chevrolet was raced for just three seasons before Gray parked and later sold it.

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The gem sports a high-winding 301 cubic-inch small-block Chevrolet for powerGray later did some dirt track racing and even owned a dirt oval in Tennessee for a time before returning to drag racing in 1995 behind the wheel of a more modern Super Gas tri-five. Two years prior, he had successfully tracked the ’55 down and purchased it back, spending the next 25 years bringing it back to life.“I sold it and I regretted it all that time,” Gray says. “When I found it, the boy that owned it knew I wanted it — he took two old cars I had and $1,000, but it didn’t matter because I was gonna’ get it one way or another.” “Everything you see here is pretty much how it was when I built it, but the engine is not original, nor are the seats. But it does have an original 10,000 rpm tachometer in it, and the 6:17 gear is original, as well. It also American magnesium wheels on it, but I couldn’t get those back so I had to get some American aluminum, but it’s pretty close to how it was at the time. It had pretty well the best of everything you could get at that time.”Gray says the first paint job he applied in 1965 cost him a whopping $100 and the Sherwin-Williams paint was $10 — this paint job was $6,800. The little 301 was a screamer in its day — Gray would launch at nine-grand, shift it at ten, and would zing it through the traps at 9,200 — “it screamed…it made a tremendous sound.”Gray travels to every Southeast Gassers event and shows his beautiful pride and joy, noting he fired it up a couple of months ago but has no intent of doing so again — he says ultimately he’d like to find a museum for it to display its heritage as one of the finest examples of the Gasser era.

senor honda

Inarguably one of the most well-engineered and cleanest — nevermind quickest — cars in the A/Gas category and the Southeast Gassers Association is this 1955 Corvette owned by Kenneth Phillips out of Spartanburg, South Carolina.Phillips purchased the car, originally more of a Pro Modified-style car, he notes, from Quain Stott and spent last spring modifying it to fit the Southeast Gasser rules. The debut was successful to say the least, as he runner-up in the A/Gas points championship.

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“It’s a lot of fun…it’s a ball,” Phillips notes.The ‘Vette sports a Gene Fulton-built 385 for power backed by a four-speed, which has propelled it into the 5.60s in the eighth-mile.

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Another of the relative young-guns in the series is 42-year-old Justin Moses, who hails from Atlanta, Georgia.Moses campaigns this 1956 Chevrolet that sports a big-block Chevrolet for power, backed with a four-speed and transferring out to a Ford 9-inch.

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Paul Vanderpool applied the unmistakably traditional, airbrushed paint scheme last year, which makes it among the ‘lookers’ of the series. Converted to a Gasser in recent years, Moses later learned of its unique history. Once calling Fredericksburg, Virginia home, the ‘56 was a bit of a legend among the locals, as its original owner had made hay bootlegging moonshine with it. The previous owner had traded some handyman work for the car, discovering it in pretty rough shape. Moses said he knew he wanted a racecar and didn’t want to use anything too nice as a basis, so he gave the car a complete transformation. The car sports fiberglass in all the places permissible by the rules to replace the rotted-out original panels.

senor honda

The car sports fiberglass in all the places permissible by the rules to replace the rotted-out original panels.

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Moses said he found out quick how outgunned he was in his early years with the series, but gradually stepped up his program to run with the pack in A/Gas.“It’s a tight field out here. There aren’t several tenths separating the field, so you have to be on your A-game…any hiccup or mistake is going to cost you race. If you don’t cut a good light or get out of the groove a little bit…it’s tough. It’s fun.”