50th Anniversay of National Dragster

Yesterday, August 26, Carl and I were invited to the "Press and VIP" opening of the Wally Parks NHRA Museum's new exhibit, "50 Years of National Dragster". We weren't actually "Press" so we put ourselves into the "VIP" category. But to qualify myself as "Press", I'm writing a story on the event, and posting it right here on my blog.

We had heard about this upcoming event for weeks because my good friend, neighbor, and walking buddy, Teresa, has been working on it and hanging the pictures at the museum. She and Paula and with the help/aggravation of Wayne.




This is Teresa standing next the the "Leslie Lovett" display. Leslie was the Photo Editor and main photographer for National Dragster for so many years, but I'm not sure how many. Everyone loved Leslie. His shirt along with his photo stuff and some of his really cool photos are in a glass display case. It's worth the trip to the museum just to see this corner.




Leslie's photo of Shirley "Cha Cha" Muldowney.


Up close of his stuff....


This is Leslie Lovett.


The exhibit shows the old and the new. Here is a copy of the very first National Dragster beside the Wally Parks memorial edition.

An entire wall in the museum is covered by enlarged covers and inside stories from past National Dragsters.

Greg Sharp, the museum curator, welcomed everyone to the opening.

Phil Burgess (on the right) is the current editor of National Dragster and on the left is Dick Wells, the first editor. They talked about how hard it was back in the beginning to put a magazine together, and compared it to today's digital world, and how it is still lots of work to do the same thing.

Then Alex Xydias told a short story .

Ahhh, the food..... Had we known there was going to be a spread, we wouldn't have just eaten lunch at Gene's Grinder around the corner before going. There was room, however, for two cookies and a Coke.

This is a huge wall display, that's the top of a real race car at the bottom.

The lamp on the left, made of race car parts, was in the National Dragster office for many years.

Here is an example of the changes in look the magazine went through over the years.

Right beside the new exhibit you can see some awesome and historic race cars.

I love the little race car sticker on the walls, it was originally on the National Dragster banner.

Here is a little video of the event. All in good fun, I know that Teresa didn't do it all by herself, but she should be very proud of her contributions to this exhibit.

So - those of you who are reading my blog and live in the area, be sure to get over to the museum to see this fine exhibit. The LA County Fair starts on September 5th through October 4th, so unless you want to pay for the fair, go before then, or wait until it's over.

That's all for now, Reporting from La Verne, CA - Kathy