The Jalopy Journal reports that this year’s H.A.M.B. drag event has been one of the best that they have seen in the nine years that they have covered the venue. For a few different reasons, this year’s event was better organized and more laid-back. That’s because H.A.M.B. only allowed pre-registered cars at this year’s event, which helped keep the crowds under control while helping to maintain a car count of 200 cars.
According to Ryan, the H.A.M.B. meets were mostly casual in the past, but like a rollercoaster, the atmosphere and energy of the H.A.M.B. venue has been up-and-down over the last few meets, and so their new system of registering and monitoring cars and participants has helped to restore the harmony that spectators and racers have enjoyed in the past.
Ryan from the Journal is also happy to report that he was able to, for the first time in a long time, sit down and actually watch the drag races.
The two runs that stood out the most to Ryan were the “Dragmaster,” a newly-built race car, and the Willys coupe of Don Moyer that went up against Jeff Beck’s “Seven Deadly Sins” coupe, both drag cars putting on a jaw-dropping display of straight-in-the-air, wheelie action.
Because of this front-end pulling display, Beck and Moyer’s head-to-head run has been said to be, possibly, one of the greatest strip runs in H.A.M.B. drag racing history.
Some cars from California who were noteworthy also joined-in on the old-school, drag racing festivities, including the “Purple People Eater,” a car that took $20 from Ryan, along with a ’32 sedan that became one of his favorites and a Willys that stayed “nose-high all day long.” Because the H.A.M.B. event makes a spectator sport out of traditional drag racing, it is said to be, by Jalopy Journal, the best traditional drag race event in the entire country.
