Besides the displays of nostalgia dragsters and bikes inside the Historic Marque at this year’s Dragstalgia, the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame organised a pop-up display of crew and officials’ shirts from past years. Most definitely two of the oldest crew shirts on display, and probably the first of its kind from the 1970s were the Komodo Dragon/JBW shirts from the British Pro Comp days and worn by Jeremy and Richard, sons of Liz & Ollie Burn, now Elizabeth Rowland.
“Yes, I think we were the first with team shirts”, recalls Liz. “Ollie and I went on a trip to see the Super Nationals at Ontario Motor Speedway in 1973 and were so impressed with the professional look of some teams that we decided to have our own team shirts. I designed the layout, bought the fabric from a warehouse in Birmingham and set-to making ours and the ones for Malibu Express/DB Motors team in their Castrol colours. I am not a professional seamstress, just a hobby I enjoy on my domestic sewing machine, which I still have to this day!”
The next oldest must be the denim jacket worn by Tony Pearson in 1976 when he crewed for Don Garlits in that memorable year. Tony went on to drive cars from the Santa Pod stable and crewed for several other Top Fuel teams including wrenching on Darryl Gwynn Budweiser entry when it first came over to the UK in 1989 and much later with Finnish racer Antti Horto in 2012 at the FIA Euro Finals. The Bud shirt was in fact Darryl’s own personal shirt. Tony currently races in Gasser Circus.
Another jacket which had pride of place in the display but needs no introduction is the Chief Starters STP silk purple jacket as worn by BDRHoF founding chairman Stu Bradbury in 1976. The jacket on the reverse featured the STP oval and around the outside BDR & HRA and Santa Pod. Another chief starter’s shirt on display was that of Ian Marshall’s dating back several years to around the 2010 era.
Further representation from the long cars featured the crew shirts from four-time FIA European Top Fuel Champion Andy Carter bearing the Lucas shields and the American Car Imports Shirt belonging to five-time European Top Methanol Dragster title holder and BDRHoF member Dave Wilson.
With the induction of John Spuffard into the Hall of Fame in 2024, the presentation of which will be at this year’s Gala, ‘Spuff The Magic Drag Man’ loaned us one of his team shirts from his Showtime Racing days, while the drag bike class was well looked after by BDRHoF member Ian King’s shirt from around the 1997 era when Ian raced Funny Bikes before turning his attention to Top Fuel Bike and Hall of Famer John Hobbs who had one of his Hobbit shirts on display.
Finally, Jerry Cookson offered up two shirts from his collection when he was editor of the much-missed Fire-Up magazine and from 1996 a shirt as when Jerry interviewed on the start line the NHRA’s International Relations officer Carl Olson at Avon Park Raceway’s Internationals.
The British Drag Racing Hall of Fame would like to thank all those who contributed shirts for the display and to the photographers whose images continue to remind us of the good times.
