A few notes, and some pictures from the grove Saturday. Nice weather, lot of good racing, but too much down time. Swap meet sucked, as usual. Still a good time, for a reasonable ticket price. View attachment 5869851
Thanks, I went to the first 13 and haven't been back. Nice to see the grove is growing and the cars are still cool.
I’ve gone to most of them since they started and remember events where the parking overflowed a mile in each direction out on the road, the Grove filled up by 7 am and show cars overflowed into a lot in the pit area and all the way down the road between the swap meet and the pits. The Cacklefest had close to 50 cars and lots were push started. It was amazing. But those days are gone. It’s the Heritage Series finale and the racing is pretty much the main feature now.
I've got friends that race Nitro funny car, and they've told me that the Bakersfield event has been going downhill.
That is not just Bakersfield. Have you looked at TV images of the grandstands at a NASCAR or an NHRA race recently? At yesterday's NASCAR playoff race the stands were about a third full. Likewise NHRA.
Absolutely, nothing remains the same, enjoy it while you can. As for me, my glass is still half full!
They had lots of N/FCs and N/TFs this year, more than enough for a full 16 car field in funny car. This time it was the Fuel Altereds that suffered, only four cars that I saw and Rodney Flournoy’s (Godzilla fuel altered) daughter crashed in her Nostalgia Eliminator car and went to the hospital, so he withdrew his AA/FA. Nanook had a bad weekend with mechanical problems. The highlight of Nitro racing was Jim Murphy in his N/TF car. They ran the finals from the March Meet that were postponed due to rain. Jim Murphy won, giving him the MM win he needed to pass Don Garlits’ record of four March Meet wins. But not without some drama, the timing lights failed in his lane and they elected to re-run the final later. Murphy got his 5th March Meet win at 81 years old at his last race! He’s retired from driving as of Sunday. Way back in the late 60s and 70s he ran the Holy Smokes funny car.
Absolutely! I’ll admit that I have to push myself to drive four hours to go sit in the California sun for three days and sleep in the back of my van for two nights, but I never regret it. And my amazing wife with a bum knee trucks along with me every time. Half way home I got phantom nitro fumes in my nose, she said, “me too!” I see old timers in way worse shape than me out there watching the nitro racers putting on a show. I’ll keep going and supporting them until I can’t.
I went to everyone of them up to the 25th.... Then Steve Gibbs and the NHRA had a fallen out and he left and took a lot of the show with him..... Over the years it became just another heritage race with less and less exhibition cars..... As they say time moves on and things change....Cars to young kids aren't the driving force it use to be....
Similar thing over here in Australia. I drove 5 hours to race my HA/GR at the Nostalgia Nationals at Heathcote raceway 14th October. Ran in the Hotrod bracket. Field of 4 cars, even less turned up as spectators. Numbers of competitors and spectators were greatly reduced for some reason.
2016 was the last time I was at FAMOSO / BAKERSFIELD When it was still the CHRR. I was fortunate to attend 4 of the earlier years as well.
2016 was the last time I was there, and that's when things started to change. I went several times, and was in the Cacklefest once. They were always fun, but not as fun as the Real Nostalgia Nationals at Fremont, when we were racing real cars from the 60's, not what the class has evolved into.
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