Wrapping Pomona

While biking around the Fairplex area I discovered another hidden gem. The Wally Parks National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Museum sits on the grounds and was luckily open on the day we were getting ready to move on.

Wally Parks was born in 1913 in Oklahoma, but later relocated to California. By the post-Depression era was he was an avid automobile hobbyist, active in modifying stock vehicles to enhance their performance. In the 1940’s he founded and became the first editor of Hot Rod Magazine, and was later instrumental in the founding of Motor Trend Magazine. He used these platforms to promote hot rodding safety, trying to get drag racing off the streets and onto organized tracks, launching Safety Safaris where he toured the country promoting organized racing as opposed to street racing. In 1951 he founded the NHRA, today the largest sanctioning organization in racing in the world.

The museum has a fantastic collection of vintage hot rods of many different kinds. Classic stock vehicles modified by their owners, full rail dragsters, some NASAR vehicles and several that set speed records on the Bonneville Salt Flats all grace the floor. I liked the collection of funny cars, bringing back childhood memories of the Mongoose and the Snake – driven by Tom McEwen and Don Prudhomme. I remember them more from the Hot Wheels than from actually watching them race however.

We found the most interesting part of the museum to be the huge display room dedicated to Gale Banks. We know Gale Banks because he and his company provide RV engine performance enhancement products, claiming to boost horsepower of both gasoline and diesel engines. Our good friends Ron and Teresa have Bank’s equipment in their RV and swear by it.

It makes sense now, but it turns out that Banks, born in 1942, got all his performance knowledge from modifying his family mobiles into hot rods when he was young. Over the decades that followed he set record after record for the world’s fastest vehicles of all sorts. He became so well known that in the late 70’s the Navy Seals sought him out to develop a turbo marine engine that could produce 535 HP and  ru

n on high octane “Battle Gas”.

We took one last pass around the Fairplex and found that spring had sprung. Flowers galore line the streets, and the fruit trees are full of lemons and oranges. However, everything we saw paled in comparison to the hedge of Bougainvillea.

Talk to you soon!