Over a year ago, loyal fans began checking their favorite hotel rooms for the October weekend of the California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield, California like a modern-day Woodstock for the faithful. For the last 23 years, the Reunion is a celebration of our drag racing past, but since 2009 a large part of the event is the World Finals for yearlong participants in the NHRA’s Hot Rod Heritage Series for nitro cars and racers in Heritage Series Group 1.

On Thursday before the storm, the nitro funny cars, top fuel dragsters, gassers, A/Factory Experimentals all hit the scales and were checked off through tech while the legends and near legends parked their Cacklefest dragsters and coupes for the Saturday night spotlight.

Tony Bartone entered the Reunion with the Heritage Series Top Fuel Championship already in hand and had one goal for the weekend, make a clean sweep of the season, ending here at Famoso with a Reunion win. It is truly hard to believe that one top fuel dragster could dominate, winning every round of competition at every track during the season as well as Low Elapsed Time of each event.

On his way to the 2014 Reunion Winners Circle would qualify #1 with a 5.864, the a single run of 5.680 in the first round, a 5.634 in round two, a 5.642 in the semi’s over Jimmy Young and an early shut off 5.865 in his final round win over a red lighting Rick White. When Bartone spotted White’s foul he left the starting line with his thumb high in the air, celebrating the Reunion victory. White and Bartone met in the season opening March Meet when White’s dragster broke and Bartone singled for the win.

Bartone won each of the Heritage Series Top Fuel events this season, Famoso’s March Meet, the Boise Nightfire Nationals and all three Reunions in Bowling Green, Epping and the Hot Rod Reunion. Bartone also set low E.T. and top speed each event weekend with his awesome tuner Steve Boggs turning the wrenches. All the other top fuelers wanted a piece of the Bartone/Boggs combo, but even at the Reunion that’d prove to be impossible.  “I won’t know if this is for real until I wake up tomorrow,” Bartone said. “I was nervous from the semifinals on and I was nervous in the car. We wanted to pull off the deed and wanted to pull off the sweep and win the race. I’ve been at this a long time but I was nervous today. We have the broom in the truck to celebrate the sweep and the great season.”

 

In Nitro Funny Car there was a season-long battle for the Heritage Series Championship between two veterans; Dan Horan Jr. in his “Patriot” ’65 Mustang and Kris Krabill driving the Austin & O’Brien “Northwest Hitter” ’78 Firebird. Going into the Finals at Famoso, the points were tight, but Krabill’s first round loss via a Mike Lewis holeshot in the “Nitro Nick” ’72 Vega decided the Heritage Series Funny Car Championship.

Although Horan didn’t win all 2014 Heritage Series events as did Bartone, Ronnie Swearingen tuned Horan’s Mustang to a dominating consistency throughout eliminations. The “Patriot” qualified third running a 5.760 ET at 255.48 mph, behind Jason Rupert’s 5.691 and Mark Sanders’ 5.724 in the two allotted nitro qualifiers.

In the first round of eliminations Horan ran 5.723/253.09 over Robert Overholser’s 5.844 in the “California Hustler” Firebird, defeated Mike Lewis with a 5.728/254.43, in the Semi’s ran 5.743/246.38 over Mark Sanders. Then, in one of the closest finals of the season, both funny cars left the line together with Horan nailing another 5.724/254.38 defeating John Hale in his ’69 Camaro with a 5.791/247.29 mph.

“This was an absolutely phenomenal and a story book ending to three years with Ron Swearingen. It was a bittersweet farewell,” said Horan. “Ronnie had Jack Beckman working with me and getting me to relax and not worry about shifting the car or keeping it in the groove, just relaxing. Without Ron I wouldn’t have known Jack and have had this blessed year.”

With all of Horan’s success in past years, the Reunion marked his last race with veteran crew chief Ron Swearingen who joins Don Nelson’s “California Hustler” ’77 Firebird nitro funny car team.

 

In Pro Mod, Mike Maggio and his Maggio Motorsports ’68 Camaro plowed through the eight-car field saving the best for last in his Final Round victory over Rob Cacioppo who broke on the burnout in the ’63 Corvette owned by Steve Gomez. On Maggio’s single, he set Low Elapsed Time and top Speed of the meet for Pro Mod with a 5.699 at 259.01 mph pass with Cacioppo watching from the sidelines.

On the same weekend that Barton and Horan secured their championships, three additional drivers secured NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series Championships as well.

Bobby Cottrell and Don Enriquez took home both the series championship and the event win while Ryan Davenport secured his NHRA A/Fuel Championship.

Bobby Cottrell had the most work to do as he was in third place and 74 points behind Richard High in 7.0 Eliminator coming into the NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion presented by the Automobile Club of Southern California.  High lost in round one opening the door for Cottrell, who is the defending 7.0 Heritage Series Champion, but he would have to win the event to overtake High.   He did just that as the Whittier, Calif., racer marched through eliminations in his Turk Brothers dragster and knocked out Eily Stafford in the final to clinch the championship.

The win was Cottrell’s second of the year having won the Rocky Mountain Raceway’s event back in August.   To top things off, he also advanced to the final in A/Fuel in the Archibald Racing entry and beat Will Wayne with a lap of 6.355 seconds at 216.06 mph for his second win of the day and third NHRA Wally trophy.  If that was not enough, he tuned his own 7.0 dragster to the win in 7.0 Eliminator “B” field with Jesse Adams at the wheel.

Don Enriquez (above) was trailing Wayne Ramay by just 18 points in Jr. Fuel as the two were to face off in round one having qualified numbers one and eight respectively.  Ramay’s ’11 dragster suffered problems in the final qualifying round and was unable to make the call.  Like Cottrell, Enriquez, Mission Viejo, Calif., went on to win the event and his third championship in a row, saving his best run for last posting a 7.179, at 184.98 mph in beating J.D. Zink.  The win was his second in three final rounds on the year.

Les Davenport, out of Calgary, Alb., Canada (above), secured his championship with a round one win combined with losses by Chip Beverett and Kin Bates who were chasing Davenport in the points.  Davenport won over Dennis Allen in round one and then Casey Grisel in round two before falling to Bill Wayne in the semifinals.  Davenport started out the year with a win at the famous March Meet at Auto Club Famoso Raceway followed by a final round showing at Sacramento Raceway in April.

The winner of 7.0 PRO B was Jesse Adams driving Bobby Cottrell’s Dragster with a 7.046 ET at 180.38 mph  defeat of Joey Steckler, Corvette funny car who ran 7.094 ET at 199.85 mph.

NOSTALGIA ELIMINATOR I

Bakersfield, California’s Jason Barta and his Nostalgia Eliminator Front Engine Dragster ran a 7.610 ET at 172.78  on the 7.60 NE1 index in defeating Hans Jakob’s 7.644 ET at 173.92 mph.

 

Eric Bush and his beautiful ’67 Camaro from Ojai, California defeated Dean Hall’s ’62 Impala in the A/Gas final with a close win running 7.607 ET at 177.37 mph to Hall’s 7.625 ET at 177.67 mph.

 

The competitive A/FX class was won by #9 qualifier Doug Hampton from Salinas, California in his ’66 Ford Fairlane running a 10.296 ET at 118.70 mph on a holeshot, defeating San Diego’s Mitch Akers’ ’60 Impala who ran 10.115 ET at 133.43 mph.

The 23rd California Hot Rod Reunion and the Heritage Series Finals was an awesome event, with drag racing legends and restored and recreated racecars of the past that will interest any gearhead, the Saturday Night Cacklefest™ will blow you away.  If you are considering a trip to Famoso Raceway for next year’s Reunion, start checking into booking hotel rooms for October 23 – 25, 2015.