All the previous Grove No Prep event classes were contested at the Ice Breaker No Prep, Big Tire, Small Tire, Stick Shift, Street. These groups were run heads up first to the finish, with an instant green start off the tree. Early morning participation may have kept some racers home, but each class had solid representation. The lightest turnout was Big Tire but local racer Chuck Schultz was the winner with his big-inch powered second-gen Camaro, shod with battle scars and cut of roof. It’s a nasty piece.  Ross Okun rowed the gears to a victory in the Stick Shift class, which is appears to be one of the fasting growing categories at these deals. Long live the hand mixers! 

The Street class was huge and after a mandatory street cruise, and several rounds later Joey Allen and Matthew Manton, Jr. split the purse with the sun dropping almost as fast as the February temperatures. Small Tire is traditionally the largest contingent of racers at the Grove No Preps, and the 2024 Ice Breaker was no different and again, at the end of the day the cash was split between Wesley Skinner and Tommy Kolankiewicz in their Fox Bodies. 

The Ice Breaker race this time had a bracket racing class, called Daily Driver, complete with buybacks! To no one’s surprise, the bracket racers showed up big time, filling four lanes of the Maple Groves ample staging area! With a 15.00 second et cutoff for the 1/8th mile, most competitors left the real race cars at home and jumped in their daily driver or the tow rig. Even with the slower racing, the competition was nonetheless fierce. I saw several .00 lights and tight winning packages from the bracket racers chomping at the bit for a hit of the tree! Two veteran bracket racers waded through the tough field to the final, where Nikki Adams bested Martin Flegal to the win. 

With the regular race season starting in a few weeks, the No Preps are on hold…for now. If you can’t wait for the next one the traveling circus known as No Prep Kings will be kicking off their season at Maple Grove Raceway, hit up the track website for more info and tickets. See you at the Drags!

https://www.maplegroveraceway.com/monthly-race-schedule/

https://www.platinumroofingandrenovations.com/

The post 2024 ICE BREAKER NO PREP PHOTOS: JOE GRIPPO HAS SENT IN ALL KINDS OF ACTION SHOTS AND VIDEO FROM MAPLE GROVE RACEWAY! appeared first on BangShift.com.

Walking into Blair’s is like stepping back into time. Don’t expect a spotless, sanitary white glove environment, this is a hardcore speed shop with oil-stained floors, with boxes and parts everywhere. Various engine builds are lined up and waiting to be paid for and picked up.  We spied a FE Ford ready to rumble on the run stand, a few 351 Cleveland’s and of course a few big and small block Chevys. The walls are lined with chrome do-dads and serious race equipment. Looking deeper we see lots of cool hand lettered sings, and vintage awards and photos from years of Drag Strip activities. Heading to the back rooms we find the well-used machine shop, fully equipped with mills, lathes and other heavy machinery needed to crank out high performance engines. Check out the inventory of cylinder heads, cranks and blocks waiting to roar again. After showing up unannounced, Phil gave us free reign to wander around the entire shop and shoot some photos. It was a great experience chatting with Phil about the old days and hearing a few war stories of all the past names and personalities that have passed through Blair’s over the years. We bought a few t-shirts, thanked Phil for the hospitality and headed out. This experience got me wistfully thinking about my local shop, K&G Speed Associates that closed a few years ago. These remaining speed emporiums need our support, so, when possible, buy local when you can, long live Blair’s Speed Shop!

Our next destination was another Southern California staple of hot rodding, Mooneyes Equipment in Santa Fe Springs. The Moon name and logo is ubiquitous in land speed, drag racing, and all facets of the automotive hobby. From fuel blocks, tanks, and wheel discs to custom accessories for motorcycles, VWs, and trucks Moon Equipment has what you need to add the finishing touch to your ride. I personally have a silver Moon metalflake steering wheel on my race car! The Santa Fe Springs location is part retail store, part shipping warehouse and part fab shop, and part museum. The store is great with so much cool stuff in every square corner. Check out the Ed Roth scale model diorama featuring all Big Daddy’s creations, an amazing amount of detail work is in there. Exiting through the gift shop leads to another room that takes you back in time. Check out the huge display case and shelves full of vintage speed parts and insanely cool artifacts from the history of Mooneyes. And upon turning around, there sits Dean Moon’s personal ’34 hot rod with wire wheels, bobbed fenders, and glowing yellow paint. Adjacent to the roadster is a perfect recreation of the old Mooneyes Dragmaster rail job, complete with a gorgeous Potvin blown little Chevy mill. The dragster was rolled out into the bright sunshine and was simply stunning. The back area of the Moon complex is the shipping and receiving section, nothing too exciting, unless you know the story of Carroll Shelby coming to Moon in 1962 with the idea of building his own sports car. I was standing right where it happened. The lore goes something like Shelby, ever the promoter, was telling all the magazines he had multiple Cobras ready to road test, when he had only one! So right there in in the Moon shop that single Cobra was painted numerous times for the car mag scribes to drive and report on, giving the illusion of a fleet of cars ready to be sold. Wild stuff!

Across the parking lot is the fab shop. Moon tanks and wheel discs are spun, welded and hand finished right there on site. Once again, the laid-back Moon staff gave us carte blanche and we wondered around trying not to bother the dudes actually working. We checked out the machines, tooling, welders and all the other stuff utilized to produce these iconic speed parts. Hanging from the rafters was another complete Dragmaster chassis, and a bitchin’ ‘glass Anglia gasser front end hung on back wall. A few Bonneville and El Mirage running Streamliners with Moon livery were being maintained in house, as well. So much neat eye candy was everywhere.
To paraphrase Ice Cube, “…Today was a good day”.

Us BangShifter’s need to support these places, as they are truly hallowed ground for us hot rodders, we ended the trip by grabbing a few more t-shirts. I went with the classic black and white Mooneyes tee in double fat!

Join the Blair’s Speed Shop Facebook group to check the history:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1460627117571926

And buy something cool from Mooneye Equipment:
https://www.mooneyesusa.com/

The post An East Coasters Tour Of So Cal Hot Rodding History: Mooneyes Shop Tour Photos From Joe Grippo. appeared first on BangShift.com.

With over 9000 swap meet/flea market spaces, 1500 show cars, and 1000 cars for sale in the car corral, there is way more to see than at any other show around. How Grippo covers this thing is a mystery to us, but we love him for it. We’ve got a sample of photos below, but to see the whole gallery click on the link below.

Click here to see the whole gallery of 250-plus photos.

The post Event Coverage: Hershey AACA Fall Regional Show Gallery appeared first on BangShift.com.