2014 Miscellany

Bakersfield March Meet, 2014: Ageless Tom Huggins, sun glasses, little bit o gray, blue fire suit, gets ready for an elimination run in the ‘fast door slammer’ class. (6.90 index) The pristine pro mod style ’53 Corvette is a real show stopper and it goes too; with a 600 cubic inch power plant. (Photo by Jim Baker)

6.90 SLAMMERS

Tony Jurado, in his ’69 Camaro, ran a 6.994 at 199.76 mph in the finals to take the win over Tom Huggins’ ’53 Corvette. Huggins ended in the #2 spot with an ET of 7.176 at 190.40. Jurado was the #1 qualifier and Huggins the #2 qualifier.

Los Angeles County Raceway 1979: A much younger Tom Huggins pilots this Chevette Pro Stock type car at the north L.A. track. Tom started his career several years prior as a part of the Oxnard-Ventura group which included Bill Orndorf and Jerry Eckman (Photo courtesy of auto imagery)

Back in 2006: “Tom Huggins brought out his new Ness B/A over the weekend in Las Vegas. After sorting out a few bugs the car made two nice passes at 7.21 @ 191 and change and on Sunday 7.22 @ 192, both below the record Tom set in Vegas in the fall. Tom and crew report being happy with the car which is quite a nice piece. They plan to return next weekend for the Pontiac Pro Stock Showdown, looking for perhaps as much as another tenth.” by Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s Cliff Ricci.

This writer has known Tom Huggins since the late ‘60s. Tom and his group from the Oxnard area north of Los Angeles started building 427 Chevrolet engines as soon as they became available. He was a customer of Bill Thomas Race Cars, where Ron Ogilvie and I got to know him well. Around ’73, we were in a Pro Stock race at Point Magu Naval Air Station in Camarillo and sold Tom, Bill, and Jerry a ‘rock crusher’ transmission for the car they were building. Tom has continued to race through all these years, recently in NHRA B/A and Nostalgia Door Slammer. It was really good to see him at Bakersfield.