Tony Thacker

We met up with Tony at the SEMA show at his book signing – somehow he managed to sell us two of his books.  We shared memories of when Tony was building his roadster at Keith’s workshop – the most lasting memory seems to be the Kipling fruit pies that were their main source of energy.  

Once back in LA, we visited him at the NHRA museum that Tony is now Director of.  It was a really busy time for him with the SEMA show followed by the NHRA Drag Racing finals at Pomona. We met at breakfast time each morning and he drew a map showing Hot Rodder’s places of interest for us to visit that day (another Thacker book on the way!)  This was really helpful and enabled us to meet even more fascinating people.

The museum shows a complete history of drag racing – displaying many cars from each decade of racing.  There are also lots of exhibits of memorabilia, regularly updated by Tony - a must for Drag Racing fans to visit.  Tony encouraged Keith to sit in Tommy Ivo’s four Buick engine dragster for a photo – he couldn’t get into it!  He was keen to sit in Don Prudhomme’s Keith Black hemi powered dragster – still no luck.  We did finally get a picture of him in a dragster.