For Immediate Release

IRWINDALE, Calif. – Nitro Revival isn’t for everyone. It’s not, say, for those who think the automobile is just another means of transportation. Nor is it for those who find the smell of nitromethane somehow repugnant. Nor for those who prefer the whisper of a Tesla to the throaty rumble of a Chrysler hemi.
However, it IS for those who fancy themselves adventurers, historians, shameless gearheads or just plain old adrenaline junkies. If you’re one of those, you might want to program your GPS for Irwindale Dragstrip, highlight Nov. 4-5 on your calendar and dial back your time machine to the 1960s – an era in which the race cars were as individual as the characters who drove them.

The sixth edition of Nitro Revival, like the five before it, is designed to celebrate drag racing’s golden era with food, fun, fellowship, fables, fire and fervor. It will feature more than 65 cackle cars, from Top Fuel dragsters to Funny Cars to fuel altereds, and dozens of other nitro burners that have opted to forsake the pits for a trip or two down the concrete and asphalt racing surface.

Cackle cars include “Jungle Jim” Liberman’s Camaro Funny Car, “The Other Guys” Top Fuel dragster of Jim Brissette and Mike Drake, the Kuhl and Olson dragster, the Dunn and Reath “Rainbow” dragster, Larry Huff’s “Soapy Sales” dragster, the Custom Body Enterprises Funny Car, Ken Veney’s “Veney’s Vega” A/Funny Car, the legendary “Freight Train” twin engine gas dragster, Marvin Schwartz’s “Anaconda,” Frank Cannon’s “Hustler VI” as well as the original “Dragmaster.”

Among the cars that will be in full race trim for on-track exhibition runs are the Mooneyham and Sharp 554 Coupe, Bobby McLennan’s “Champion Speed Shop” Nostalgia Top Fueler, the “Kazanjian and Lemon’ AA/FC and the “Godzilla” AA/Fuel Altered, owned and driven by one of the sport’s most popular drivers of color, the inimitable Rodney Flournoy.

Nevertheless, the cars won’t be the only stars of the two-and-a-half day festival that begins Friday with a 5-7 p.m. meet and greet and In-N-Out Cookout. More than 50 drag racing Hall of Fame members have committed to attend the event and participate in the always popular all-comers autograph session at 1 p.m. Saturday in the McLennan Foundation tent that serves as the event’s unofficial headquarters.
Notable drivers at the tables will be “King Richard” Tharp, Don “the Snake” Prudhomme, Ed “the Ace” McCulloch, “TV Tommy” Ivo, “Big Jim” Dunn, Tommy “Watchdog” Allen, Carl Olson, Frank Bradley, Marvin Graham, “The Unsinkable” Kelly Brown, Jimmy Scott, Ronnie Hampshire, Bob Muravez, Darrell Gwynn, Gary Beck, Dave Settles, “Fast Jack” Beckman, Dale Funk, Bob Noice, Jim Walther, Don Hampton, Joe Schubeck and Ray Motes with more to be confirmed.

They’ll be joined on the sign line by Nitro Revival founder Steve Gibbs, by a host of tuners, manufacturers and crew members including Roland Leong, Ed Pink, Ed Iskenderian, J. Ed Horton, Don Long, Donnie Couch, Bob Brandt and “Waterbed Fred” Miller, by Chic Cannon, one of the members of the NHRA’s original Safety Safari, by the “First Lady of Racing,” Linda Vaughn and by those who documented the era either in images or the printed word including Bill Holland, Dave Wallace Jr. and Kenny Youngblood.

The Saturday autograph session will precede 4 p.m. ceremonies recognizing 2023 Nitro Revival honorees including Allen, Dunn, Henry Velasco, Bruce McDowell, the late Art Carr and Dave Kempton, plus the Cal-Rods Car Club. As if that isn't enough for you, you'll see dozens of old school "push starts" throughout the day, leading up to our 6:00 p.m. "Nitro Overdose" cackle session finale and fireworks!
Highlight of Sunday’s schedule will be "One O’Clock Thunder", the simultaneous cackle of every fuel car on the property promptly at 1 p.m. during a scheduled break in the on-track action.

IFor Immediate Release

Cars and Stars Return to Irwindale Raceway to Comingle, Cackle and Converse
IRWINDALE, Calif. – The differences between drag racing as it is practiced today in the NHRA pro series and drag racing as it was practiced in what was considered the sport’s golden age will be on full display this November at tracks only 15 miles apart\

.A week before the NHRA’s 2023 Camping World Series races to a close at In-N-Out Raceway in Pomona, more than 75 current and future Hall of Famers and many of the vehicles in which they distinguished themselves will be reunited at Irwindale Raceway for the sixth renewal of Nitro Revival (Nov. 4-5).

Some of the sport’s first big stars including “TV Tommy” Ivo, Don “the Snake” Prudhomme, “Big Jim” Dunn, Ed “the Ace” McCulloch and Tommy “Watchdog” Allen will be joined by a host of other notables who either drove, owned, tuned, photographed or wrote about vehicles like the “Dragmaster Dart,” the Ratican, Jackson and Stearns fuel altered and the legendary twin-engine “Freight Train” Top Gas dragster.

Created by a group of racing enthusiasts led by former NHRA VP of Competition Steve Gibbs and his daughter, Cindy, Nitro Revival is a celebration of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, an era in which drag racing came of age, attracting national attention as much for its personality as for its outrageous performance.

Will there be racing? Well, sure, although a lot of it will be bench racing. There won’t be the kind of zero-to-330 mph acceleration one would expect to experience a week later in the NHRA’s In-N-Out Finals, but the adrenaline will flow, nevertheless.

For one thing, a host of fuel altereds will make exhibition runs including the former Funny Car and Top Fuel driver Rodney Flournoy in his own “Godzilla”, plus you’ll see Bobby McLennan’s “Champion Speed Shop” Nostalgia Top Fueler and Luke Balough driving the fan favorite “Mooneyham and Sharp” Special.

Mainly, though, the event will pay homage to the push start ritual of the ‘60s, the distinctive cackle of V8 engines guzzling nitromethane and especially the personalities of those who propelled straight-line racing from a car club hobby sport to a national and international phenomenon.

In reality, Nitro Revival isn’t so much about the competition as it is about the camaraderie that linked a generation of Americans through a shared love of automobiles and the things that could be done to make them perform in a manner their designers never could have imagined.

In essence, in just six short years, the two-and-a-day extravaganza has established itself as a “must attend” on the bucket lists of race fans, old and new. It is a pilgrimage of sorts to the birthplace of modern drag racing, a step back in time to an era in which corporate sponsorships, political correctness and cookie cutter performance parts were not yet even a blip on the radar.

This year, there will be more than 60 cackle cars alone including the aforementioned threesome plus the “Jungle Jim” Camaro Funny Car, “Flamin’ Frank” Pedregon’s fuel coupe, the Kuhl and Olson, Dunn and Reath, Waterman and Hampshire and Brissette and Drake Top Fuel dragsters, the Custom Body Enterprises Funny Car, Marvin Schwartz’s “Anaconda” AA/FD, Frank Cannon’s “Hustler VI” dragster, the “Soapy Sales” Top Fueler and the resurrected front-motor dragster of the late Jimmy Nix cackled by “King Richard” Tharp.

The festivities begin on Friday, Nov. 3, with pre-registration and set-up followed by an initial meet-and-greet from 5-7 p.m. around the annual In-N-Out Cookout.

Gates open at 7 a.m. on Saturday with a full slate of activities anchored by an all-inclusive autograph session at 1 p.m. in the McLennan Foundation tent, introduction of 2023 Nitro Revival honorees including Dunn and Allen at 4 p.m. and the Nitro Overdose featuring the Rolling Thunder cackle at 6:30 followed by fireworks.

Although things will begin to wind down on Sunday, there will be one final adrenaline high: One O’Clock Thunder, the simultaneous cackle of every fuel car on the property promptly at 1 p.m. during a scheduled break in the on-track action.