Shifting Sands: The 2018 Race of Gentlemen

By RK Motors - Jun 15, 2018
At The Race of Gentlemen this past weekend, recent high-school grad Brooks Andrews of Dothan, Alabama, prepares to square off against his father, Mark, to test the adage: Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance. Photos by the author except where noted.
 
At The Race of Gentlemen this past weekend, recent high-school grad Brooks Andrews of Dothan, Alabama, prepares to square off against his father, Mark, to test the adage: Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance. Photos by the author except where noted.
 
 
That’s one helluva bold statement. But TROG really is that important. Like it or not, and with the possible exception of the Goodwood Revival in England, there is currently no other vintage automotive event on the planet with the same degree of visibility, vitality, and impact, where old iron is actually being used as a living part of people’s lives.
 
As you can tell, this isn’t going to be your run-of-the-mill news article objectively reporting on some event that happened. I’m way too close to The Race of Gentlemen to be unbiased. I might as well say that out loud right now: I drank the Kool-Aid.
 
Of the eight TROGs that have taken place, I’ve gone to seven of them, including the ill-fated, possibly once-in-a-lifetime unicorn that was Pismo. I count Mel Stultz, the guy who came up with the crazy idea and whose hand is still fiercely on the tiller, as a good friend, as I do so many others of the team who put it on and who race.

 

These guys. Corey Stubblefield, race registrar, master of the tower, and one of the all-round nicest people I know, with Mel Stultz, the visionary, hot rodder, and ring master of “The Greatest Race on Earth.”
 
These guys. Corey Stubblefield, race registrar, master of the tower, and one of the all-round nicest people I know, with Mel Stultz, the visionary, hot rodder, and ring master of “The Greatest Race on Earth.”
 
In the beginning, I went as a spectator and a reporter for Hemmings… then I returned for a few years as part of the Hemmings sponsor team… and now, for the past two years, I have volunteered with my club, the Barnstormers, assisting the TROG event staff with a variety of duties like racer check-in, tech-ing the cars and motorcycles, and working with the press. I’ve also been lucky enough to race a really rambunctious banger that snap-crackle-popped fire from its pipes, as well as a “sand rail” powered by a Hudson Hornet straight-six that made me feel like I was strapped to a Saturn V rocket.
 
This is all to say that, while others have been involved with TROG for longer or more intensely, I have–for its diversity and depth–a fairly unique perspective. Given that, here’s what I’ve noticed over the years, culminating with this past weekend’s race…
 
This year, racers, as well as spectators, hailed from even more places than before, including France, Norway, Japan, Italy, Canada, Australia, and England. Several, like the “Two Flavios” (Flavio Bajon and Flavio Sieber Luz) of Brazil, are planning to mount similar events in their home countries (these guys already put on a great, multi-day roundy-round festival called the Rodeo), and all seemed genuinely overjoyed to have made it to TROG. They behaved as if they were long-lost citizens of Shangri-La returning home, and they treated everyone they encountered as brothers and sisters. And they were not wrong.

 

Flavio Sieber Luz of Sorocaba, Brazil, poses next to Andy Kohler’s 255-cu.in.-flathead-powered roadster in the Starlux Hotel’s parking lot, where all the cars and bikes gather when not racing. Photo courtesy of Flavio Bajon.
 
Flavio Sieber Luz of Sorocaba, Brazil, poses next to Andy Kohler’s 255-cu.in.-flathead-powered roadster in the Starlux Hotel’s parking lot, where all the cars and bikes gather when not racing. Photo courtesy of Flavio Bajon.
 
Environmental conditions–weather, tide, and the state of the beach–continue to be the most significant uncontrollable variables. Pismo’s TROG in 2016 was cut down by a day due to an uncharacteristically powerful gang of storms, and Wildwood’s 2015 event had to be postponed a week because of Hurricane Joaquin. This year, while there were only a couple of rain showers during race times, and the tide tables were fairly in our favor (with low and high tides at 9:32 a.m. and 3:41 p.m., and 10:23 a.m. and 4:35 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, respectively), the beach itself was far from ideal.
 
Over the last winter, the East Coast had been clawed at by storms that dragged away a lot of its sand. The Army Corps has since dredged it back, but the wide, packed, pavement-like swath normally left after the tide recedes in Wildwood–and that was the reason people ever brought vehicles to beaches to race on in the first place–had not re-formed completely. This meant everything had to be set up higher on the beach in softer, more irregular sand, causing the pits to be cramped and more difficult to plow through, and the track to become more dangerous–a fact that unfortunately led to two motorcycle racers taking pretty bad spills (don’t worry; they’re okay).

 

The broken ’39 Knucklehead of Tokyo’s Atsushi Yasui–who is known to all who love or fear him as “Sushi”–is hauled in by the Model T tow truck built by the gifted, young Kyle Barrow of Essex, Maryland, who also brought with him his Fordson tractor (see gallery photos below) to help out racers.
 
The broken ’39 Knucklehead of Tokyo’s Atsushi Yasui–who is known to all who love or fear him as “Sushi”–is hauled in by the Model T tow truck built by the gifted, young Kyle Barrow of Essex, Maryland, who also brought with him his Fordson tractor (see gallery at link) to help out racers.
 
While some raise an eyebrow at what they deem as “arbitrariness” in the vehicle-selection process, the core of the formula has never wavered: hopped-up pre-1934 American cars with mechanicals no newer than 1953, and race-prepared 1947 and earlier American motorcycles. Over the years, the tastes of Mel and the selection committee have changed, and emphasis has moved around slightly to keep things interesting.
 
The most recent variation, beginning with last year’s race, was the creation of the rail class intended to emulate the early front-engine dragsters, and make cars faster, yet less expensive for competitors to build. In the end TROG, like the old cars and bikes that race at it, is organic, quirky, and unique. It has personality. It’s a living thing, and living things don’t get parked in museums and forgotten about.

 

Veteran TROG driver, Brook Nath taking it all in from the seat of her 302-cu.in “Jimmy” GMC six-powered rail job built by her boyfriend, Oiler C.C.-member Sean Brayton.
 
Veteran TROG driver, Brook Nath taking it all in from the seat of her 302-cu.in “Jimmy” GMC six-powered rail job built by her boyfriend, Oiler C.C.-member Sean Brayton.
 
Things stay alive if they evolve, and what is evolution, really, but the posing of a series of questions to the environment and the testing of a variety of answers until the right ones are found? That’s what TROG has been doing over the years in every aspect of itself: trying new things and new versions of old things… with the penalty for wrong answers sometimes threatening the survival of the event and the solvency of its organizers (this has happened).
 
Here are some of the questions TROG is always wrestling with to stay alive:
  • In what location(s) and at what time(s) of year should TROG be held?
  • Under what conditions should racing not happen, and what should be done to satisfy racers and fans in that event?
  • What kinds of vehicles should be accepted to race at TROG, and what’s the maximum number?
  • What kinds of complementary events, and how many, should be held at TROG?
  • How can TROG maximize its sponsors’ return on investments (ROI) while still remaining in complete control of itself?
  • How many members of the press should be admitted to TROG, where should they be allowed to go, and what should their rights be?
  • What should TROG do to balance the needs of film crews/its need to maximize exposure with the needs of racers and desires of fans? (Recognizing that it’s due in part to such high-level publicity that TROG attracts so many interesting cars and people from around the world)
  • How many pit passes should be sold to non-racers and non-crew, and should pass holders be admitted to the pits only after racing has concluded each day?
  • Should Saturday be test-n-tune and pick-up racing, while Sunday is ladder-style elimination competition interspersed with pick-up drags?
  • What method of staging the vehicles will be most efficient and yield the maximum number of races?

The fact that The Race of Gentlemen is indeed so alive, so vital and evolving means that we in the car hobby should take note. What’s it’s secret?

TROG, like the Pendine Sands Hot Rod Races in Wales, Hot Rod Hill Climb in Central City, Colorado, and Rømø Motor Festival in Denmark, all share the same formula, namely that, in order for old vehicles to continue to be loved and cared for, they must…

a.) really–I mean really–be used and…

b.) be part and parcel of a rich and living culture.

 

This is what is so special about TROG in a single picture: Steve Pugner of Suffolk, Virginia, was given the gift of a metal-shaping class with famed hot rodder and customizer Gene Winfield by his mother when he was 17. Since then, he’s learned a lot. He fabricated every inch of this T/A speedster as a wedding gift to his wife, Shaina, using only simple hand tools. Mentor Winfield was duly impressed, and Shaina went on to distinguish herself in the car on the beach.

This is what is so special about TROG in a single picture: Steve Pugner of Suffolk, Virginia, was given the gift of a metal-shaping class with famed hot rodder and customizer Gene Winfield by his mother when he was 17. Since then, he’s learned a lot. He fabricated every inch of this T/A speedster as a wedding gift to his wife, Shaina, using only simple hand tools. Mentor Winfield was duly impressed, and Shaina went on to distinguish herself in the car on the beach.

People who are drawn to race at TROG don’t just get all costumed up and tool around town, looking cool in their old vehicles. They aren’t poseurs, or “hot rod hipsters”–which they have been accused by some of being.

Rather, they are people who drive their old iron… in the sun and the dark, the sand and the salt water, on the street and the track. And they drive it very, very hard. It gets dirty, it chips, and rusts and gets dented. Sometimes it breaks… They fix it, hammer out the dents, maybe touch it up. Paradoxically, this too–“abusing” their cars–they have been criticized for. Imagine how upset these detractors would be to learn that, preferring in all things analog iron to digital Rubbermaid, many of these people also maintain and daily drive factory-stock cars and motorcycles.

They respect history, and value the unique stories of both machines and people. They prefer to repair things, rather than throw them away. They believe in old-school craftsmanship and revere those who can teach it. And they thrive on ingenuity, can-do attitude, hard work, and mutual support.

It is precisely this kind of people that The Race of Gentlemen supports and inspires in its unique and powerful way, who will save our old iron from the crusher when we are long gone.

Heck, The Race of Gentlemen might just help save the whole damn world.

SOURCE: HEMMINGS

AUTHOR: Daniel Beaudry