NSRA Supernationals, Old Warden House, England

Words and Pics  by Keith Harman

Over here in the UK, the NSRA Supernationals has quickly risen to be the biggest and best rod run of the year on the British calendar. Its popularity is probably down to a combination of things, one certainly being the great venue, the run is in the grounds of Shuttleworth House, a stately home in Bedfordshire some 60 miles North of London, the site boasts plenty of shade, a great camping area and the added attraction of a vintage aircraft museum and preservation trust on the adjoining airfield. The run also attracts a great variety of rods and customs since the NSRA in the UK is not part of the American organization and is a volunteer- only non profit making proper club run by the members and for the members. To this end, faced with a smaller scene in a much smaller country, the club does not apply a pre-’49 rule but encourages members to run pre-72 cars, more like the Goodguy runs in the states.

Despite thunder storms and heavy showers on the Friday of the weekend, there were plenty of rodders in attendance from all over the UK and Europe too, even if it meant quickly setting up camp between the showers! As well as the many trade stands or vendors as you know them, the event featured giveaway prizes, a cruise to nearby Santa Pod Raceway where the Mopar guys were having a muscle car event, plus the Friday and Saturday night marquee parties which are always popular since nearly everyone stays on site so having that extra beer or three isn’t a problem! Certainly the American guest over for the event was nursing a sore head the next day, next time you see Jimmy Shine, ask him how we party over here!

Sunday was show and shine day and the field was full as usual, swelled by extra cars just visiting for the day. The Sunday show is open to the public too and the shows central location means plenty of paying visitors without who it would be difficult to put on the event every year. If you were planning a trip to the UK on vacation, this would be the show to visit, many US ‘celeb’ hot rod names have been before, Norm Grabowski, Pat Ganahl, Ron Covell, the guys from Radir wheels and journalist Chuck Vranas to name a few, so you’d be following in some familiar footsteps. Come on over and see what we’re doing on this side of the pond, you’re more than welcome.

Everyone from the UK and anyone in Europe driving a classic hot rod or tuner or cars we’ve never heard of in the United States… you’re all welcome at MyRideisMe.com.  1300+ members can’t be wrong so why not sign up today by entering your member name and email, that’s it!

Vintage Racers Smoke’m at Goodwood Festival of Speed

Words and Pics by Keith Harman (I only posted it for him!)

In just over ten short years, the Goodwood Festival of Speed has become a worldwide ‘must-see’ for car enthusiasts from every genre and hobby, there is quite simply, nothing like it anywhere else in the world. Held at the sprawling Goodwood Estate in Southern England the show is a mass celebration of speed in all its wheeled forms where famous racing drivers past and present rub shoulders with fans and celebrities alike and glorious racing machines from collections all over the world are fired up and run in anger up the long winding hill from outside the stately home.

(Click to see full size)

No matter what your tastes in cars, there will always be something to marvel at. Held over three days, we managed to blag a couple of free tickets for this year’s event and went along on the Friday to have a look, I’d heard that this year’s American theme was NASCAR (it was Top Fuel dragsters last year and Bonneville before that) and so with British fans having never seen these cars in action, I was interested to check it out. About half a dozen cars had been shipped over and the star for me was a 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket reputed to be the oldest surviving NASCAR racer, in fact it actually precedes NASCAR itself having raced on Daytona Beach before the NASCAR series was conceived. We were looking forward to seeing these cars make the traditional run up the hill past the grandstands and Goodwood House and the driver of the ’09 Red Bull Toyota Camry didn’t disappoint with a full smoky burnout up the first straight, the smoke fully engulfing the tables and umbrella’s of the V.I.P. area. The sound of these big V8′s on full song was loud enough to deserve the description ‘awesome’ and made us want to experience a full starting grid at a proper event sometime, one for the Bucket List methinks….

Although there were plenty of Concours d’elegance classics and high performance super-cars in attendance, there wasn’t as much representing true hot rodding at Goodwood this year, though we did find Les Howlett’s cool ’34 Coupe debuting on the Crazy Horse custom bike stand along with Les and builder Adrian Smith. The car was being admired by a tall American guy who looked vaguely familiar that we soon realised it was Californian car collector Bruce Meyer over for the event. Bruce is a real nice guy and knows his hot rods, and he was very taken with the Coupe, even more so that it had been built in the UK. Before he left I took the opportunity to swap business cards with Mr Meyer and a visit to his collection could be in the offing when we visit California at the end of the year, fingers crossed!

It seems Bruce wasn’t the only American at Goodwood by far, we heard that Jay Leno was over as well, though we didn’t see him (probably smoked out in the VIP area by the NASCAR Camry!) as well as bike builder/TV celeb Jesse James and his wife actress Sandra Bullock. Jesse had brought over his monster Baja truck which stormed up the hill lurching all over the place, it then tore up the Rally stage somewhere up the hill.

Bikes, especially Choppers were a big theme at Goodwood this year with plenty on display including a tribute to the Easy Rider movie released 40 years ago. Who better to mark the event than Peter Fonda himself riding a repro of the Captain America Harley up Goodwood Hill while ‘Born to be Wild’ blasted from the PA system. There was a clone of the ‘Billy Bike’ also on display but sadly no Dennis Hopper or Jack Nicholson! (pictured down below)

Hot Rod Writing Pro from England

Just met, at least through email, a professional hot rod writer living in England named Keith Harman. I’d like to introduce him some, but he does it better in his own words:

Since 2002 I’ve been working as a self employed freelance automotive journalist specializing in Hot Rods, American Cars, Bikes etc and to date I guess I’ve had about 300 pieces published so far, mostly in magazines like Custom Car and Classic American in the UK, Old Skool Rodz and Car Kulture Deluxe in the US and also Cruzin in Australia. I’ve had one book published, entitled ‘Great American Hot Rods’ which is available online from Amazon in the UK, though as it was published mainly for the American market it can be bought over the counter in Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores in the US. I drive a steel ’34 Five-window Coupe with a 327 and 5-speed that I imported from Tennessee in 2006. I’m happily married to Paula who often accompanies me on my travels far and wide, we like a lot of the same stuff which makes life easy and I’m sure she’ll feature on my blog pages regularly.

You can find more of Keith’s work at his “Hot Rod Blog” and look for more stories from Keith as he sends him.

You can also really find out about Keith by checking out his 1934 Ford five window coupe at MyRideisMe.com.  Get your own garage!

Please welcome Keith and let him know you’re reading by leaving a comment