It is hardly a secret that the sport of drag racing set its earliest roots in California. Sources peg the year at about 1938 or 39, perhaps even earlier, but just as the new shoots began to reach skyward, the dark clouds of war postponed such frivolities as the hot rodders found themselves in uniform, off to fight for their country’s survival.
It was during that time of war that these same young men acquired new knowledge and skills that they would utilize for the design, building and competition of automobiles. They returned with their skills vastly improved in the ways to make engines roar and chassis handle the power produced. In the process they met other military servicemen with an equal thirst for the thrill of speed in a machine built, maintained and driven with their own hands. It was from this that a nationwide, coast to coast hot rodding culture was spawned.
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