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HRC Editor's View

A talk with Roland Leong

It's not every day you walk into a trailer and have a chance to talk to one of the all time greats in drag racing. Sitting at a bench mixing race fuel was Roland Leong . Well, I learned how to mix race fuel , just from watching him for 20 minutes . I also learned some very interesting facts about the man behind the Hawaiian Top Fuel eliminator , that you may find as interesting as I did .

Roland Leong came from Hawaii in 1962, and went to work for a company called Drag Master. Out of Carls Bad Califormia, . they were the first company that actually built race car chassies; these being dragsters. They actually produced the chassies all the way from rolling chassies down to the complete car. Both partners also raced their own cars. One of these partners actually won the Winter Nationals. The race motors actually ran on gasoline back then. They called it "Top Eliminator." They started with 4:71 GMC blowers on gasoline, and when Roland came on the scene, in 1962, they were running 6:71 blowers on gasoline.

From there, Roland worked for Drag Master and drove a fuel injected gas dragster. He went on the road with them at the age of 17, driving and tuning his own car. On the road he graduated to top gas and then to top fuel in 1964. He later that year had a problem with the parachute and crashed the car at Long Beach. At this time he gave up driving.

In 1964, Roland hired Don Prudhomme to drive, and in 1965 they won the Winter Nationals. They then decided to go on tour, which consisted of three national events among others. This year they won the Winter Nationals and the U.S. nationals. This was the first time anyone had acheived this. The following year, 1966, Don went on to drive his own car.

Roland hired a new driver, by the name of Mike Sniveley. They proceeded to win Winter Nationals again that year, with the Hawaiian top fuel eliminator. This being the first time anyone had won the Winter Nationals back to back. Mike and Roland went back east, and won the 1966 U.S. Nationals. Again, this was the another first; they had won the U.S Nationals and the Winter Nationals back to back, sequentially.

Up untill 1969, Roland raced dragsters. Later that year, he changed to Funny cars, which he operated up until 1992.

In 1972, he had his complete unit stolen, while on the road. This unit was never recovered. When he got his team back together, later that year, he hired Gordie Bonin to drive his Hawaiian Funny Car.

He discontinued racing Funny Cars in 1992, because the Hawaiian government downsized a pending three year contract, to a one year contract.

Now in 2007 , Rowland is turning wrenches for afew of his long time friends. .

I hope you enjoyed the write up on the Hawaiian Funny Car and the man behind it . And the best of luck in the future tooling the Bubble Up Funny Car .

Hot Rod Canada.com

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