Member Inducted 2011
Brian Sparrow
History
Early drag racers will know the name Brian Sparrow, even though
it may not be familiar to those who are relatively new to the
sport. Through his efforts, Brian can rightly be regarded as one of
the founding fathers of drag racing in this country.
He is a true motor sport enthusiast in the broadest sense
- both 2 and 4 wheeled - with a wide ranging love of all things to
do with speed and power. Make that no wheels as well, for in his
teens he raced hydroplanes for a couple of years.
Brian served an apprenticeship at Heathway Engineering before
doing National Service, and then embarking on a career in technical
writing. Heathway was a feature in a number of early drag racers
lives, but Brian's time there did not coincide with that of Allan
Herridge or Peter Bartlett.
It is very appropriate for Brian to be awarded a
'Bootsie'. He was one of the three founders of Dragster
Developments, along with Allan Herridge and John Harrison. They
produced one of the first dragsters seen in this country, a
straight 8 Buick in 1962, and made parts for many early racers.
Originally interested in hill climbs and motorcycle
sprints, Brian was an early Competition Secretary of the National
Sprint Association. Interestingly, it was at a regular NSA social
meeting that Brian and Allan were first introduced to each other by
the late NSA club founder, Len Cole.
There was a general feeling of antipathy towards the car
racers in those times, and yet in the 1960s Brian managed to
combine being on the committees of the NSA, British Hot Rod
Association, and the British Drag Racing Association all at the
same time! It says much for his diplomacy skills that he was able
to pull that one off and emerge unscathed, and was acknowledged as
an honest broker. His organisational involment extended well into
the 1970s, when the sport was well and truly established.
In the new Drag Racing and Hot Rod magazine of the mid
1960s, he contributed regularly with news and pictures from the
pits at race meetings. Despite only claiming to being a happy
snapper, his pictures provide a great record of past times, which
have been appreciated by later book writers - as has his
encyclopaedic memory.
When the US team came to Santa Pod in 1966, Brian was
instrumental in choosing the participants. Sadly, one of his
choices - Art Arfons - was not approved by the promoter due to
noise worries at the fledgling track!
All these year later, Brian can still be found in the
grandstands for at least a couple of drag races a year - along with
attending his favourite hill climbs. Like many other race fans,
Brian enjoys the fact that bikes and cars race at the same
meetings.
Now in his seventies, he still talks with real enthusiasm
about the sport he helped develop over those formative years.