Member Inducted 2009
John Bennett
History
John Bennett joined the British Hot Rod Association in August
1962 and the following month turned up at the BHRA's first get
together with the most radically customised vehicle of the meet, a
1954 Austin A70 pick-up fitted with a Ford Zephyr grille, twin
headlamps and reshaped metalwork all carried out at his Spa
Engineering workshops in South Norwood.
John was interested in the organisational side from the start and
at the end of 1962 joined a group of voluntary members to form the
first comittee of the BHRA with John as chairman. Discussions began
on the possibilities of organizing a custom show and a drag race in
the UK. John offered his Spa Engineering workshops as an ideal
location for a custom show and the first British Custom Car Show
was held there in Easter 1963. John also began writing regular
articles in the BHRA magazine Kool Kams about the more
interesting goings on at Spa Engineering from fitting tail fins to
Studebakers to chopping the roof on a Model Y Ford.
May 1964 saw the first drag race in the UK organized by the BHRA
at Duxford Airfield and John entered his '58 Pontiac Chieftain.
Sharing the driving was John's soon to be wife Ann Palmer who ran
quicker times than John and from then onwards became the driver
while John tuned the car and between them they got the times down
from 17 seconds to 15 seconds. The Thames Estuary Automobile Club
held a sprint at Graveley in August 1964 which wasn't a drag race
but they were timing two cars at a time and John came out as
starter complete with Mooneyes stetson and flags to try and
coax the die hard sprinters to race each other.
John soon realized that the growth of British drag racing was
being held back by the lack of a permanent venue and it gave him
great pleasure to announce at the 1965 BHRA AGM that five members
including himself had been able to obtain a ninety acre site in
Bedfordshire suitable for a permanent drag strip. John had formed a
company known as National Dragways to develope the site which was
to become Santa Pod Raceway and ambitious plans were laid out for a
full season's drag racing in 1966.
In February 1966 John took over the running of Drag Racing
Magazine. He incorporated the BHRA publication Kool
Kams and renamed it Drag Racing and Hot Rod Magazine
making it more attractive to the show crowd as well as the go
crowd. Increasing fields of competitors, TV coverage and American
visitors made for a very successful first season at Santa Pod and
by the end of the year the BHRA membership had reached 1000. At the
1967 AGM it was decided to change the name of the BHRA to the
British Drag Racing and Hot Rod Association, the chief reason being
that drag racing was now the largest of the club activities and an
executive board was elected with John remaining as Chairman.
Santa Pod received a facelift and was resurfaced before the 1968
season which saw more new competitors and faster machinery and by
the end of 1969 at the BDR & HRA AGM several members
had conflicting ideas about how drag racing should move
forward in the UK and John decided it was time to stand down as
Chairman having achieved so much to get drag racing off the ground
in the UK