The Reunions and their beginning. Sometime around 2001, while attending a Cruise in Carlinville, a few of the original members of the White Hall Drag-O-Way club were chatting with a former racer who competed at the old strips. Butch McDow casually mentioned that it might be a cool idea to try to contact some of the local racers who had competed at White Hall and see if they would like to get toget
her; a Reunion of sorts. Many of the guys were still very active in the car hobby and some of them may have still owned old race cars that ran at White Hall. We all agreed it might be fun but no one actively pursued the thought...............at that time. Fast forward a couple of years. We continued to cross paths with Butch and a few other familiar faces from the past, and Butch's idea came up many times. In early 2003 Paul and Neil Fansler along with Paul's son, Jeff started talking seriously about a Reunion. The first gathering was to be held around the City Park in downtown White Hall, but we soon learned from talking with old friends that this could be a bigger turnout than we thought. We decided to move the event to Lion's Park at the edge of town, where it is still held each year. The first event was meant to be a simple gathering of old racers, cars and friends getting together to reminisce,.......... and that's what it was. We weren't sure how many would show up so we had accepted the fact this might be a one-time event. Boy, were we wrong! The support has been great and the cars just keep coming out of the barns. The second event brought a surprise of sorts when Vaughn Bright of Virden, IL appeared with "THE" 1968 Hemi Barracuda formerly campaigned by the NHRA Record Holding team of Ronnie Sox and Buddy Martin. This added quite a bit of interest for the other participants and the word began to spread about our Reunion. The following year we were happy to see the resurrected "Lil Screamer", a 33 B/A Coupe formerly campaigned by another NHRA Record Holder, Jack Ditmars of Harvey, IL. This car is now owned by Mike Sleeth from Illinois and was in the final stages of a complete restoration. Such a cool car, and we remember seeing Jack race the car at Indy a couple of years. Since then we've been treated to a number of owners and cars from the good ol' days. A long time friend and competitor, Mr. Keith Bacon attended our events with his AHRA and NHRA record setting '62 Chevy. Unfortunately, Keith passed away in late 2006, but his family brought the car back to our gathering in 2007. There were more than a few moist eyes that special day. Also in 2007, we were thrilled to see another couple of local Legends. Art Badgley of Godfrey, IL and Stan Lomelino of Virden, IL graced us with their presence. This was not Art's first time at our reunion but he's always a treat to talk with and his stories and history as an engine builder and racer at the Midwest tracks are incredibly interesting. Stan Lomelino. The name brings up so many stories and memories. Stan's flathead fuel dragster and his '48 Mercury tow car were truest grass roots foundation of drag racing you'd ever encounter. Stan was accompanied by his son, Danny, and fellow competitor Joe Hendricks. Joe ran against Stan in another flathead fueler back in the day, and still runs a nostalgia front-engined AA/Fuel Dragster. These three fellows along with Art Badgley had the crowd mesmerized all day. And Danny Lomelino's tow rig, a '40 Ford tudor sedan, flat towing his latest Hot Rod creation powered by the flathead engine out of Stan's original tow car,....................... well, you just had to see it! In 2011, Joe returned with his Nostalgia Front Engined AA/FD. Joe not only displayed the car, He and the entire Crew including Driver, Randy Bridges, put on a real show when they fired the car a couple of times. We even have some pictures of "Mr. Fuel Flathead" himself Stan Lomelino in Joe's Dragster. And our good friend Tom Clary from Alton, MO., Founder of the Supercar Registry and YENKO.net returned with another car from his collection. Tom, his lovely wife Diana and their grandson Drew have made the seven hour tow from near Arkansas the past few years to hang out with us for the day, and this time he brought a REAL Yenko Deuce Nova that's been a race car since new. Tom also owns "RED ALERT", the Famous '70 Chevelle that many of us remember from its heyday of racing and as the AMT model that so many of us built a few years back. What a DAY! We had no idea if this thing would ever fly when we hosted our first reunion, but with the support we've received, and the fun we've had, I can see it continuing for a while. One of the members stated at one of our meetings that, "We have to keep this going at least two more years. That would be our Fiftieth Anniversary." Well, we made that one, ......... and a couple more. In 2013 we celebrated again with our ELEVENTH ANNUAL Event. Who knows what we'll have in store for 2014!!!
