Invitational, and why he simply can’t
quit the sport.
STREET/RACE MAGAZINE: You’ve
been a lifelong car guy. When did
you transition into really hardcore
drag racing?
BOB HELMS: In my mid-20s, I was
able to progress into some drag cars.
So I had a Vega with a big block for
a while, progressed from that into a
back-halved Camaro, and ultimately
graduated into a Pro Stock car. I
began running in the Midwest in the
late ‘70s, running in the Midwest in
the UDRA, which was a drag racing
circuit, which gave me a great pace
to race and the opportunity to step
up into a much better car. I bought
a car from Frank Iaconio, one of the
old legends in Pro Stock. I took the
delivery of that car two days after
the car won the NHRA U.S. Nationals
at Indy. I took delivery of that car,
instantly modified it, got more
horsepower and we stepped up and
started running IHRA, NHRA and the
tail end of the old AHRA. I went to a
race almost immediately and right
off the bat Frank showed up and he
had the new style Camaro and mine
was the ‘81 and prior body style, but
the cars were painted identical. The
only difference was when I bought
his car, I just took his name off the
door and put mine on, identically. So
here we were with these identical
cars and we made it into the semis
and I was paired against him. It was
a pretty big deal. At about half-track,
he quit and we walked on away from
him. So that same year, later in the
season, there was a big match race
in Chicago. We were ranked number
three in IHRA. Buddy [Ingersoll] and
Lee [Shepherd] came up and stayed
at my home with my wife and I. We
went on down to the track and we
did a best of three match race. For
the first time ever, I won against
them, back to back, the first two
races.That’s the only time I ever
outran Lee. There was another
memory from that night. We were
invited to a UDRA Pro Stock event
that same weekend. All the UDRA
cars ran nitrous. We did not. So we
agreed and they allowed our match
race times to be used as qualifier
times. So I qualified number one.
About halfway through the elimina-
tions, I had a guy next to me break
an axle. Came over in my lane, barely
hit me but hit me enough to cause
my back tires to break loose. The car
went sideways and I ended up rolling
down the track with my wife
SPRING2018
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