Lee Shepherd tribute car 

The Midwest Nostalgia Pro Stock Association display at the 2019 Performance Racing Industry trade show in Indianapolis featured the 1982 second-generation Reher-Morrison-Shepherd Chevrolet Camaro tribute car owned by Mark Pappas, a fitting memorial to the great fallen champion, Lee Shepherd.  

As he drove for car owners David Reher and Buddy Morrison, Lee Shepherd set the standard for Pro Stock racing drivers in the early nineteen eighties.  From 1980 to 1984, Shepherd appeared in the final elimination round at 44 of 56 NHRA national events and won 26 of them; that's over a 75% winning percentage in the final round.  

During that time, Shepherd re-set National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Pro Stock national elapsed time and speed records a total of 14 times.

A soft-spoken Texan, Shepherd and the Reher & Morrison Racing Engines team won the NHRA Pro Stock championship four consecutive times from 1981-1984. 

In his too-brief career, Lee won every race on the NHRA tour at least once, with a 173-47 round record in NHRA competition. Shepherd was named the Pro Stock Driver of the Year for the Car Craft Magazine All-Star Drag Racing Team four consecutive seasons.

Shepherd compiled a 48-6 round record in the NHRA rival International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) “mountain motor” Pro Stock competition in 1983-1984. In just three IHRA seasons, Shepherd scored nine victories in thirteen final round appearances in the team’s Camaro equipped with the team’s 615-cubic inch and 632-cubic inch engines.  

In 1983 Shepherd became the first driver to win both the NHRA and IHRA Pro Stock championships in the same year, a feat he repeated in 1984.

Lee Shepherd, a skilled cylinder head fabricator in addition to being a great driver, died tragically in a testing accident in Ardmore Oklahoma on March 11, 1985.  In 2000, a panel of experts selected Lee Shepherd as one of the NHRA’s all-time Top 50 racers.  Shepherd is a member of the NHRA Division 4 (South Central United States) Hall of Fame and Don Garlits' International Drag Racing Hall of Fame.   

Check out the Midwest Nostalgia Pro Stock  Association’s website at http://www.mwnpsa.com/

Restored 1975 Plymouth Duster ”California Flash” drag car

Driver and engine builder Larry “Butch” Leal from Tulare California is a legend in National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) drag racing. Beginning with his first foray into the sport in 1960 in a Chevrolet El Camino. In the early nineteen sixties, Leal became a member of the Ford Drag Racing Team and he won the Super Stock class at the 1964 US Nationals in Indianapolis where he earned Leal the nickname “the California Flash.”

In 1965, Leal joined the Chrysler Corporation as a factory-supported driver in the Pro Stock category driving Hemi-powered (hemispherical combustion chamber) cars. Chrysler pulled out of direct factory sponsorship for Pro Stock racing in 1974 because of NHRA Pro Stock weight rules which Chrysler management felt unfairly favored the small-block Chevrolet.

In 1975, Butch Leal became associated with the Chrysler Direct Connection performance-parts program and ran this Ron Butler-prepared Plymouth Duster powered by a 16-plug (two spark plugs per cylinder) 426-cubic inch Hemi engine with a 4-speed transmission. Competing in the   B/MP (Modified production) class, it ran a best quarter-mile elapsed time of 9.65 seconds with a best trap speed of 142 miles per hour. This car was featured on the cover of the April 1975 Car Craft magazine and the cover of the 1975 Chrysler Direct Connection parts catalog. 

   

With this car, which had to weigh 8.00 to 8.99 pounds per cubic inch of engine displacement.  was allowed very few body and chassis modifications, as the body and the bumpers are all steel. Leal won the Modified Eliminator class at the 1976 NHRA Winter Classic, the Winternationals and the Gatornationals events. 

Leal was named to the 1976 Car Craft Magazine All-Star drag racing team as the modified driver of the year.  Leal drove Chrysler cars through the 1977 NHRA season. Leal who retired from drag racing in the late nineteen eighties is a member of the Mopar Collector’s Guide Hall of Fame the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame.

The car was meticulously restored by John and Denny Laube who proudly displayed the car at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry show in Indianapolis Indiana.