Virginia Racing and Rodding History Roars Across the Internet
For immediate release:
June 25, 2008
June 25, 2008
Contact: Natalie Faunce, (540) 365-4301
nfaunce@ferrum.edu
nfaunce@ferrum.edu
For 80 years Southwest Virginia has had a love affair with fast automobiles, oval track racing, drag racing, and custom car builders. To tell the story, Ferrum College’s Blue Ridge Institute & Museum has launched a new online exhibit, Full Throttle: Racing and Rodding in Southwest Virginia.With hundreds of images of hot rods, dragsters, stock cars, early race tracks, and car club memorabilia, Full Throttle: Racing and Rodding in Southwest Virginia showcases the history of “motorheads” in the Virginia highlands. The region has been home to dozens of small oval race tracks and drag strips, and in the 1950s and ‘60s, Southwest Virginia had over 30 hot rod clubs.
A network of skilled western Virginia car builders continues to work in the hot rod and custom car scene today. Through video interviews on the web site, Full Throttle: Racing and Rodding in Southwest Virginia highlights five of those artisans from Roanoke County and Franklin County: upholsterer Michael Moore, hot rod builder John Rinehart, pinstriper Tom Van Nortwick, car builder/drag racer Charlie Overfelt, and body customizer and painter Norwood Wooding.
"In the 1950s the car scene in Southwest Virginia really took off, and the young men in it were remarkably focused and innovative. Unless you are a male over fifty, you probably do not realize how popular souped-up hot rods were and how many dirt race tracks were around," said Roddy Moore, Director of Ferrum College's Blue Ridge Institute & Museum.
Supported with funding from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy and the Virginia Commission for the Arts, Full Throttle: Racing and Rodding in Southwest Virginia is an online version of a Blue Ridge Institute exhibition that toured the state from 2004 to 2007. Visit the Full Throttle exhibit online!
Photo top right: A flagman sends hot rods roaring off the line at the Roanoke Drag Strip, circa 1960.
About Ferrum College
Ferrum College is a four-year, private, co-educational, liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Ferrum offers a choice of nationally recognized bachelor’s degree programs at a cost well below the national average for private colleges.
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