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In February of 1999, John Beale gathered a lot of friends and acquaintances who all had the same desire which was to see a drag strip built in Kingman. All these people met at Grandpa’s Kitchen, with a total of about 45 people attending the first meeting. It was decided at that meeting to call themselves “Route66 Motor sports” and a representative board was elected.
Within a short period the groups’ goals of building a multifaceted motor sports facility came to the attention of a group with the intentions of building an airplane museum at the Kingman airport. Some of the individuals involved were friends of both groups and it soon became apparent that they could join forces and pursue property together. A group of four was selected by the board of Route66 Motor Sports to join the board from the museum group to form what soon became Route 66 Wings and Wheels. The board of Route 66 Motor Sports was dissolved and Route 66 Wings and Wheels made application for 501-c3 non profit status in August of 1999.
With the non profit status being granted our mission has remained the same. But the personnel have changed over the years. All of the people involved in the original organization that were representing the air motive interest have since left. And we are represented wholly by car and race enthusiast today. The mission of the organization continues to be to build a museum to display and operate examples of both automotive and airplane history.
The immediate focus is on bringing about a functioning drag strip as all involved feel it will be the revenue generation stream to continue towards our mission of a museum.
We have successfully conducted two car raffles as fund raisers. One was a front engine dragster that had a body built by the legendary Tom Hanna. The Dragsters raffle was concluded at the inaugural Good Guys Drag Race in Las Vegas. One of the officials from Good Guys drew the winning ticket which went to a gentleman from New Zealand. The other car was a1963 split window Chevrolet Corvette, one of the most desirable cars Chevrolet ever produced. This time the winner was a woman from right here in Arizona and we have the honor still of occasionally seeing the car cruise historic Route 66.
In 2001 we made history by conducting a legal drag race on a city street with the unanimous approval of the Kingman City Council. It was Kingman Street Drags I on May 5th 2001 for six hours we race 125 cars down Burbank right next to Centennial Park to the delight of 5000 spectators. Less then a week later we were host to Hot Rod magazines Power Tour as they made there last stop in Down Town Kingman before concluding in California the following day. In 2002 we moved the event Kingman Street Drags II out to the Kingman Airport, and extended it to two days. This time we had 175 cars participating with over 5000 spectators’. Since 2000 we had been involved with the Kingman Air and Auto Show. In 2003, 2004, 2005 we dedicated our effort exclusively to joining the Kingman Air and Auto Show and producing the automotive side of the show. In return they donated any proceeds from the show to Route 66 Wings and Wheels Inc. During those three years we continually increased the size and professionalism of our portion of the show culminating in 2005 with a full night of Drag racing after the conclusion of the Air Show portion. We again drew over 5000 spectators that stayed despite a rather lengthy clean up of over one and a half hours when Nanuck the fueled altered exploded his fuel cell and we had to put the fire out. Despite the delay we had spectators continue to poor in and enjoy the remainder of the night. After the 2005 Air and Auto Show we didn’t receive any proceeds from the show and it became necessary to remove ourselves from it.
We have since gone back to the program we originally started in 2001 and in 2006 we held Kingman Street Drags III. This event was moved down town Kingman to Beale Street. Between the old High School and the Historic Locomotive Park, literally down Kingmans Main Street This event was an overwhelming success. With a crowd of over 10,000 spectators and over 178 cars racing for twelve hours it was a huge success.
The following year was poised to reach even greater glory when the inevitable happened and the event was struck by terrible weather. The Friday before the event we saw rain late in the afternoon and the following morning was nothing short of a torrential down poor. The event which was supposed to start at 10am was delayed until noon and despite the incredibly poor start to the day we did get started. With the completely washed out schedule we continued with a driver choice of just running for fun and for the next 10 hour we had what everyone considered a huge success again. It was so much of a success that we were covered in the February 2008 issue of Hot Rod magazine. We had numerous videos posted on the internet at sites such as You-Tube and Drag Racing on Line. These videos have exposed our event and our cause to a world wide audience. As of right now we are poised to conduct “Napa Racing Kingman Street Drags V”, with all the exposure of the previous events and the expansion of the Napa Racing Kingman Street Drags V to a two day event only the imagination can guess as to what this year will bring.
As a community minded organization we have conducted three charitable car shows to raise money for friends of Wings and Wheels who had personal tragedies. These were people who were stricken by unfortunate circumstances and needed their friends to step up and lend a hand. These people are also true supporters of our effort to bring our community the goal of a multi faceted motor sports facility, and a Museum.
Next Fourth of July will be our Fourth annual Cars and Stars car show held in conjunction with the city of Kingman’s Fourth of July fireworks display.
Over our nine years we have continually acquired many assets. We own 4000 plus feet of concrete k-rail, grandstand for approximately 7500 people, and an NHRA timing system purchased from the historic Inyokern Drag Strip. We also have miscellaneous chain link fencing and gates, a complete office full of furniture and computers.
Not bad for a group of volunteers who are trying to bring this dream about. But it is not easy and we need your help. We need more people with the desire to make this dream a reality. We need people to join our board of directors, we need investors to join our investment group. We need volunteers to staff our fundraising events. You can help make this happen. Call (928) 727-7866 or e-mail us at brian@route66wingsandwheels.com , but get on board and help us make this dream come true. Help us preserve the History of Kingman and the largest portion of Route 66 left in the United States. Help to bring safe affordable family entertainment to the Tri State. Help to solve the ever growing problem of our youth and the illegal street racing that is rampant in the world today. Your money your voice and your time all are valuable to reaching our goal. Help make a difference join Route 66 Wings and Wheels today. |
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