Roland Leong
Roland started his career drag racing while still living in Hawaii when he and a friend opened the speed shop and began building a Dragmater chassis A/D. The partnership was very short-lived, and soon after it was dissolved, Roland headed for the main land with his race car and baggage. In 1961, at the ripe old age of 17 he went to work for Dragmaster chassis legend Jim Nelson and Dode Martin in Carlsbad California. In 1962 Roland drove his Dragmaster car at Pomona and Indy. In 1962 Roland teamed up with a fellow Hawaiian, Danny Ongais, and had a successful outing at the Winternationals in Pomona California. The pair managed to win the Hot Rod Magazine meet at Riversdale, California a few months later.
Still wanting to drive, Roland managed to get a ride in a blown Dodge powered AA/GD in 1963, and in 1964 he debuted as a driver of his first AA/FD car and the first of a long line of cars called “The Hawaiian”. The run itself was a pretty good run, but while trying to find the chute release at the end of the run, Roland veered off the strip and did a lot of damage to both the car and his pride. With the car rebuilt, Roland made a deal with Don Prudhomme to drive it, and at the 1965 Winternationals they captured their first major event win and followed up later in the year by winning the US Nationals in Indy. In 1966, Prudhomme went on his own with Mike Snively taking over the driving chores. For the first time ever, the team posted back to back wins for both the Pomona Winternationals and the US Nationals in Indy.
In 1969 Roland debuted his funny car at the Winternationals with Larry Reyes at the wheel while they won that round, Larry also wound up crashing the car. Roland and Larry’s appearance for the next year’s (1970) Winternationals was quite different when they went home with the Wally for winning the event. In 1971 with Butch Moss driving, Roland took home another Wally from the Winternationals to make it back to back wins. Roland continued to campaign the funny car, and in 1991 with Jim White at the wheel the team won the Big Bud Shootout and the US Nationals in Indy, and became the first funny car to run over 200 MPH. At the World Finals in Pomona that year they ran 291 MPH to capture the overall top speed of the event. While Roland was one of the first team owners to put together some strong sponsorship backing (his first coming from Hawaiian Punch and Kings Hawaiian Bakery), as the cost of racing escalated and finding sponsorship consumed more and more time and effort, Roland decided to hang it up as a team owner.