Bobby Warren
In the mid-1950s Bobby Warren was busy working on his tobacco farm in North Carolina and competing at some of the local race tracks that were beginning to pop up around his hometown. Bobby usually went out with his friend Earl Smith who did the driving Friday and Saturday nights them Bobby would take over the driver seat on Sunday. In those days they were competing in what was termed Junior Stock with Bobby later changing over to a Camaro as he pursued the national championship. However, by the late 1960s he decided that competing on the local tracks for trophies really wasn’t enough and he began pursuing his passion by following the NHRA’s Division II circuit in a quest for the regional championship. He also began attending select national events where he started appearing more and more in the winner’s circle. At his racing involvement grew, Bobby converted an old tobacco barn on the farm into a completely self-sufficient machine shop.
In the 1970s Bobby’s dream of greater things came true when he became NHRA’s Stock World Champion by winning the World Finals in Dallas Texas. In 1974 Bobby annexed his second national championship by winning the Super Stock Championship at the World Finals that was followed in 1978 by third Super Stock Championship crown. Bobby’s win record from the mid-1960s through the late 1970s was literally unbelievable. Probably his most successful season was in 1978 when he drove the “Krunchy Chicken” Camaro to victory at the Summernationals, Sportsnationals, Mile High Nationals, World Finals, and one the $15,000 Grace Sportsman Cup that signified the most successful sportsmen racer in the nation. As of 1983, Bobby had been in 13 NHRA final rounds and had won 12 of them. Odds are he would have taken the 13th one as well but he lost the final round at the US Nationals in Indy where it was later discovered someone had poured syrup in his gas tank prior to the final round.
By that time Bobby had given up on farming completely to open and operate a very successful race engine shop and parts store. After the syrup incident in Indy, Bobby decided it was time for an extended vacation so he turned the engine shop over to his sons, bought a motorhome and set out to see North America. Seeing North America through the windshield of a motorhome can only be fun for so long and after an enjoyable hiatus from the super stock wars, Bobby returned. Much to the sorrow of his competitors, Bobby’s winning ways were still intact and in 2004 he showed the “kids” how it is done by winning the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol Tennessee. That day his grandson, Joel, got to see two memorable things, it was his first time to see grandpa when a national event and the win that day made Bobby at 69 years old, the oldest competitor ever to win a national event.