Bill English, Robert Frakes and Dale Funk
The team of Bill English, Robert Frakes and Dale Funk, more company known as the Kentucky Moonshiners, was one of the most successful teams to get together in the mid 1960s. They were also one of the more colorful groups to compete in the sport. The group started racing together in the early 1960s and posted their major win in 1966 at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis in A/Comp class. Not long after that, they began competing with a Top Gas Dragster, and in 1969 they posted a Top Gas win at the National Dragster Open and followed with another similar win in 1970. In 1971 the team won the Division 3 Championship in Top Gas. They were also the first team to run twin Chrysler engines in Top Gas, which they did in 1967.
Shortly after the Division 3 win, they switched to Top Fuel and in 1973 won the NHRA Eastern Conference Championship. In 1974 they were really hot, winning the IHRA Southern Nationals Championship, the NHRA 1/8 Mile National Open Championship, the NHRA Summer Nationals, the IHRA Northern Nationals, the IHRA Spring Nationals and the IHRA World Championship. In 1975, they were the NHRA Gatornationals champions and won the Popular Hot Rodding event. Along the way, they set top time and low e.t. at many national events plus setting track records at every track in Kentucky and several surrounding states.
While the team was known as a very competitive group, it was as well known for the jokes it played on other teams and for the real moonshine they were known to deliver to selected friends. The sport lost one of its more competitive and colorful race teams when they retired from the spot following the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis in 1976. It was also well known within the sport that if you needed help, parts or advice, if it were at all possible for them to o so, they would pitch in with all they could.
Today, Dale is businessman and spends a lot of his spar time restoring old airplanes. Robert did some racing on the dirt ovals of Kentucky and runs his auto store in Radcliff, Kentucky. After their retirement, Bill ran the family plumbing business and auto salvage business until his death in 1994.