Don Hampton
Like most of the people involved in drag racing, Don Hampton started his involvement at an early age. Don began working in his father’s service station when he was 13 years old and immediately began saving his money to buy a car and the part it would need to make it go faster. By his sixteenth birthday he had purchased his first car, a ’29 Ford Model A Roadster, and equipped it with a Cragar two-port cylinder- head-equipped for-banger. Shortly after his birthday he drove to the old Santa Ana Drag strip and began his racing career.
During the 1950s, Don gained recognition as a driver while competing in such vehicles as his ’29 Roadster, a Ford flathead roadster, a rear engine Buick powered roadster, Chet Herbert’s 354 Chrysler powered AA/Fuel dragster and Kenny Lindley’s Miss Fire dragster, which he drove at the ’59 NHRA Nationals in Detroit. Not limited to just being a driver, Don was also recognized as a designer and engineer, and 1957 he opened the doors on his current business, Hampton Blowers. Throughout the ’50s, Don partnered with Eldon Dye and Kenny Lindley to build and compete in a variety of award-winning vehicles while designing and testing new mechanical innovations every opportunity he had.
During the ’60s and ’70s, Don continued to make a name for himself as a driver in various Top Fuel and Top Gas dragsters, but the two vehicles he is most remembered for at that time were the Bantam- bodied Competition coupe of Eldon Dye and the very unique and famous twin-engine Dye and Hampton “Too Bad’ Fiat coupe. After successfully campaigning the coupe for a few years, Don made it even more unique by modifying it to fit a Corvette body and introduced racing fans to the only twin-engine Funny Car ever under the “American Band Stand” banner. It was also during this time period that he introduced the first after-marketing magnesium blower that was the forerunner of today’s “super blowers”.
In 1970 Don won the NHRA Winternationals at Pomona in his own Top Gas dragster and later moved up to Top Fuel with his “Too Bad ll” dragster. Not content to just compete in drag racing, in 1973 Don built and drove a Mazda-powered coupe at Bonneville.
In 2006 Don was inducted into the California NHRA Hall of Fame with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and just to add to his excitement he drive Bucky Austin’s restored “Eagle Electric’ Top Fuel car in the Cacklefest.
Don retired from active drag racing in 1984, but he continues to produce his famous Hampton Blowers for everything from street machines and dragsters to drag boats, and will very soon celebrate his 50th year in business.