April 2020 • By Tony Thacker

Despite living on a small, damp island in the North Sea, the Brits enjoy a healthy appetite for motorsports of all kinds being the leading proponents of Formula One and holding the land speed record but there has always been the lure of racing in the USA perhaps it’s those vast, open spaces.

More than 100 years ago, in 1927 Sir Henry Seagrave thrashed his 1,000 hp Sunbeam land speed racer across the sands at Daytona Beach, Florida. He was the first man to exceed 200 mph setting a record at 203.956 mph (327.97 kph). Since then, there have been numerous others seeking competition across the pond. For example, in 1965 Jim Clark won the Indy 500 in a Lotus and Graham Hill won the following year in a Lola. In the drag racing world lots of Americans went to race in the UK but few Brits made it to America, Clive Skilton being the most notable but that was in 1976.

With the exchange rate as it is it’s almost prohibitively expensive for Brits to race in the USA, however, American muscle car enthusiasts the Williams Bros., Dan and Nic that operate OCS Paint and Williams Bros., Racing (WBR) just off the M1 conveniently situated between Santa Pod and Silverstone, England. Nick runs OCS that restores and paints classics—there were four XKEs and two Corvettes in the shop when we visited—hot rods and muscle cars. Dan, meanwhile, runs the engine building and mechanical part of the business and made the cover of the March 2020 edition of The Engine Rebuilder magazine.

Dan (35) and Nic (32) began drag racing in the UK at nearby Santa Pod and to find more competition they journeyed to Sweden that looks close on the map but to get there you take a ferry to Hook of Holland and then drive 1,000 miles north to the strip at Tierp. Racing in Scandinavia turned out to be more expensive than they liked. That fact, coupled with yet another rained-out event in the UK, they turned their attention west to the New Land and shipped Nick’s ’69 Camaro over to compete in the NHRA AA/Stock Eliminator classes.

The racecar is allowed into the US on a one-year carnet and in 2018 WBR managed seven races. The car is based in Bowling Green, KY, with Scooter Vester and the team flies from Heathrow, London to Nashville. With Virgin, it’s a direct flight that takes only about seven hours. At first, they rented transport but eventually found it more cost effective to buy a truck and trailer. I caught up with them at the 2019 GatorNationals where they’d made the field, which is an achievement in itself but unfortunately lost in the first round. Nevertheless, the brothers are having a great time Nic saying, “It’s a dream come true to race in the US. The weather is invariably good, everybody has been really good to us and it’s highly competitive, which I like.”  

After Gainesville, such was their success, they decided to ship Nic’s Camaro home and ship out Dan’s ’69 Nova to give him a chance to race on American asphalt. The car arrived in New York and the brothers drove out to Indy for a Divisional race then on down to Bowling Green for the quarter finals where they got through to the last 16 out of a 125-car field.

They went on to race at the prestigious U.S. Nationals in Indy. Unfortunately, Dan lost out in Round 3, nevertheless, they qualified 82 out of a field of more than 155 racers and to make it to the last 32 at Indy was a fantastic achievement. They’ll be back meanwhile Dan said, “Indy was just epic!  It was incredible to be lined up with like-minded people, alongside the best cars and racers in the world. The racing really got the adrenaline going—so too did the Indy tear down—an opportunity to get under the bonnet (hood) and show off the engine was exhilarating. 

“Whilst we didn't bring any silverware back to the UK, we were thrilled with our US performance, the car was smooth, and more importantly fast thanks to Brian Tilburg’s engine build. Just a few more improvements and 'tweaks' to make and then hopefully we can get that evasive US asphalt win!"

TT also caught up with the team again in 2019 at Santa Pod for Dragstalgia where the boys raced a 454 ci Chevelle SS as well as a 327-powered ’62 Impala. Nic was on a high having just won £10,000 (about $13,000) as Big Brackett Winner at a recent Doorslammers meeting. You could say the boys are on a roll.

In March 2020, just prior to the Covid-19 lock down, the boys raced the ‘Baby Gators’ at Gainesville, FL, where Dan achieved a new PB at 9.753 seconds in R1 of class eliminations and qualified number 2 in a 96 car field. “It was 1.1976 under index with more to give.” According to Nic.

Obviously, racing in the USA is on hold for now but we have heard that the brothers will be back, Nic saying, “Our current plans are to return to the US just as soon as the travel restrictions have been lifted and then later on in the year we hope to get the Camaro back out and maybe have both cars running in the US when we’ll look at some records.”