April 2020 • By Tony Thacker
Vintage photos courtesy Roland Leong

In 2004, Bill Pitts published a story on oldrace.com about a trip to Italy in search of Roland Leong’s 1965-’66 Championship winning Hawaiian Top Fuel dragster. I was intrigued as I’d seen the forlorn dragster in Turin’s Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia museum and wondered what it was doing there. In 2016, I was racing in Hockenheim, Germany, with Ron Hope’s Rat Trap AA/Fuel Altered. Hockenheim is not that far from Turin and the Biscaretti, now the Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile (the National Automobile Museum) had completed a full restoration in 2011—it had to be worth the eight-hour drive.

Seeing the Hawaiian was kinda like meeting an old girlfriend and realizing both had aged—a lot. Compared to the beautifully preserved cars surrounding it, the fueler looked like it had been driven hard and put away wet. Which is exactly what it had been, Leong having sold it to a European show promoter.

After returning from Europe, I made time to visit Roland Leong and talk to him about the lost Hawaiian. Born in 1945, Leong moved from his native Hawaii to California in 1962 to work for Dode Martin and Jim Nelson at Dragmaster in Carlsbad, California. In 1964, he built himself a blown nitro front-engine dragster. Unfortunately, on his very first run at Lions Drag Strip Leong failed to pull the chute and went off the end of the track after running 191 mph at 8.01. Although unharmed his mom Teddy, who was also his sponsor, suggested that as he had a wife and newborn daughter maybe it was time to reevaluate his racing career.  

Leong took the mangled dragster back to chassis builder Kent Fuller who front-halfed the car. Meanwhile, he’d met Don Prudhomme in Hawaii when “The Snake” was driving the Greer-Black-Prudhomme (G-B-P) dragster. When Keith Black gave up running the G-B-P car, he suggested Prudhomme drive for Leong. It was a match made in Hawaii.

The following year, Leong and Prudhomme won the Winternationals, working their way through the 32-car field to a final run in 7.76 seconds at 201.34 mph. It was Prudhomme’s first national event win. The win prompted a tour and the pair traveled all over the U.S. until they arrived at Indianapolis for the Nationals where they won again. At the end of that very successful year, Prudhomme got his own deal with B&M Transmissions and quit driving for Leong.

Leong’s new shoe was Mike Snively and damn it if they didn’t repeat 1965’s success winning the ’66 Winernationals and then the Nationals at Indy. They went on to win the 1967 March Meet at Bakersfield, California, after which they parked the two-time Championship car and raced a new Don Long car that won its first ever race at Riverside setting top speed and low ET.

Back then, yesterday’s racecar was old news so when the Championship Hawaiian could be turned into cash, away it went to Italy. It’s here that the thread of the story gets lose. When I went in 2016, there was nobody to ask about its provenance, however, Pitts says that it was donated to the Museo in 1969 by the Fiat Motor Company after being displayed at the 14th Triennale di Milano, a design and art expo. I Googled the Triennale it and b-i-n-g-o, there were four images of the Hawaiian on display in 1968.

Back in Turin, the Hawaiian was intact but sad. The George Cerny paintwork was in good shape except for a few ouches on the Tom Hanna-formed nose and around the cockpit on the beautifully shaped chute box. The Keith Black Chrysler Marine Hemi looked externally all there but you could tell that it was empty and only ever received a cursory wipe.

So, what will happen to the two-time Championship Hawaiian? Will it sit all-but forgotten in Italy for another 50 years? From what Leong told me various people have tried to buy the car but without success. Under Italy’s laws any object over 50 years old is classified as a cultural asset and may only leave Italy after having been registered with the Belle Arti department of Italy’s Heritage and Cultural Activity Ministry.  Even items that leave Italy temporally to be exhibited in another country or to be sold at auction require official approval. And that’s okay; Italy is renowned for it’s attention to detail.

Unfortunately, the cost of purchase, even if the Hawaiian was for sale, added to the cost of shipping, insurance and restoration is probably prohibitive in today’s environment. So, there sits the Hawaiian.