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Elana ScherrAutomotive and Driver
Good issues come from the Hawaiian islands: chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, browsing, and profitable racers. Danny Ongais, who raced the whole lot from Prime Gas to F1; John DeSoto, motocross legend; and Roland Leong, famed Humorous Automotive tuner, share greater than their island birthplace: as of August 2022, they’re now the one wheeled inductees within the Hawaii Sports activities Corridor of Fame.
We’d say they had been the one motorsports representatives in any respect, however that would go away out Thomas Gentry, powerboat racer.
Leong is the latest inductee, formally becoming a member of the checklist in 2020, however because of COVID solely celebrating the consideration on August 25, 2022, when the Hawaii Sports activities Corridor of Fame lastly held its a lot postponed banquet. We had been readily available to cheer as Leong took the stage, launched by his first driver, Don “the Snake” Prudhomme. It was the primary time the 2 males had been in Hawaii collectively since they met in 1964.
Leong grew up on Oahu, racing automobiles on the streets, a lot to the dismay of his dad and mom. “My dad had a grasp’s diploma from Harvard. My mom was additionally a school graduate, very uncommon for a girl within the ’30s. They had been revered businesspeople. I didn’t graduate highschool and I needed to be a drag racer. They weren’t happy.”
Leong’s dad didn’t speak to him for years, however his mom got here round and supported him as he moved from avenue racing to operating a dragster on the island’s solely monitor, Kahuku Dragstrip. Leong held the fuel dragster file of 8.50 at 180 mph when he met Prudhomme, who was piloting the Greer, Black, Prudhomme nitro dragster, shipped over to make exhibition runs on the island’s new, larger dragstrip. The 2 hit it off, although Prudhomme may barely perceive Leong’s mixture of Hawaiian slang and accented English. It did not matter; speaking automobiles was a typical language.
Later that 12 months, Leong was in California, working for a chassis store and constructing a high fueler of his personal. The primary drive did not go effectively. “I assume I used to be presupposed to solely go half monitor? I did not know that,” says Leong, with the straightforward cadence of a much-told story. “I did not know the place the parachute deal with was, and by the point I discovered it, I might pushed off the dragstrip. [Engine builder] Keith Black wasn’t happy. He stated he could not help me if I drove, as a result of he did not need to inform my dad and mom I might been killed in a automobile.”
Black really helpful Prudhomme, as their accomplice within the G-B-P automobile was calling it quits. Prudhomme began driving for Leong and took the brand new automobile, appropriately named “The Hawaiian,” to victories on the NHRA Pomona Winternationals and the Indy U.S. Nats together with numerous match race rounds. “I at all times inform Prudhomme he is fortunate I wasn’t value shit as a driver or he would not have had a profession,” says Leong. “Generally I consider how odd we will need to have regarded in ’65, on the street throughout America, a Chinese language-Hawaiian and a Black man, usually the one ones in a restaurant. We by no means had any hassle, although. I assume individuals appreciated the automobile an excessive amount of to fret about who was with it.”
Prudhomme left Leong the subsequent 12 months, a call he says he regretted as he watched the Hawaiian repeat victories on the Winternationals and the U.S. Nats with a unique driver behind the wheel. Leong would grow to be notorious for his altering roster of hotshoes. “Not everybody had the identical want to win as I did,” he says with a shrug.
In 1969, he built a Funny Car, noting that the bodied gasoline automobiles had been extra fashionable with the followers and had extra alternatives to match race than the lengthy, bare rails. Leong’s “Hawaiian” automobiles received often, together with the well-known Bakersfield March Meet in ’67 and ’83, and one other U.S. Nationals win in 1991 with a automobile that will later set a file as the primary Humorous Automotive over 290 mph. His final 12 months as a workforce proprietor was 1993, however he continued working as a employed crew chief, together with rejoining his outdated buddy, the Snake, to tune the Copenhagen Humorous Automotive with a younger driver named Ron Capps behind the wheel. They completed second by a slim margin to John Drive within the championship in 1997.
One would possibly take into account {that a} stable profession, however Leong continued to tune nitro automobiles after leaving the NHRA “massive present,” working for nostalgia racers operating within the NHRA’s heritage sequence. Via all of it, Leong has stayed associates with a lot of his teammates, together with Prudhomme. Now 78 and 81 respectively, the Hawaiian and the Snake nonetheless act like they’re of their early twenties as they had been once they met, mentioning scorching automobiles and ribbing one another about their varied failings. “You realize, Snake and I might have lunch daily in Van Nuys,” stated Leong. “He was working at a paint store, and I satisfied him to go on the street with me in ’65, so he give up, and he hasn’t had an actual job since.”
That is one method to describe Prudhomme’s 389-round profitable profession, however then, Leong has identified him since earlier than he was a giant shot, again once they had been each simply youngsters speaking automobiles in Hawaii, by no means imagining they’d be again for a Corridor of Fame induction almost 60 years later.
Leong was inducted as part of the 2020 class, together with surfer Ben Aipa and racquetball champion Egan Inoue. The 2021 inductees, honored on the similar celebration, included volleyball champ Reydan “Tita” Ahuna and sports activities promoter Larry Value. The Hawaii Sports activities Corridor of Fame is a state-run museum recording the accomplishments of Hawaii’s athletes in all types of sport.