Jungle Pam makes Hot Rod Reunion appearance
By Wheel Thing
When it comes to honoring the past, the 19th edition of the NHRA Californiana Hot Rod Reunion (Friday-Sunday at Auto Club Famoso Raceway) is honoring one of the most famous back-up girls ever to step on to a drag strip in knee-high boots — Jungle Pam.
What’s that got to do with racing.
Related Photos
Well, plenty. Back-up girls, who ran down the track then guided the drivers back to the starting line after a burn out — were part of the culture of drag racing in the late 1960s and into the ’70s, and Jungle Pam Hardy was certainly among the most photographed.
Jungle Pam got her nickname because of her association with the late Jungle Jim Liberman (who won the 1976 March Meet in Bakersfield).
Jungle Pam will be at Famoso this weekend as well as the free Reunion Honoree Reception on Friday at 7 p.m. at the DoubleTree Hotel. Honorees are Bill Bagshaw, Don Long, Al “Mousie” Marcellus, Tom Prufer, and the Steinegger and Eshenbaugh Team. Tom Hanna is serving as Grand Marshal.
The Reunion is a three-day festival celbrating nostalgic drag racing, hot rods, American automotive enthusiasm and, of course, back-up girls.
And yes, as a matter of full disclose, I took a picture or two (or three or four) of Jungle Pam back in the day.
Long live back-up girls!
.
Most CommentedMost Popular
Since Karen Goh returned to Kern County from a publishing career in New York in 2004, she has helped foster a strong network of Christian leaders in government, politics, media, business and nonprofits.
California voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996, giving "seriously ill Californians ... the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes" as recommended by a physician.
Is Kern County, as has widely been reported, really the expulsion capital of California? That's the question posed Friday by state Sen. Michael Rubio, D-Shafter, to 50 or so Kern County educators, elementary and high school district administrators and community leaders.
Kern County has agreed to pay a Kern River Valley family $1 million for wrongfully taking their son in 2008 when the family was in a dispute with the South Fork Union School District over how school officials were dealing with the boy's food allergies.
A Bakersfield mother of two who took up competitive cycling nine months ago after an injury ended her marathoning career died Sunday while competing in a bicycle race outside Yosemite National Park.
Since Karen Goh returned to Kern County from a publishing career in New York in 2004, she has helped foster a strong network of Christian leaders in government, politics, media, business and nonprofits.
Kern County has agreed to pay a Kern River Valley family $1 million for wrongfully taking their son in 2008 when the family was in a dispute with the South Fork Union School District over how school officials were dealing with the boy's food allergies.
Young's Marketplace, an independent grocery store that's a Bakersfield institution, will close at the end of the week.