[Tabitha Draughon]

CCRA-Carolina Class Racers Association Racer Spotlight:

This week we are taking a short road trip to Louisburg, NC, home of Mr. Jim "Jim Dandy" Reynolds. Jim is 62 years young & has been racing 47 of those years. He has a shop full of race cars, all with plenty of boat flake, but this article is going to focus on his 1957 Chevy Bel-Aire aka as "Ole Bessie". "She" is powered by a SBC 400 CI engine built by H&f performance out of Wilson, NC. This car competes in NHRA Super Stock & CCRA-Carolina Class Racers Association events. Jim has a couple of other SS cars as well as a few Stock Eliminator class cars. Ole Bessie was painted by Brandon White of McCreary's Body Shop in Cana, VA. His sponsors include Ace Rug Cleaning Company, Inc. & Jennifer Sue's Miniature Dachshunds. Jim would like to give "Special Thanks" to his wife Jennifer Reynolds, H&f performance, Redline Speed Shop, Robbie Draughon Powertrain Development, & Tracy & Logan Robbins. He states that his most memorable win was his last win which took place at the CCRA-Carolina Class Racers Association KDS Motorsports event on 06/04/22. Some of his accomplishments include: 87 IHRA Super Stock World Champion, 2003 IHRA Division 9 Champion, multi-time track champion, 97 NHRA Pennzoil Nationals Super Stock Champ, 2-time CCRA-Carolina Class Racers Association champion with his last being in 2018, & 86 bracket finals runner-up. Jim says his most epic fail would be from 1993 losing in the finals to Anthony Bertozzi (I'm thinking that's who he meant) in the Modified Eliminator Shootout when he had a bad reaction time. A funny incident from the track that he recalls was when his wife Jennifer was putting him into the waterbox & she lost her flip flop & stopped the race to retrieve it. Jim doesn't race as much as he would like due to various reasons, but he's generally a force to be reckoned with when he does show up at the track. His first race of the year was at KDS Motorsports in June & as you can see that trip paid off as he found himself holding the trophy at the end of the night. We all pick on Jim because he always post on Facebook that he plans to be at a race & then due to unforeseen circumstances he isn't able to make it so when he showed up at Kinston, we told him we were rolling out the "red carpet" for his appearance.

Jim is a well-rounded, well-liked guy at the track. He is generally keeping to himself & in his pit area but if a fellow racer stops by, he's always up for some bench racing & telling past racing stories. If you are a friend of his on Facebook, he generally post older pics of him & his cars at various race tracks all up & down the East Coast. We all are hoping that Jim is planning to attend our next weekend event back at KDS Motorsports & I'm sure he is hoping to repeat his last trip there.

As stated above, CCRA-Carolina Class Racers Association will be back in action next weekend, August 6th & 7th at KDS Motorsports for another triple event. Please stay as cool as possible & hydrated & we look forward to seeing y'all next weekend at the track!