Paradise Dragstrip is one of my favorite drag strips, and they host a really great Toy Drive event in December. Rain cancelled the event two weekends in a row, but they were finally able to pull it off before Christmas. Special guests included Mike Finnegan and crew, along with his Blasphemi '55 Chevy and Rubber Duck Firebird, which used to sit under the carport at Paradise Dragstrip. Sleeperdude was also on hand running his burnout cars, the Gremlin and Pinto.

Drag racing action was cut short because of a bad crash that tore up the guard rail and timing system, so we didn't get to see all the cars run, but it was still a good time at the drag strip.

My favorite part is always the swap meet, and as soon as I walked up on it, I spotted an old drag car that deserves some recognition. From my best guess, this is a late '70s or early '80s drag car, built from scratch by Lesley Anderson. Lesley is one of the local Ford drag racers from back in the day, and built this Model A using an aluminum frame and a fiberglass body. The paint and lettering still looks great, and the car has an awesome old school round tube front axle. The owners of the car were stripping it down and selling off everything...it was tempting but we didn't buy it.