Phil Hutchison Drag Racing Action Online   Images Phil Hutchison and Courtesy Rhonda Hogue McCole, Bob Bender, and Tim Barrett

No, Bob Bender and Tim Barrett did not use a telephone booth for their adventure.  They went the old fashioned way. Motorhomes and trailers towing their cars from the Northeast to Florida, Phoenix  and  eventually Pomona and  Las Vegas. Barrett had his wife Linda as his copilot and Bender went solo having lost his wife Penny, to cancer in 2023. Barrett had a motor home towing a stacker trailer while Bender’s motor home towed an ageless open trailer in a world of enclosed units.

“Bob would pass us on the highway, and I would think “Here’s a 77 year old man in an old motor home and an ancient trailer. I can’t believe he is going from Maryland to Florida and then the west coast in that rig.”

And the cars?  Tim drives a wheel standing F/SA ’69 Camaro and Bob, a not so wheel standing O/SA Chevy Kingswood station wagon. And as far as NHRA wins and losses, Barrett has the edge with 3 NHRA Lucas Oil division wins and a Wally for winning Stock at the fall zMax race in 2024. Bender is waiting for his first Wally buy has won class numerous times so his mantle isn’t empty.

Barrett and his wife Linda are no strangers to a long haul road trip with the race car. In 2023 they embarked on a 90 day trip hitting NHRA events across the US which set the stage for the 2025 adventure.

The purpose of the trip wasn’t to set the NHRA world on fire but to check of one item of a very important bucket list for both Bender and the Barretts.

The Three Amigos 

“In 2023 Penny and I were at Gainesville for the back to back races and if it was up to me, I would have stayed out racing longer, but she wanted to go home,” Bob, a retired police chief from Perryville MD reminisces. “Even though we thought her cancer was in remission, she never liked being far from home for a long time.”

“After the race we were talking and she suggested for next year, let’s go to Gainesville, then Belle Rose then to Phoenix. So, on the way home from the Gators we’re talking about how cool it’s going to be next year travelling and such. Penny wasn’t feeling too good, so I drove straight through to home only stopping for fuel.”

“Once we got home, Penny got the bad news that her cancer had returned and this time with a vengeance and had metastasized. I had hospice and friends support but it was terrible. A week or two before she passed, we had a deep conversation. She said ‘listen to me; you are going to promise me some things here.’

“You’re entered at Maple Grove and you got to race despite my condition,” she said. “And no matter what happens to me you are going to go on the trip we planned. And she made me promise to do this as long as I am physically able to race. And she made me swear to go to Gainesville in 2024 and win class for her.”

“Less than two weeks later she was gone. August 2023. I went to the National race at Maple Grove in September, and I, of course, was a mess. And for some reason NHRA let me take a single during qualifying in Penny’s memory. I cried all the way down the track. I will be forever in their debt.”

“I also will always be in debt to Dan Lynch’s wife Janet and Linda Barrett. At the Maple Grove division race on Memorial Day weekend they went back to the trailer with their golf cart and brought Penny up to the water box and had her help me stage the car for the last time.”

Penny Bender was never far from her man when he was racing

“I didn’t do the trip in 2024 having made the decision to make 2025 the year. At the PRI show in 2024 I was talking to NHRA’s Brian Lohnes and Alan Reinhart and told them of my plans, and they said it was awesome that I was going through with Penny’s last wishes. Tim Barrett caught wind of my plans and asked if he and Linda could tag along. I jumped at the chance and the rest is history.”

The two racers made plans to hit as many NHRA national and divisionals as possible. Starting with the Baby Gators then stay in Gainesville for the Gatornationals then head west.

“Bob left Maryland a few days before us so he could be close to first in line for stacking for the Baby’s,” Tim adds. “We got to Gainesville a couple of days after Bob. He saved us a pit spot for the Baby Gators.”

After the Gators, the two towed to Belle Rose La. For the combination Lucas Oil divisional and the Laris Motorsports Insurance NHRA Cajun SPORTSnationals.

Linda keeps close tabs on Tim’s on track performance

A trip like this one would be hard without some drama and during the trek to Belle Rose, the first bit of drama reared its head.

“We went to Belle Rose and it was a mess with all the mud. On the way we had a blowout in one of the trailer tires and at the time, we had 10 ply tires instead of 14 ply,” Barrett says.  “Our good friend Jimmy Hildago and his son Cooter suggested swapping all the tires and we went ahead and did the switch. They were great to us. Took a lot of the worry out of a bad situation. But we still ended up getting towed out of the mud at No Problem.”

“Then going through New Mexico, we hit a dust storm on the interstate and Rt 10 was shut down. I’ve been in blizzards, but it was nothing like this. Very fine dust that got into everything. Finally, they reopened the interstate, and we got back on the road.”

Barrett adds, “And then there was the time we needed diesel for my motorhome and got off the interstate and drove into some god forsaken gas station that was in the process of getting the parking lot tore up. And they had the diesel pumps turned off, so we got back on the road.

“We’re driving for a while, and I don’t see Bobby. We tried calling him but got no cell service. Finally, we pulled over and waited. Linda finally was able to text him and found out he was still back at the service station. One of the big rocks from the parking lot got wedged between the front and back tires of the dualie and couldn’t be dislodged. Bobby got the idea to take air out of one of the tires to get the rock out. That worked but his air compressor was broke and he had been using ours. So, he was stuck with a tire that needed air. We drove to the next exit which was about 10 miles up the road and doubled back to help Bobby, who by now had ripped his hands up trying to get the rock out. We aired him up and got back on the road.”

By the time the gang got to Phoenix, word of their exploits was well known from social media and every time the big white wagon or the Camaro made the turn into the water box, the NHRA announcers let all the fans know about the adventure.

According to Barrett, “I don’t think Bobby had a good feel for how far we would be going on our trip. He thought it was only 1000 miles to Phoenix from Gainesville, and I said ‘Bob it’s over 600 to Belle Rose and then another 1600 to Phoenix.

“The Baby Gators were ok, but my combination was hit with a horsepower adjustment, and I lost class due the change. I was not happy as we would have won had the adjustment not been implemented.”

“By the time we got to the Las Vegas Lucas race, we were beat.,” Barrett said.  “We tried to log 500 miles a day, but I think that was a bit too much for Bobby and we could tell he was getting tired. It was good that Linda and I had her car in the stacker for us to use to go get food and do our laundry, which was great for Bobby, I don’t know what we would have done without it.”

Rizzoli goes red and Bender marches on at Pomona

Asked what the best part of the trip was, Bender replied, “The highpoint of the tour had to be winning round 4 at Pomona and got to race on Sunday.”

Rizzoli and Bender before their epic R4 battle 

When asked which racer he met during the tour that had meant the most Bender said, “Kyle Rizzoli and Jeff Adkinson at Pomona come to mind. Kyle and I were against each other on Saturday in the third round and in the staging lanes he came over to introduce himself and after he went red, he came over again to congratulate me. Adkinson was like me, so happy to go rounds. Every time we won, we hugged. After I went red racing him in the semifinals we were on the top end and NHRA announcer Jason Galvin was telling the fans about the reason I was so far from home and we both got misty eyed. That round was one of the most emotional times I had during my trip. I was crying in the car, that’s how much it meant to me.”

Asked the same questions, Linda said. “Seeing the Grand Canyon was my best memory and Hoover Dam is right up there too. It was wild driving from green fields and trees into the dessert in Arizona”

“For Linda and me meeting Chad Langdon and his wife meant a lot to us.” Barrett said, “Like Linda, Chad is a cancer survivor, and we had a lot to talk about. We met at Phoenix in the staging lanes and got to talk again at Pomona. What a great man.”

Barrett, a retired supervisor with the New York State Department of Correction and Linda retired from a career at National Grid an electric supplier, call Kingsbury NY home adds, “It’s the love for the sport to begin with. We knew we were going to spend thousands to pull this off, but it was worth every cent,”

“We didn’t win as much as we would have liked,” Linda said. “But between meeting so many kind people and seeing cars we never saw before and going to the Grand Canyon, it was good. It made up for the lack of on track performance. We want to do this again next year.”

And there was a silver lining to Bender’s saga. He did get that elusive Wally, but it wasn’t for a victory. The NHRA presented Bender the “Never Rest” award. The unique award is given to racers and teams for their ability to endure and overcome adversity and Bob Bender was a worthy recipient.