This year, Prouty becomes the first female recipient of the award. After graduation, she will attend Wyo Tech, a technical school with campuses in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and Sacramento, California.
SEMA and the Parks Museum today have announced that the Diamond Bar, California-based trade association is supporting the rebuild of a '54 Dodge station wagon as an exact copy of the original NHRA Safety Safari vehicle. A crew of four intrepid Hot Rod magazine and NHRA promoters drove it across the country 50 years ago, spreading the word on drag racing safety to local car clubs, skeptical civic leaders, and police.
The vehicle will make its debut in Indianapolis at the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Nationals-honoring the first NHRA national event-Wednesday through Monday, September 1-6, 2004.
Back in 1954, former Pomona police chief E.J. "Bud" Koons led the Safety Safari team (Bud Evans, Chick Cannon, and Hot Rod magazine photographer Eric Rickman) on an historic journey that helped legitimize the sport. Together they blazed a trail, crisscrossing the nation with timing devices, measuring equipment, car classification and inspection gear, and perhaps the most important ingredients of all, optimism and hope.
Speaking at a recent reunion of the original Safety Safari, Wally Parks, founder of the NHRA and then editor of Hot Rod, said, "Our primary goal was to legitimize the racing that was already occurring on city streets and back roads. Communications in those days were primitive, but we managed to reach a lot of folks through Hot Rod and by constantly corresponding by mail and telephone as the Safari progressed. Thanks to this great team, we reached many of our goals much faster than I initially thought possible."