Blake Bowser has spent three Good Vibrations California Hot Rod Reunion featuring Nitro Revival events trying to restore an event that once stood among nostalgia drag racing’s crown jewels. After the 2026 edition at Famoso Dragstrip, he’s convinced the rebuilding effort is working, although getting him to declare victory might require more horsepower than anything that went down the quarter-mile over the weekend.
The race cars are coming back in greater numbers than at any point since Bowser took over in 2024. The spectators remain another story, and Mother Nature certainly didn’t do him any favors this time around.
“I think we’re getting closer,” Bowser said. “I’m not quite there yet. We may have taken a little bit of a step back this year with the weather we had on Thursday and Friday. I think it cost us.”
Bowser said area hotels reported that guests canceled reservations, evidence that the forecast persuaded some fans to stay home. Still, the Good Vibrations California Hot Rod Reunion featuring Nitro Revival produced his largest race-car turnout in three years.
“The vibe is great,” Bowser said. “This was record amount of cars racing this year, for me anyway, from ’24, ’25, now ’26, definitely a record total of race cars. So that’s a good step in the right direction, right? So we got that part figured out. We just need to get the fans to come back.”
Bowser had the equipment, the track crew and everything else needed to deal with the rain. What he couldn’t do was convince fans sitting at home watching the weather forecast that there would be enough racing to justify making the trip.
“We have everything we need to get it done,” Bowser said. “We weren’t down that long with the track, but there’s a mindset of people that think that we’re not going to get it done or that it’s not going to happen. So you can’t overcome that.”
It’s a predicament that can make a promoter question his sanity, particularly when the weather forecast starts costing him customers before the first race car fires. Bowser can prepare for rain, but he can’t force anyone to believe the racing will get completed.
“But I think a lot of folks that are here know we do our darnedest to get this thing in and we always do,” Bowser said.
Bowser isn’t particularly interested in congratulating himself for what has already been accomplished. Those who know him understand that being satisfied isn’t exactly one of his stronger personality traits.
“I think it’s because I’m really never satisfied,” Bowser said. “I mean if you’re satisfied, if you got all you want, you got all you’re going to get. So I want to keep trying to achieve more and get more.”
He admits that attitude occasionally prevents him from appreciating how far the Reunion has come. Then again, Bowser didn’t inherit an event that needed a little polishing; he took on one that had lost considerable ground with the racers and spectators who once made it an annual destination.
His first year wasn’t exactly a normal introduction to the assignment, either. His father, John Bowser, died in 2024, the same year NHRA approached him about taking responsibility for rebuilding the Reunion.
When John died in 2024, Blake lost the man who had been his equal partner in running Famoso Dragstrip. The work they once divided between them was now on Blake’s shoulders, and NHRA had just handed him another major undertaking with the California Hot Rod Reunion.
“So we really got started on this thing in June of ’24,” Bowser said. “So we’re only two and a half years into the rebuild, basically. Three events, but yet two and a half years into it. So I probably should appreciate more where we’re at with this thing, but that’s the drive I have.”
Bowser’s assignment came with an interesting twist because he was already promoting the Good Vibrations March Meet, Famoso’s other major nostalgia drag racing attraction. There was a time when the California Hot Rod Reunion was the bigger attraction at Famoso, even bigger than the March Meet. Somewhere along the way, the two traded places, and Bowser now finds himself trying to build up one race without taking too much away from the other.
“The Good Vibrations March Meet is mine,” Bowser said. “Yeah, that’s my baby, right? I have full trademark rights to that. And then NHRA approached me in ’24 to asked me to run this for them to try and bring their event to the level of the March Meet.”
Bowser isn’t kidding himself about what he’s attempting. He’s promoting two major nostalgia races at the same dragstrip, and getting the Reunion back where he wants it could mean some of the money that once went to the March Meet ends up going to the Reunion instead.
“I’m almost reaching in one pocket and putting money another pocket,” Bowser said. “I’m trying to bring the Reunion up to the level of the March Meet and get them both… I don’t want to take away from the March Meet, but yet I have to level things out.”
And while Bowser was trying to figure out how to make both races successful, he had another problem on his hands. With his father, John, gone, there was no longer enough of Blake Bowser to go around, not with Famoso needing his attention and two major events depending on him to make them work.
“I realized that without my dad and the attention the track needs… even the track, we were always in a rebuild with the track,” Bowser said. “We’re always doing something new improvement wise with the track every year. I couldn’t concentrate on what the track needed.”
Tim Huddleston was about to lose Irwindale to redevelopment, and he had a bunch of races that needed a new home. He approached Bowser about renting Famoso a few times a year to keep those events going, but the two eventually worked out a deal that went well beyond renting the track.
Bowser eventually proposed something considerably larger. Huddleston would assume responsibility for Famoso’s regular operations, leaving Bowser free to concentrate on the March Meet and California Hot Rod Reunion.
“Tim wanted to rent the track out a few times a year, but let’s let him operate the track and I’ll come back twice a year and put on March Meet and Reunion,” Bowser said. “So that’s what we’re doing.”
The arrangement gave Huddleston a new home for much of his former Irwindale racing program while relieving Bowser of the dragstrip’s daily demands. Both men could concentrate on what they did best without trying to be in two places at once.
“Tim’s been running the track for two years now and he was able to salvage most of his events from Irwindale and bring them up here,” Bowser said. “So it’s a win-win, actually a win-win win. NHRA wins. Tim and the county win with better races and continued support in the community. I get to concentrate and do a better job on March Meet and Reunion.”
That doesn’t mean Bowser has traded his workload for a rocking chair. Promoting two major nostalgia events has become a year-round occupation, with preparations for one beginning almost as soon as the other concludes.
March Meet ticket sales and race entries begin Nov. 1, while the Reunion’s sales cycle starts June 1. Bowser moves from one event to the next, concentrating on the details that determine whether racers return and spectators believe their admission price was money well spent.
When Bowser took over in 2024, he called his plan crawl, walk, run. He wasn’t promising to bring the Reunion back to its glory days overnight, and he knew some of the racers and fans who had given up on the event weren’t going to come back just because he was running it.
The return of Nitro Revival, traditional push starts and the Cacklefest helped reconnect the event with the history that made it special. By 2025, the Reunion was beginning to look and feel more like the Bakersfield gathering longtime enthusiasts remembered.
The 2026 racer turnout provided another encouraging measurement, even if the weather kept Bowser from getting the spectator numbers he wanted. Three events into the rebuilding process, the foundation is stronger, but there’s still a considerable distance between progress and restoration.
For now, Bowser has an operating arrangement that allows him to concentrate on both events, racers returning in greater numbers and a Reunion that has regained much of its former personality. Whether the spectators return in comparable numbers will help determine how quickly the next stage of his rebuilding effort moves forward.
Bowser could probably find plenty of people willing to congratulate him on what he’s accomplished in two and a half years. They shouldn’t expect him to join the celebration just yet.
“I want to keep making it bigger and better,” Bowser said. “And if I’m a little bit critical of myself, I’m going to strive to make it even better.”
