Kenny Youngblood has made drag racing a work of art for decades. However, his latest project might be his most ambitious ever.

Youngblood, drag racing's most sought-after artist, has been commissioned by the Long Beach for Price Automobilia to recreate one of drag racing more iconic drag strips with a combination of hand-painted murals and 3-D build-outs of the famed Lion's Drag Strip.

"We’re recreating the starting line of Lions Drag Strip pretty much full scale inside a building, and trying to make it as accurate as possible," Youngblood explained. "It’s a combination of hand-painted murals on the wall plus 3D build outs and fences, and of course Lions had the tower bridge across the staging lanes, and we’ve recreated that bridge and the tower. It’s really going to be amazing, can’t wait to get it done."

Such an ambitious project brings about more demands than Youngblood, 74, ever anticipated at this stage of his life. The project is expected to complete early this summer.

"It’s a lot of hard work," Youngblood admitted. "It’s harder than I ever wanted to work, especially in my golden years, but it’s very rewarding. And working for a great man, Rick Lorenzen."

Youngblood describes Lorenzen as probably the only guy on earth who could have pulled this off due to his vast shop space and financial wherewithal to support the project the way it ought to be done.

"It’s a huge project, and he’s just, he’s loving it," Youngblood said with a smile. "I tell him he’s a big kid in his own candy store. I can’t wait to get it done and show your readers how it looks."

Youngblood was one of the hundreds of thousands of race fans who flocked to Lion's Drag Strip, the quarter-mile track located in the Wilmington district of Los Angeles, California adjacent to Long Beach. He never envisioned in 1972 when the track closed down due to noise complaints amongst other issues; he'd be called upon to provide a tribute to the iconic facility.

"If I had, I’d have taken some good reference pictures because we’re working from, there’s a lot of photos that we work from," Youngblood said. "It’s a great honor. And people have told me, ‘Well, you’re the only guy that could do this,’ and that could be pretty close to accurate. I was, of course, going to Lions when I was a teenager, a young man.

"We used to race, I worked on the Invader Funny Car team down there, and we raced a lot at Lions, and so I knew the place well. I don’t know. I’m old enough to do it. There are certainly some fantastically talented artists, and you know who you are guys. But they either weren’t born or were just little kids back then, and fortunately, I was old enough to remember it."

Youngblood has relied on Rob Marchese, who is the production manager down there, Tommy Naccarato, Dave Mandella, and Lorenzen, for guidance on the project, and these discussions often end up in bench racing sessions about how it used to be.

"We have a lot of photos, and we go over them and try to make it as accurate," Youngblood explained. "It doesn’t necessarily depict one year; kind of a combination of eras."

Youngblood said the project usually consumes each full day with little time for breaks or daydreams. He depends on assistant Yvonne Mecialis to help on the project.

"When we’re working on it, I’m thinking about how that track looked and look at the pictures," Youngblood said. "It was really a pretty chunky conglomeration of buildings and wires every place, phone poles, and of course you had the big power lines next door.

"It was never really planned out really well. They just kept adding to it this and that. There’s different eras that had different things. We look at the pictures, and it changed quite a bit. from the different signs would be in different places, or the tower would be different signs on it and so on."

Youngblood has even consulted with the players on this high horsepower field of dreams namely Hall of Fame Drag racing starter Larry Sutton.

"I was showing him some pictures, and it brought him to tears, and me too," Youngblood admitted. "I got goosebumps at the same time because he loved that track. He told me that the other tracks that he closed, they didn’t hit him like Lions. It was the place that we all loved."

For a man who illustrates the sport with art, sometimes the words to describe a project of this magnitude doesn't come as easy as the stroke of his paintbrush.

"It’s great, and it’s so rewarding to work on something that we know is going to bring a lot of enjoyment to a lot of fans for years to come hopefully," Youngblood said in an emotional tone. "So it’s hard work but very rewarding."

And the biggest reward of all is knowing 'Blood is doing it."