Local drag racer brings home win from Palmdale

You wouldn’t think that a 1972 Ford Courier pickup truck would be a race winner, but Charlie Whittaker has proven otherwise. Whittaker, who works at Tom’s Tire here in Santa Paula, recently took first place in the opening drag race of the season in the Palmdale Classic Series in his bracket. The pickup has a 1974 Ford 302 engine and he started racing it in the mid 1980s. He races about once a month now, mostly at Palmdale. “Like the old saying goes, the more you race usually the better you get,” Whittaker said. “We’ve been fortunate to do pretty good.” There’s also a track in Bakersfield, where he sometimes races. On the Palmdale quarter mile track, Whittaker says he averages about 117 mph and 11.5 seconds.He started his drag racing years ago on city streets, something he’s against these days. Whittaker says that Marc Franchi, owner of Tom’s, is working to find a local site for safe drag racing. “People like myself and some of the people I race with all used to street race,” he noted. He added that, besides the support he gets from Franchi, Tom Foster, owner of American Home Repair has also been a big supporter of his racing.He says that drag racing is a family affair. “Our wives, kids and grandchildren all go.” Last year they ran a two-day series, but this year they’re only running one. “Last year we’d go and spend the weekend. We’d just make a big thing out of it and have a lot of fun.”