In eighth-mile drag racing, the 1955 Chevrolet Nomad Joey Martin once drove in Pro Extreme was considered legendary. Recently, the class shoebox grocery getter known simply as the Low Mad found a new home, thanks to a staunch supporter of the fledgling PDRA.

Huddleston Performance, a frontrunning company for Junior Dragster parts and supporter of the PDRA's Junior Dragster division, purchased the classic car and plan to run in Pro Boost next season.

In eighth-mile drag racing, the 1955 Chevrolet Nomad Joey Martin once drove in Pro Extreme was considered legendary. Recently, the class shoebox grocery getter known simply as the Low Mad found a new home, thanks to a staunch supporter of the fledgling PDRA.

Huddleston Performance, a frontrunning company for Junior Dragster parts and supporter of the PDRA's Junior Dragster division, purchased the classic car and plan to run in Pro Boost next season.

Bo Huddleston, who owns Huddleston Performance, will provide the car as a "graduation" present to son Thomas, who worked his way up from the Junior Dragster divisions.

The second-generation Huddleston, now 28, was a proficient Junior Dragster driver in his day, racking up quite a list of awards, race wins and championships. After his Junior Dragster days, Thomas focused on schooling, earning his college degree before coming back to Huddleston Performance where he now works as their main engine builder. Prior to this new chapter, Thomas piloted a number of bracket dragsters and spent time behind the wheel of a nitrous-breathing Outlaw 10.5 ride.

“We started off looking for a car to compete with in the PDRA,” Bo said, explaining how the Pro Boost team came to be. “We were thinking about one of the sportsman classes, but the appeal of those classes wasn’t there for us personally The PDRA is all about heads-up racing, and we’ve spent many years in different heads-up arenas. So then we started thinking that if we are going to heads-up race we wanted to do it with something unique. That led us down the road that ended with a meeting with Mr. David Elsberry, new owner of Montgomery Raceway Park.”

“We originally went down to look at a pair of cars Mr. Elsberry had for sale," Huddleston said. "The first being a ‘63 Corvette he had and the second being the original Lowmad. After some discussion we had pretty well settled on the ‘63 ‘vette, even though in our eyes it lacked the ‘curb appeal’ of the older Lowmad. That was when Mr. Elsberry pulled back the cover on the newer Lowmad we’ve all seen compete in Pro Extreme. After some discussion about it, he was kind enough to offer her up to us as the next ‘Caretakers’ in its storied history. As a family we knew immediately that this wasn’t an opportunity we could pass up. We certainly want to take the chance to thank Mr. Elsberry for giving us the opportunity to carry on the Lowmad tradition for years to come.”

Huddleston bought the car nearly turn-key and had a mostly ready-made Pro Boost operation within a few hours. “I literally thought I was going to buy a rolling car and have to go get a motor and transmission and all the other stuff. By the end of it, I had purchased the majority of the car. We went from Sunday morning not having the main piece needed to run a race team to Sunday evening having the majority of what we needed in one purchase. And for that to happen three days before the PRI starts - well, some of us work well under pressure, so here we are.”

The Huddleston family plan on testing the Lowmad in February in preparation for the PDRA season opener at Texas Motorplex March 20-21.

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