Some of the NHRA's drag racing legends are getting to do something they didn't get to do a lot of back in their glory days - they are now able to hang out with their fans.

The NHRA is in the midst of a Legends tour which began last month at the NHRA Gatornationals and will conclude next march in Gainesville, Fla., at the 50th anniversary NHRA Gatornationals. 
The NHRA Legends Tour features some of NHRA’s most beloved figures from the early days of drag racing including Don Garlits, Shirley Muldowney, Kenny Bernstein, Tom “the Mongoose” McEwen, Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, Joe Amato, Ed “The Ace” McCulloch, “The Bounty Hunter” Connie Kalitta, and “Big Jim” Dunn.

Ed McCulloch is scheduled to be at three events this season. He's excited for this fan interaction because back in his days of driving, and later tuning, his focus was solely on his craft. 

"I think people see me a lot differently now," McCulloch explained. "When I was a driver, I tried to do the autographs and tried to spend the time as a driver should doing the PR and interacting with the fans. And then when I went to the crewchief position, I’m up inside the trailer, and you really don’t have the time, You’re not out, and you’re not visible like a driver is. So as the generations roll along, the years go along, I mean there’s probably less and less people that recognize me or know me when I was a crew chief as when I was a driver. 

"Now that I’ve retired, probably fewer people know me now than did before. If you see me at the races now, I have time. I’m just there to enjoy and see the people, see my friends, see the guys that I’ve, my competitors that I’ve raced against, the crews, the teams that I’ve raced with. I’m there to see them and watch them perform, and I really enjoy that. And I’ve got time to talk to the fans. If somebody wants to come up and talk, I stop and talk to them, where before I didn’t have that time and probably a lot of people thought I was a real jerk because I didn’t take the time to spend time with them." 

Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen is at this weekend's NHRA Springnationals in Houston, Texas. This is his second appearance on the tour this year having been a part of the Denso NHRA 4-Wide Nationals.

"It’s good that [NHRA] recognizes you as a legend," McEwen said. I guess that’s what we are, and I guess they figured they’d better hurry up and do it while there’s still a few of them alive. I keep telling them, you know I’m 81, so I told them 81’s the new 80. I like seeing my fans when I’m around the country, and we had a lot of them. 

McEwen plans to make at least eight more of the Legends appearances this season.

"You know what’s fun, is the generations," McEwen admitted. "All these people have come, sometimes there are three generations of people, the father and his kids and that kid’s kids. They’ll come, and the kids will have a little Hot Wheel car in their hand, and it’s completely worn out, you can’t tell which car it was. It’s been passed down, and a lot of the families, one of the kids was a Mongoose fan, one was a Snake fan."

McEwen even says it's common to see the unbelievable from time to time. 

"We were signing up at Denver at Mile High Nationals, and two brothers came up about 18, twins, 18 years old, didn’t have shirts on, and they were tatted up pretty good," McEwen explained. "One had the Mongoose; the other one had the Snake cars all over them. And they had a circle drawn on their arms, and they had us sign the circle then they were going to go right to the tattoo parlor and have our signature tattooed on their arms. So you’ve got some pretty serious fans over here."

For Shirley Muldowney, it's her fans who keep her encouraged these days and spending time with them are priceless moments. 

"My fans are utterly amazing, they keep me afloat out here," said Muldowney, the four-time Top Fuel champion. "They are so into this. The fans from back in my era of driving are very much alive and in-tuned to everything we are doing out there. They are unique. They are very well versed in my drag racing history, and you can sometimes see a tear in their eye as you sign an autograph.

"Makes it all worthwhile."