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When my phone rang last September, right after the NHRA U.S. Nationals, and the caller ID said it was Don Garlits, I immediately answered, because, as I wrote here a few months ago, one of the first rules is that When Garlits Calls, you answer.

“Hello, Phil. It’s Don Garlits, and I have some good news,” he said.

Not many months before that, Garlits and I had been talking about the screenplay he wrote for a biographical motion picture he was pitching. I figured that some studio had greenlighted the project and that Don Garlits, The Story of An American Legend would soon be roaring onto the silver screen (or even the small screen) in all of its nitro-soaked glory.

But that wasn’t it.

“Congratulations,” he said. “You’re going into the Hall of Fame.”

I quickly checked the date. It was not April 1. Maybe he meant to call Phil Shuler. Or Phil Esz. Or Phil Unruh. Nope.

It was a stunning moment. As soon as I was able to pick my jaw up off the floor, I thanked him for the honor of the call and for acknowledging my work over the years. When we hung up, I sat there in stunned silence.

I’ve spent my entire adult life, nearly 43 years at NHRA, doing this writing gig, and I’ve spent the vast majority of that time celebrating the accomplishments of others and trying to help make others famous. I loved and appreciated every minute of it. The respect I have earned within the community (including with the Insider Nation) for my knowledge and eagerness to work with others and the trust I have built through countless “off the record” conversations were my reward for that. 

Being inducted into a Hall of Fame — and not just any hall, but the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame — was never something I had seriously considered. I won’t lie and say I never thought about it because even third-string catchers dream about making it to Cooperstown. But, like them, I was simply content to have made it to the major leagues of my profession.

I’m also going to admit I was a little embarrassed about my inclusion. I’m not going to say that what I do — especially this column — hasn’t been a valuable addition to the sport, but to have my name enshrined at the same place that includes the true, true greats and pioneers of our sport, the legends who lived and died in building this sport, seemed surreal. Comparing my accomplishments and contributions to, for example, Pete Robinson or Connie Kalitta, seems ludicrous at best.

I’m a huge reader of biographies, especially rock musicians, and always curious about how they handled suddenly being famous and, by the fates or luck, rose above all of the other musicians in their area to “make it.” It often made me think about racers, too, because everyone can only bring one of everything to the starting line. How did Don Prudhomme become world famous and other equally talented (or maybe more so) not?

In rock, a lot of them struggled.

Pattie Boyd, former wife of Beatle Goerge Harrison, wrote in Wonderful Tonight, “George was unsure why he was so famous. He knew he was a talented musician, but he also knew that there were dozens of talented musicians, some more talented than him, yet he was the one who was world-famous.”

And Eagles frontman Don Henley said in 1977: “The success of the first album scared the hell out of us. Why me instead of some guy down the street? Why me and some friends of mine who were just as good of musicians as I am, and yet it happened to me and it didn’t happen to them? I don’t know.”

I wonder how many racers feel like that?

My Class of 2025 was amazing. Pro Stock Motorcycle legends Terry Vance and Byron Hines, past Top Fuel and Funny Car world champion Gary Scelzi, longtime nitro team owner and driver Jim Head, former racer and racetrack owner Charlie Allen, drag racing pioneers Jay Howell and Gary Dyer, Summit Motorsports Park owner/operator Debbie Bader (Pat Garlits Memorial Award), and Summit's Paul Sergi (Founders Award).

Although I felt like the outlier in worthiness there, I had close ties to some of them. Debbie and her late, great husband, Bill Sr., had let me use their racetrack for ; later that same year, Head had let me fire up his Funny Car in the pits in Pomona; Allen had been the gracious host to us for the last three years of his running Orange County International Raceway; I had a few years ago about his career; Scelzi was a longtime friend and great interview over the years.

At first, I didn’t tell anyone — wife, family, co-workers — as I tried to come to terms with the tremendous honor, and it wasn’t until the IDRHOF made a Facebook post a week later that anyone outside of the nominating committee even knew about it. My great friend, fellow drag racing historian, and 2021 Hall of Fame inductee Bret Kepner (who is now part of the nominating committee and the one who first suggested me to them), had texted me not long after Garlits called, and I thanked him for his efforts, his thoughtfulness, and appreciation of what we both love to do.

He shared with me his pitch to the committee.

In the history of drag racing, no human has ever written more words about the sport over any length of time. Period. (Kevin McKenna is probably a close second).

In the history of drag racing, no human has ever held the title of Editor of any publication longer than Burgess has led National Dragster. Period. 

In the history of drag racing, no human has ever produced a publication as frequent, as large (in both size and scope), or as respected as Burgess has during his tenure. Period. 

In the history of drag racing, no human has ever been responsible for as many issues of any publication as Burgess. Period.

Feel free to argue these points but you won’t win.

I can't argue with those facts as they’re all true, and were apparently convincing enough to receive the required votes of each member of the committee.

Those of you who know me well, know it’s not my nature to boast, so it wasn’t until Jason Galvin texted to congratulate me after seeing the Facebook post (which I did not know existed) that I realized the cat was out of the bag. In the weeks and months that followed, I was touched by the hundreds of comments on Facebook posts and text messages and emails I received, especially those from heroes of the sport including Don Prudhomme, John Wiebe, and Carl Olson.

Before long, my family started asking why I hadn’t told them and started expressing their desire to attend the ceremony. Of course, I wanted my wife to be there, but when my daughters and my sister and my mom all said they wanted to be there, it was a bit overwhelming. We all live on the West Coast, and the ceremony is in Florida, which seemed like a big commitment on their part and a lot of extra I’s to dot and t’s to cross for airfare, rental cars, hotels, and tickets to get them all there. Thus began the six-month run-up to The Big Day.

Keeping true to form, I wasn’t going to write about this (and you may realize now that I didn’t even previously mention it here, among my most loyal readers), but decided to share because a) maybe someday one of you might get a honor like this and need to know what to expect; b) because so many people later asked me to write about it; and c) because it’s a pretty funny story. 

So here we are.

First, I must say that the experience was first-class all the way. Chuck Keppel, who holds many titles at Garlits’ Museum of Drag Racing (and who is the cousin of “Big Daddy’s” daughter, Donna) emailed me and my fellow inductees on a regular basis with details about the program and updates, asked for photos and ring and T-shirt sizes, guests and seating arrangements, and dutifully answered the dozens of stupid questions I asked. The show itself was tightly produced, and there wasn’t a glitch in the whole experience for me. That’s saying something.

From the beginning, my biggest worry was the speech that all inductees have to give. I can write my ass off on any topic you assign to me, but public speaking is just not my thing. I tend to talk too fast and get emotional. Plus, the spotlight doesn’t suit me. I thought maybe I could write the speech and have AI read it for me, but that obviously wasn’t going to fly.

I began composing in my head all of the things I wanted to say, all the stories I wanted to share, and all of the people I wanted to acknowledge. I knew I wanted to mention my best friend Van, who we lost last year but with whom I shared the same dream of becoming an automotive journalist, to thank my many leaders and co-workers over the years, to talk about this column, and to thank my family for their years of support. That's where I started.

Once I had all the pieces in my brain, I started the stopwatch on my phone, said the speech out loud in my car, and more than 12 minutes later, I was done. I was happy with the content and the few jokes I included, but 12 minutes is a long time for someone to have to sit through a monologue. 

I wrote and asked Chuck about speech length because I heard that a previous inductee once went more than 40 minutes before Garlits stepped up on stage and kindly interrupted him and told the crowd something along the lines of, “If you want to know more, you'll have to buy the book.”

Chuck told me that, ideally, the speech should be five to seven minutes long. Gulp. So I started cutting. Funny stories (well, I thought they were funny) that happened to me in the job went first. Then I did away with some of the names I wanted to mention. A funny joke about my grandson Trevor being born on Labor Day weekend of all weekends (because every Labor Day weekend since 1983 has been spent in Indy). I reluctantly cut out a shoutout to my current small but hardworking staff (Dominique, Jeff, Rey, Natalia, and Justin). That got me down to 10 minutes. 

The Hall also wanted to know who was inducting me, as you can choose anyone to introduce you. I wanted someone who “got” me and my love of the history of the sport, and, after considering many people (including Kepner and Bob Frey, both of whom I knew probably couldn’t attend), Jack Beckman was the obvious choice. He loves the history of the sport like I do, checks in with me often on different history questions, and we share a guy bond of family experiences. I didn’t know he’d already been asked by the family of Jay Howell to help induct him, but he agreed to present me as well. Thanks, Jack.

Every time I was alone in the car and several times a day in my office at work, I honed the speech, timing each run-through. None of it was written anywhere other than in my brain. Sometimes, I lost my train of thought and embellished or left out things, and it varied from six and a half minutes to eight and a half. I got lots of advice from people, including “start with a joke” and “just be yourself.”

In December, the family of my late, great mentor Neil Britt announced Feb. 15 as the date of his celebration of life, and asked if I would speak at the service. He meant so much to me that there was no way I could refuse it, so suddenly I was working on two speeches simultaneously.

Although I’m no expert on giving speeches, I’ve seen one or two in my time, and it bothers me when people unfold several sheets of paper and begin to read directly from the paper without making eye contact with the crowd. Although their feelings are genuine and maybe they’re not good at giving them either, I really wanted to not do that, to speak from the heart while looking at those gathered to hear it and at least give the appearance that this was all flowing from my soul.

Neil’s celebration was in mid-February, about three weeks before the Garlits induction, which gave me a good dry run on touching up my speech skills. Plus, I was going to be talking to a group of about 150 people, most of whom were “my people,” darn-near family members that I knew from the ND community, and second, it was a much shorter talk. It went really well, and I didn’t forget anything I wanted to say. Many congratulated me on my speech about Neil, which bolstered my confidence for the Hall of Fame speech.

The gathering was amazing, and we assembled for a group photo, 18 of us from varying eras of the ND staff. Karen Raffa, wife of my other late mentor, John Raffa, even flew up from Mexico to attend. There were former photographers, like Neil’s dear friend , art directors like his best buddy Joe Martinez (who also was the emcee), and many people I hadn’t seen in years. It was wonderful to see them again, albeit for a sad reason.

I honed and practiced the Hall speech for weeks (and even right up until speech time itself) and, like a bad school project, printed out key reminders that I glued to index cards that I planned to peek at during the speech in case I lost my place in front of hundreds of people, some of whom might wonder why I was being inducted alongside the greats who were in my class. “Wait, this guy wasn’t a racer?”

Somehow the family all got booked and reserved and set up for travel. My bosses, Brad Gerber and David Kennedy, graciously paid for my 10-person table at the event. I’m apparently still not grown up enough to actually own a suit, so I went to Mike Carducci, the go-to guy for every racer who wants a tuxedo for the year-end NHRA Awards Ceremony (and he’s got a wall full of signed hero cards to prove it). “The Dooch” hooked me up with a fine gray suit and picked out my tie and shoes all under the watchful eye of my wife.

Somehow me and the family — my wife Marie, mom, sister Caroline, daughter Kim and her husband Jay, and my granddaughter Maddie; my other daughter, Amanda, and grandson Dylan originally hoped to attend but couldn’t swing it — all made it to Orlando, Fla., for the drive up to Gainesville. We had dinner Wednesday night and lunch again on Thursday before the show, which was scheduled to begin with a cocktail reception at 5:30 followed by dinner at 6:45 and the ceremony itself at 8 p.m. There was live streaming coverage, so I sent links to members of my family who could not attend.

There was a planned meeting of inductees and presenters at 4:30 for a “run of show” detail. I spent some time with Allen reminiscing about OCIR and chatted with Debbie about Bill, and prayed silently (and even a little out loud) that I didn’t have to follow noted cut-up Scelzi. Fortunately, and smartly, he was placed last as the grand finale. Fortunately, I was fourth, following Allen, Howell, and Debbie. Late enough to tailor my delivery to those who preceded me but not late enough to develop an ulcer while waiting. We were each given the chance to take the stage to familiarize ourselves with the lectern and what the crowd might look like. Beckman asked a ton of very good questions about the procedure (much to the chagrin of Bill Bader Jr.).

The mixer was fabulous. I was able to introduce my mom to Shirley Muldowney and talk to many friends past and present and pose for innumerable photos. Each inductee had been given a magnetized ribbon to wear (we were asked ahead of time if we had a pacemaker because apparently magnets and pacemakers don’t go well together; I assume they or someone else found this out the hard way). I wore it proudly as I mingled like a boss.

It was great to be surrounded by my family, each of whom have contributed to my success in their own way. Auto Imagery’s Alex Owens was there shooting tons of photos (some of which you see here) and was gracious enough to get this family pic for us. From left, my granddaughter Maddie, my mom, my wife Marie, me, daughter Kim, my sister Caroline, and Kim’s husband Jay.

Once the doors to the Hall opened, we streamed to our seats and got goodie bags of stuff, including the event program and a poster of all the inductees. Being a publication guy, I checked out the program first and was surprised to find a congratulations ad for me in there purchased by Elon Werner and Allison McCormick, two of the most helpful and wonderful publicists with whom I’ve had the honor to work all these years. I was deeply touched.

Counting myself, my family took up seven spots at our table; I asked my longtime friend and comrade-in-writing, Kevin McKenna, to sit with us, as well as Jeff and Robyn Morton, who have been at ND almost as long as I have and are just like family to me. There were a bunch of my fellow NHRA employees on hand to cheer me on, including President Glen Cromwell, my boss, Vice President Brad Gerber, and so many others. It was great to have them there.

I fiddled nervously with my dinner and only ate a little, then tuned in for the show to check out the “competition.” Cindy Gibbs offered a heartwarming speech introducing her longtime friend (and lifelong crush), Charlie Allen, who spoke about his career, followed by Beckman, who introduced Howell’s sons, Kurt and Brett, who shared great stories of their racing lives with their father. Bader Jr. introduced Debbie (after calling out Beckman for not having a tie for his tuxedo (it was “stolen” or “lost”) for the Pat Garlits award, invoking the family’s tradition of superior gest service, and Debbie told the humorous story of how she applied to be Bill Sr.’s secretary despite lacking the needed credentials.

Then it was my turn.

Before each induction, they showed a videotaped segment by Garlits shot at the museum, where Garlits shared his thoughts about the inductee. Mine started with Garlits talking about the importance of journalism in the sport — previous inductees include my peers Jim Kelly (2003), Steve Collison (2003), John Raffa (2004), Jon Asher (2006), Dave Wallace (2008), Bob Post (2013), Bob McClurg (2017), Terry Cook (2021), and Bill Holland (2024) — and he closed by very kindly calling me “one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet” and referenced the many times he’s called me looking for information about the past.

Beckman (still tie-less) then introduced me, referencing Kepner’s facts and information he gleaned from Kevin and called me “an artist” with words. I knew I’d hired the right guy. I was already starting to tear up as the cameras zoomed in on me during the introduction as “Fast Jack” said some very poignant and meaningful things about me.

I took the stage, “cheat cards” in hand, and hardly looked at them. My bad. I launched right into my speech, telling a funny joke about how following Jack Beckman to a stage may be harder than winning a national event. I thanked the Hall, congratulated my fellow nominees, and starting telling the story of my first race, and I was on a bitchin’ run … until I came to the part thanking my mom for everything she started by taking me there. The voice started breaking, I recovered, and broke again talking about Van, and the emotional cylinders started misfiring again. I deftly pedaled my way through it, but by the time I thanked the many people on my journey and turned to thank my family, I became a quivering bowl of jelly and the rods (and tears) came out. I had so many nice things I wanted to say to them but could only do it through sobs. You can watch the whole blubbering segment below. (Thanks, Kurt!)

After getting the trophy and ring from Beckman, I returned to my seat, realizing only halfway there that, in talking about this column and the friends I had gained among the old guard, I had forgotten to say this:

“Of all the great racer friendships I have made, few mean as much to me as the one with my boyhood hero Don Prudhomme. When I think back about being a 13-year-old kid, standing on shaking knees at the ropes to his pits, hoping for an autograph or used piston, to the warm and wonderful friendship we have today, it’s more than a kid could ever ask for. You just can’t dream that big.”

“Snake” texted me after the ceremony to congratulate me but had not been watching. He also called me the next day to congratulate me again, and I told him the Hot Wheels story you can hear in the speech, and he seemed genuinely touched, and I thanked him for our friendship then.

After the ceremony, the inductees were called back to the stage for a group photo with our trophies. We had been warned in advance that the “V for victory” hand of Garlits was not permanently attached to the trophy (for ease of shipping), but they should stay on. They did not. I lost mine somewhere on the way back to the table and later heard that others had, too. I retraced my steps and thankfully found it (or found someone else's).

It was then that I finally exhaled and allowed it all to set in, to think about the names who make up the Hall of Fame list and how suddenly I’m one of them. I’m not the only NHRA (or NHRA-adjacent) member of the Hall — preceded by the likes of original Safety Safari members Bud Coons (1991) & Eric Rickman (1992), former Competition Director Jack Hart (1991), early NHRA officer Ak Miller (1991), Wally and Barbara Parks (1994), Chief Starter Buster Couch (1997), longtime ND photo editor Leslie Lovett (1998), and former division directors Dale Ham (1999) and Bernie Partridge (2000) — but, since a change in the nominating rules, the first inducted while still actively representing the red, white, and blue oval.

Raffa is in there (2004), more for what he did in his early days at Lopez Publishing than at ND, TV anchor and announcer Dave McClelland (2005), former NHRA VP and Competition Director Steve Gibbs (2006), NHRA museum curator Greg Sharp (2010), former NHRA VPs and Top Fuel racers Carl Olson (2012) and Mike Lewis (2019), Chief Starter (and racer) Rick Stewart (2022), former announcer and TV anchor Bob Frey (2023), and former ND Editor, racer, and advertising and PR expert Bill Holland (2024).

While I’m far from done here — still working hard on the 75th anniversary coffee table book — this certainly is another pinnacle in a career that just keeps getting better. You’re all part of that story for your encouragement here over the many years, and I thank you for being interested in the same things that interest me, and now I can just go back to doing what I love.

Phil Burgess can be reached at pburgess@nhra.com

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