Thomas Malloy Collection & Randy Happala’s Drag Racing Museum Tour on 11/21
The road trip to the Malloy Collection in Corona, and Randy Happala’s Drag Racing Museum in Lake Elsinore turned into a really fun and interesting day trip. 18 members and friends mustered at the Mercado Shopping Center in Rancho Bernardo as planned and hit the road precisely at 0800. The caravan consisted of my ’37 Buick, Fred LaCorte and Les Werling in LaCorte’s ’50 Olds Coupe, The Keller’s’ in their ‘11 Charger, Mike Petermann and Earl Asbury in Mike’s black ’40 Ford Coupe, the Heyn’s in their ’82 Camaro, and Paul & Sigrid Bundy in their fresh ’32 Ford 3 window coupe, plus Travis and Vicki Williams, Dick and Earline Blank, Joe and Carol Artino in their daily drivers.
We made the 75 mile drive in just over 75 minutes. We were met at Tom Malloy’s Collection by Jeanne, Tom Malloy’s assistant, who opened the collection and gave us all a great tour. She apologized for Tom, who had planned on being there to give us the tour, but pressing family business kept him away. Jeanne knew a lot about almost all the vehicles, and talked at length about each car and the collection as a whole. We spent about 2 hours at the collection, departing about 11:15 AM.
We then took a short drive through the north side of Corona to the Texas Roadhouse for a very good lunch. We spent a good 90 minutes over lunch before heading down I-15 to Randy’s place.
We arrived at Randy’s Drag Racing Museum around 1:00 PM, and were greeted by Randy in the driveway. Randy opened the museum and we spent about 90 minutes immersed in all manner of NHRA Funny Cars and drag racing memorabilia. Randy has more NHRA Wally’s than the NHRA Museum, hundreds of commemorative die cast model race cars, and autographed fires suits on exhibit. One thing that makes Randy’s collection unique is that almost everything has been autographed by the racer the item represents. Randy then showed us the old west town he’s creating, and his personal hot rod/custom car collection and shop.
We all bid Randy farewell around 2:30 PM and headed south on I-15. Traffic was heavy but kept moving, so we made it home in less than an hour. All in all, a very fun and interesting day. I’d do this one again.
George Cowman
Wagon Master, Tom Malloy Collection and Randy Happala’s Drag Racing Museum Tour.
A group shot at Tom Malloy’s Collection:
Click on a picture to enlarge.
Tom Malloy has asked us not to post pictures taken inside so the group picture is all we can show on the inside.
Lunch at the Texas Roadhouse.
Randy Happala’s Drag Racing Museum.