JR Drake: Rodeos, HotRods, and Life at Full Speed
You could possibly find someone more entertaining to talk to than JR Drake.
You’d just have to look for quite a while.
Drake is a walking, talking, living legend, with a hand in a bunch of things through the years. He’s a real-life cowboy. He’s a car collector. He helped to found a sport with a passionate following. And all that barely scratches the surface.
Drake said his success in everything he’s done boils down to two things: faith in God and belief in himself.
“God’s got a plan for everybody, and I know he’s got a plan for me,” Drake said. “And all my life - I’m 74 years old now - it’s just been a go-get-it deal. I just have so much faith in what I can do that I believe I can do anything. I can build hot rods. I can build houses. There’s nothing that I believe I can’t do.”
That confidence shines through in his ability as a promoter. And he’s promoted many, many things, including being a part of the foundation of monster truck racing.
“In 1982, Gary Porter and Dennis Anderson was the first side-by-side race ever put on in the USA,” he said. “That was Gravedigger and Carolina Crusher. Two of the original ones. These guys were mudboggers. Gravedigger was a 1953 Ford panel truck, and after he got big he went to Chevrolet. I had a mud bog pit, and I said you know what would be fun? Go down to the end of the track, put a couple old cars there, because they’d just started jumping a couple of humps. And I went and got three old junk cars on each side, and on Saturday night we did a runoff between Gravedigger and Carolina Crusher, and Gravedigger blew them out.”
The interest in fast, good looking cars naturally extends to collecting. Drake has several prized hot rods in his collection.
For instance, there’s what Drake calls “the most popular hot rod in the world”. It’s a 1932 Ford prison bus that was used by the state of North Carolina. It’s got a 427 big block engine that generates 1,500 horsepower and thousands of views on TikTok.
The bus appeared on the TV show Rebel Road, and its origin is a mystery even to Drake.
“It’s one of the most popular deals you’ll ever see,” Drake said. “We had no idea that it was an old prison bus. We started sanding it down, and I put some clear coating on it, and on the back door it pulled out ‘NC Prison Bus’, and I thought what the heck does that mean? That was on the back door, and I went and cleared over it. And it had a lot of stuff in it that a bus doesn’t usually have. I chopped the top way down, and the windshield about five inches, and I took it into a show, and the people just went nuts. I sell thousands and thousands of T-shirts off of it. It’s got the original seats and all that original stuff on it.”
Kevin Harrison and JR Drake admire Drake’s 1932 N.C. Prison Bus hotrod at Drake’s shop near Hudson.
It’s not particularly trip-friendly, though.
“It gets about three miles to the gallon,” Drake said with a laugh. “When they came in and did the TV show, I said let’s go to lunch, and there was about eight of us. We went to Iron Thunder in Hickory and ate lunch in the bus. We had nine people counting me, and you could hit that thing and it just runs you back in your seat.”
There’s also a 1938 Hudson, which was a pace car for the Indianapolis 300. There’s a 1940 Ford sedan that’s had a new frame, coilovers, and alligator interior. There’s a 1932 roadster that was built in 1980 for HotRod Magazine.
“When I was 14 years old, I really got into it,” Drake said of his fascination with cars. I was either building cars or riding bucking horses. And it just went on up through my life.”
The rodeo background started about the same time. Originally a participant, Drake turned to promoting after an injury.
“I rode horses for a long time, and I started messing some with bulls and got hurt real bad,” he said. “When I was 26 years old, I’m thinking what in the world am I going to do? I’ve got a broken neck. My leg’s been broken, arm’s been broken. What am I going to do? So one day I told my wife I thought I wanted to do a rodeo. I got some land and put the rodeo on. That’s exactly the way I did it. I said I was going to, and I went and did it. And on a Friday night, we had a packed house in Vail, N.C. We had so many people that I went to the gate, and at that time tickets were $10 a person, $5 for kids. I asked how much money I had made, and they said $2,700.”
That answer left Drake perplexed. That big a crowd for $2,700? He soon found the culprit.
“They said well, your wife came up here and said she knows everybody and just to let them in. So I went to here and I told her not to go to the front gate. I told her she could stay in the barn, or the arena, or anywhere else she wanted, just not at the front gate. And we had another packed house and it was a very good hit, and she learned real quick to stay away from that front gate. And that was my first rodeo.”
He’s still going strong. And Drake thinks his ability to promote and the family-friendly aspect of his rodeos are the things that keep them going.
“I put my heart into it,” he said. “And people like Harrison’s have helped keep me going. I’ve got great sponsors. But to get those, you’ve got to do great things for them. When you ride around any town that I do my rodeos in, in a 25, 30-mile range, you’ll see J.R.’s Rodeo signs. You’ll hear it a lot on the radio. And you know, it’s a wholesome atmosphere. We have family entertainment. We ask families to come. We take care of the kids. And we don’t serve alcohol at our rodeos. We want you to come have a good time, a clean time, and see a good rodeo.”
You can do that this weekend at 2022 Clement Blvd NW in Hickory. JR’s Pro Rodeo will make its return to the area with a full two-night schedule, along with a petting zoo and bounce houses for kids and live music featuring Velvet Rodeo and Christina Eagle. It’s one of 12 rodeos that Drake will present this season, a busy schedule that the promoter says suits him just fine.
“I’m gonna keep rodeoing until my toes are turned up,” he said with a laugh. “God’s got a plan. He’s got a plan for me, and I think one of his plans is that people come out and see these rodeos. And I love doing it. I don’t have much free time, but I just keep running.”
You can hear more from JR Drake on the Work Western Podcast below.
