Pendine Sands Hot Rod Races ’25

Dec. 2025 • By Tony Thacker • Photos by Larry Erickson & Tony Thacker
Presented by FirstUpApparel.com & MicksPaint.com

Pendine Sands in Wales has been home to racing for more than 100 years: On September 25, 1924, Sir. Malcolm Campbell rolled his ‘Bluebird’ down onto the 7-mile beach and clocked 146.16mph setting his first-ever land speed record. Within the year he was back and bumped the record to over 150 then 170mph. The race was on to eclipse 200 but tragedy struck in 1927 when John Parry-Thomas crashed his car ‘Babs’ and died. Land speed racing on the Welsh coast was done for a while.

Fast forward to 2013 when the Vintage Hot Rod Association (VHRA) staged their first event at Pendine. Racing is only open to VHRA members with pre-’49-style hot rods and customs for which there is a wide range of classes. Each racer gets a ½-mile run up, followed by a timed flying 1/16-mile. Believe it or not, the fastest of these hot rods has gone almost 140mph.   

Thanks to Neil Fretwell, I was able to join the VHRA and enter the Hot Rod Races—a bucket list event that combined with Denmark’s Rømø Motor Festival and the NSRA UK Hot Rod Drags at Santa Pod Raceway completed my plans for a grand European Tour with my barn-find hot rod.

The trip was made possible thanks to Brit John Reid who slipped the Lil’ Shitter into California Shipping’s last container before they closed shop. Meanwhile, Kingstown Shipping handled the shipping. The car arrived in the UK in the Spring of 2025 and was kindly stored by Nick Davies of I.C.E. Automotive Racing Engines until I arrived in time for Rømø (https://www.torqtalk.com/events/rm-motor-festival-25 

Pendine was the last event on my list and I was really looking forward to meeting up with old friends and a blast down the historic beach. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans and the Friday tech day was a damp affair as was the Saturday spent sinking in the sand as we all tried to out wait the weather.

With not much to do, most entrants hung out in the new beach top coffee shop/hotel and visited the excellent little Museum of Land Speed that is home to the original Parry-Thomas ‘Babs.’

After they finally called the event for Saturday, I stupidly decided to throw in some gas I had in the trunk rather than drive to the gas station in the rain and there, my problems started. Suddenly, Shitter was banging and popping like a hunting party gone wild. It ran and missed and finally stalled out. Exasperated, I called Clive Prew of Stromberg and his buddy Wayne Large of A&R Motors, Canvey, who figured out that the old fuel had probably absorbed some water on the long sea journey from Los Angeles. New gas and a new set of plugs seemed to sort the problem but I was out of time as I was due at Southampton the next day to ship the car home. 

It was a long way not to race but for those that stayed Sunday provided a good day’s racing with top speed once again going to Steve Read in his Kermit green roadster that set a new record at 135.40mph.  

For more info:

Coast Classics: https://www.coast-classics.com

FirstUp Apparel: https://firstupapparel.com

Mick’s Paint: https://MicksPaint.com

Museum of Land Speed: https://cofgar.wales/venues/museum-of-land-speed/

Nostalgia Ranch: @nostalgia_ranch

National Street Rod Association UK: https://nsra.org.uk

Rømø Motor Festival: https://www.romomotorfestival.dk

Shipping info: https://www.kingstown-shipping.co.uk

Stromberg info:  https://stromberg-97.com

Vintage Hot Rod Association: https://www.vhra.co.uk