Bob Mazzolini Racing made the cover of Chrysler Power Magazine earlier this year, featuring Bob Mazzolini’s own ’67 Hemi Belvedere in the February, 2018 issue. In case you missed it, Bob sits down with Chrysler Power’s Scott Smith to discuss Bob’s racing history, and the current racing scene, among other things. Here are some snippets of the article.
Bob Mazzolini Mopar Hero by Scott Smith
Any Mopar drag racing fan living in the West during 1970’s and 80’s knows the name Bob Mazzolini. His name adorns the sides of some of the fastest and most successful Max Wedge & Hemi powered Stock & Super Stock cars of the era. Any time Bob was running the Mopar, faithful knew their make of choice had a great shot at taking home the win. In his long and successful career, Bob became one of our Most successful Mopar heroes.
I recently had a chance to speak with Bob about his career, how it all began, some of his cars, his career highlights, and what he’s been up to in recent years. Like many of us, Bob’s history with cars went back to his days as a teenager when he started racing his father’s 56 Buick (more on that later). In 1970, the dawn of Pro Stock era, Bob and his wife relocated from Butte, Montana to Southern California. Bob and his wife were both school teachers; Bob taught drivers education, auto shop, special education, and electronics. The teaching jobs allowed for time off work during the racing seasons, and since Bob had a Corvette, that was running similar times as the current Pro Stockers, he thought he might have a shot at competing.
Bob liked what he saw in the Mopars and decided to join the Mopar Pro Stock ranks. How’s this for a start, his very first Mopar Pro Stocker was none other than an original 1970 Hemi Cuda that he purchased from some friends in Billings, Montana. Talk about an oddball car too, of all things it was an original FC7 Inviolet purple Hemi Cuda with a black vinyl roof and it was a rental car! HIs friend in Billings found it and turned him on to it; the cost? $2,200.00. Bob remembers the night well because the night he learned of the car and decided to make the long drive north from Southern California to Billings, Montana was the same night the infamous DB Cooper highjacked the airplane. They spent the long rainy drive listening to the story on the radio; by the end of the trip they felt that they almost knew the guy!
The school teacher’s income kept them on a tight budget, and Pro Stock was fast becoming a very expensive venue to run in, which is why Bob started selling parts as a side income to support the racing effort. During the summers when school was out, Bob would make trips back and forth to Butte to visit family and to buy Hemi parts along the way, scouring the Western states for Hemi and other rare parts which he would bring back and sell out of his shop. Many of his customers were among the who’s who of fuel racing; Don Prudhomme, Joe Pisano, and many others would buy their iron fuel Hemi engine parts from Bob. Read More
Bob and Roland (Osborne, RIP) had a friendship that went all the way back to the early 80s. Roland had a Mopar parts deal set up and Bob did not yet, so he bought parts from Roland. Roland showed Bob an issue of his new magazine with two girls in long gowns standing beside a K-Car on the cover. Bob laughed and said, “Man, that’s never going to work!” You need a race car on the cover! Bob didn’t say which race car, just a race car. The next issue had Bob’s Max Wedge on the cover and it was the first issue Roland ever sold out. That Max Wedge car quickly became known as the car to beat nationwide. Read More
Bob attributes much of his success to having owned and driven the cars he sold parts for. The hands on experience taught him volumes about what parts were good or bad and that allowed him to help his customers better than a typical catalogue parts house. He owned as many as six Max Wedge cars at one time, as well as his other non-Max Wedge cars.
I asked Bob which engine was his favorite and he said probably the Hemi, but the Max Wedge was really what made his name. Bob is still racing today, just not race every week as he used to in the 80s. Bob said that the tracks are overcrowded these days and it’s difficult to get to the track, hang out all day just to get one or two runs in car; in other words, it’s nothing like the good old days when one could hit several tracks a week (sometimes even several in the same day) and make all the runs you wanted to. Read More