Mel Campbell is a man on a mission. A diehard hot rodder from Toowoomba, Queensland, Mel has spent a good portion of 2025 tearing up the highways and byways of the USA, flying our flag – literally – from the rear bumper of his ’34 Ford coupe. He has driven his newly completed street rod clean across the country, from New York to California, with all kinds of bucket-list stops along the way. But his number one target, the main reason for shipping his car over the oceans, is to take part in The Race Of Gentlemen.

First published in the February 2026 issue of Street Machine

Held on the beach in Wildwood, New Jersey, TROG is like Mecca for traditional hot rodders. “If you own a hot rod and you have not been to TROG, sell your hot rod,” Mel says with a laugh as he prepares to launch his bad-arse, nailhead-equipped ’32 down the eighth-mile beach drag strip. “The Race Of Gentlemen is the greatest race on earth, and Wildwood is the craziest place on earth!”

The town of Wildwood is a summer vacation spot on the southern tip of the Jersey Shore. With a wide beach, a long boardwalk and a cluster of amusement piers, it has been serving up fun to working class families for over a century.

There’s no such thing as a five-star hotel in Wildwood. Instead, it’s packed with old-fashioned motels with fantastic mid-century architecture, pastel paintwork and neon signage of bygone eras. Time has added a glorious patina to everything. As a location for a vintage car event, it’s hard to imagine anywhere cooler.

“I just love this place,” says Mel. “It’s a crazy town, with rollercoasters and Ferris wheels and waterslides all built on the piers. And then the town has all these buildings from the 1950s and 60s, with neon signs and all the old architecture. My friend’s wife is from New Jersey, and she says they call this place ‘Childwood’, because all your childhood dreams come true here. I’ve got two young boys back home, and I can’t wait until they get a little older and I can bring them here and they can run riot on the sand.”

Running riot on the sand is a big part of a TROG weekend, and Mel built his three-window coupe to do just that, and much more.

“This car’s got an interesting story,” he says. “It was originally from America, of course, and then an Australian bought it and took it over there. He sold it to an American and it came back [to the US], and then another Australian bought it and it went back. Then a friend of mine had it for 12 years, and I bought it off him. We jokingly call it ‘The Kangaroo Coupe’, because it has hopped back and forth so many times!”

Mel decided to take the joke even further by covering the coupe’s seats in kangaroo hide, which he says has gone down well with American audiences. Overall, the car is a fine advertisement for his shop, Fortyone 30 Customs.

“This is what we do – salt-flats, Rolling Bones-style cars,” Mel says. “We joke and call ourselves the ‘Rolling Clones’! We want to be the shop where if you want this style of car, you come see us.”
TROG 2025 ends up being as close to a perfect weekend as anybody could ask for. The unusually hot early-autumn conditions feel like the peak of summer, and the tides and the sand come to the party with an excellent surface for racing. The field of cars and motorcycles is outstanding, and the event generally is more organised than ever.

Mel’s ’34 performs well, too, hot-lapping all weekend with no major issues. Although it has a little too much spice for the sand and wants to pull sideways at every stab, Mel drives the thing all the way to a runner-up place in the Early OHV class for cars running overhead-valve engines no later than 1954.

Aside from the sights and sounds of incredible pre-war and vintage machinery being raced on the beach, attendees are provided with live rock ’n’ roll and blues music, tasty grub from a string of vendors, and a carnival-like atmosphere all ’round. On one side, you’ve got the Morey’s Piers amusement rides, on the other you’ve got the Atlantic Ocean, and right in the middle you’ve got TROG, the greatest race on earth.

“This is the best-run hot rod race event in the world,” Mel concludes. “For anyone interested in traditional hot rods, you have to do it. It’s amazing.”

Sports Fan

Acclaimed Jersey car builder Rob Ida has skill and style in spades, and he put them to full use in the making of ‘The Black Cat’ bubbletop Jaguar XK120, which debuted at Wildwood in 2024 and was later displayed at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. For TROG 2025, Rob decided to go more smart-casual, with a 1954 Corvette (pictured below) built in under three weeks.

Although the car doesn’t comply with the stipulations for entry to the race, Rob was granted permission to make exhibition runs at The Race of Gentlemen, lining up alongside his Porsche 365, which was piloted by veteran motoring journo Ken Gross. “The cut-off year for cars is 1934, so these two obviously don’t meet the criteria,” Rob admitted. “But they are cool early sports cars, and maybe if we see a few more cars like this show up in the future, they’ll make an official class for them.”

Under the C1’s front-hinged bonnet is a 327 small-block with a crotchety old Duntov 30/30 cam, topped with dual-quad carbs.

“This will be my first time driving the car,” said Rob. “I did a couple of launches in my driveway on Thursday and hurt the clutch. So, it’s not even going to be a great run because the clutch slips, but I just want to get it down the track.”

I’ve been everywhere, man

Aussie rodder Mel Campbell first raced at Wildwood in 2024 in a wild T roadster he bought from TROG’s main organiser, Mel Stultz. He subsequently shipped that car back to Toowoomba and sent this killer ’34 Ford three-window coupe over to the US.

Built in Mel’s shop, Fortyone 30 Customs, the ’34 runs a 401ci Buick Nailhead with a T5 gearbox and a rare Sydney-built Lehane quick-change rear end. It was finished just in time for the Rattle Trap at Crowdy Head, NSW in May 2025, but its first big test was a cross-country American road trip that kicked off in early August.

“I met up with the Rolling Bones guys in Saratoga, New York, and we did The Circus, which is a cruise over to Bonneville Speed Week in Utah,” Mel said. Subsequent stops on the car’s US odyssey included cruising the Las Vegas strip in Nevada, running on the El Mirage dry lake in California, and fangin’ around the NASCAR-sanctioned Caraway Speedway in North Carolina.

Next on the itinerary for Mel and the ’34 after TROG was the Gathering at the Roc in Oklahoma to complete the shakedown to end all shakedowns.

HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Frank Hanrahan travelled from Connecticut to run his Oldsmobile Rocket-powered bellytanker. “I found it in a guy’s backyard and built the car for the beach with the Oldsmobile 303 and a stock Olds trans,” Frank said. “I built the tube frame with my son and daughters, and it’s got Ford front and rear ends. This is definitely no street machine, but it’s a fun car to run out here.”

2. Joe Russell put together his tough-looking, underbody-coated ’34 three-window coupe in his shop, New York Iron, in Canandaigua, NY. “I found the body in Tennessee, and dragged the frame out of a frozen field in Buffalo,” he said. “I had a cool front-engined dragster with a 292 Y-block and ’50 Merc tranny, so I switched those into this car with a Ford 9in. It’s my daily driver; I literally drive it every day.”

3. Oldest car, youngest driver. Seventeen-year-old high-schooler Luke Eyssen travelled from Charlotte, North Carolina to race his incredible-looking, banger-powered speedster, which he built over 13 months using bits and pieces of everything, from metal to timber to leather. If this young Eagle Scout is our future, everything is going to be okay, folks.

4. Boat-tail racer Chris Beckwith from Middletown, Connecticut was decked out in military fatigues at TROG from his time serving in the forces.

5. Rock ’n’ roll and blues bands played on a beach stage, including sets from New York’s The Original Harlem Slim, also known as soulful solo bluesman Tito Deler.

6. Although generations apart in age, Chris Hart (left) and Powell Salle (right) bonded over hot rods before teaming up to build a flathead-powered 1921 Ford for TROG (below).

“It’s a Model A drivetrain that we butchered, with a ’21 Model T Touring body cut down to roadster dimensions,” explained Chris, who handled much of the chop-chop before handing the steering wheel to octogenarian car owner Powell.

7. Vic Lago built his straight-six Chrysler-propelled ’34 Plymouth street rod 10 years ago. “I wanted to keep it all Mopar, so the engine is a 1950 Spitfire,” Vic said. “It’s got a three-speed stick with a BorgWarner overdrive into a Posi rear. I don’t really need the overdrive for the beach, though; it’s all second and third gear here.”

8. A regular at TROG, Hondo Elicerio built his V8-powered rail dragster to replace another one that had become too much of a pain. “I ended up having to take the body off the old car to get into the rail class, and I really didn’t want to have to do that anymore,” he said. “I had the parts for another rail, so I figured I’d just build it.” It’s powered by a Y-block Ford, backed by a ’39 Ford trans and rear end.

9. One of several old speedway cars on the beach was the flying #2 1931 sprintcar belonging to Fred Majka, who restores vintage open-wheeler race cars with his brother Keith. “It used to run down in South Carolina,” Fred said. “A friend of ours gave us the 1932 B motor and transmission; we put the whole thing in five years ago and never touched it since.”