INTERVIEW BY MARY LENDZION
PHOTOS BY THE FSC STAFF
Tom Hoffman may have not realized it at the time, but when his older brother, Steve Hoffman, took him to Milan Dragway in Michigan when he was eight years old, it helped shape his life.
Tom, who hadn't paid much attention to cars before that, wanted to see all of the cars at the track, and he wanted to hear their engines as they raced down the quarter-mile.
He was especially captivated by Carol Detrick and her 1968 Mustang Fastback and decided then and there that he wanted to race, and more specifically, that he wanted to race a 1968 Mustang Fastback like Carol Detrick’s.
Tom went on to buy one in 1998, and he has been proudly piloting it in the NMRA ARP Open Comp category for the past several years. And now, it looks as though his wife, Cindy, may join him, in a Fox Mustang that he and NMCA Dart NA 10.5 racer Rick Riccardi recently put together for her.
When Tom is not racing, he serves as an electrician at the University of Michigan, where he has worked for 20 years. He finds his work to be fulfilling, even though it has frequently required him to clock 70- or 80-hour weeks. He also enjoys spending time doing things at and around the home in Dexter, Michigan he shares with his wife, Cindy. They volunteer in the community as frequently as they can, and most recently, Tom drove a shuttle for people attending a fall festival.
Read on for more about Tom, who was aiming for a top-ten finish in 2022 NMRA ARP Open Comp points at the final NMRA event of the year at the time of this interview.
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WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR VERY FIRST MUSCLE CAR.
It was a 1976 Trans Am that I bought from a friend when I was 17. It had a 455 with a Turbo 400, and it had a broken 4.56 rearend. We put a new 2.78 rear end in it. The car was not that quick, but it was fast. I know it would run about 160 mph, but when I took it to Milan Dragway in Michigan, I never got out of second gear because of how stiff the gear was, and it ran 14.00 and 101 mph. When I graduated from South Lyon High School in 1986, my friend, Mike Cash, and I drove the car to the NHRA event at Indianapolis Raceway Park, and we blew the doors off of a Grand National on the freeway on the way. That was a lot of fun.
WHICH NHRA RACING CATEGORY WERE YOU MOST INTERESTED IN AT THAT EVENT?
We wanted to watch Pro Stock. I was a big fan of Bob Glidden, and he was racing his Thunderbird at the time. He was very competitive, and I always appreciated that he was also a very decent guy. I'm not one to go shake hands or ask for an autograph, but I remember watching a clip of him rolling his car five times in Atlanta, getting out, and putting his race jacket over the carburetor so that nobody could see it. That’s how competitive he was.
WHAT BECAME OF THE 1976 TRANS AM?
I joined the Navy when I was 18 and I was shipped to Norfolk, Virginia, to be an aviation electrician. Unfortunately, my dad sold my car while I was there.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY, TOM. WHAT WAS YOUR ROLE IN THE MILITARY?
I worked on E-2C Hawkeyes, which have a rotodome on top of them for radar. When the aircraft carriers were in the middle of the ocean, the E-2C Hawkeyes were launched from them and the radars on the aircraft carriers were turned off, and the E-2C Hawkeyes did all of the radar stuff and would transmit it to the ships. That way, the ships weren’t putting out any signals that missiles could lock onto. I did that for four years of active duty, and then for five years in the reserves. I was stationed in Virginia, and I spent six months on the Mediterranean aboard the USS America. I have been to Paris, Singapore, the North Pole, and the English Channel. When I got home, the GI Bill helped pay for my schooling to become a journeyman electrician, and then in the mid-1990s, my brother, Steve, and I started working on Funny Cars. My brother was a crew chief for several teams running in the IHRA, and I tagged along to change oil and other entry-level stuff.
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DID THAT MAKE EXPERIENCE MAKE YOU WANT TO RACE YOUR OWN CAR?
It definitely made me want to race. I looked at buying a car in 1996 but didn't have a lot of money. My first wife and I ended up getting a divorce in 1998, and it was at that time that I decided to purchase the 1968 Mustang Fastback that I have now.
YOUR BEAUTIFUL 1968 MUSTANG FASTBACK STANDS OUT IN NMRA ARP OPEN COMP. WHERE DID YOU FIND IT?
I was an electrician at Cannon Electric at the time, and we worked with Jonah Construction. I met a guy named Stacey, who was a drywaller for Jonah Construction, and he told me that his uncle in Hazard, Kentucky, was selling his 1968 Mustang Fastback, and he showed me pictures of it. As soon as I saw the pictures, I wanted to go look at the car. We drove from Michigan to Kentucky to look at it on a Friday night, and as soon as I saw it, I wanted it. Stacey’s uncle wanted $6,500 for it, and I only had $6,000 on me, but I gave him what I had and promised him I would mail the rest as soon as I got home. We loaded the car onto the trailer and took it home.
WHAT CONDITION WAS IT IN WHEN YOU PURCHASED IT?
It was not showroom-clean because it had Bondo on it, but it was really nice. It had a 289 cubic-inch engine and a C4 transmission that both worked, and it was black with a white stripe. Someone had literally cut two cars and welded them together to make this car. I can show you the weld marks. They’re right in the middle of the door. I have no idea why they did that. Someone must have smashed into the side of the car.
WHAT WERE YOUR PLANS FOR THE 1968 MUSTANG FASTBACK?
I was going to make it a street car, but my brother, Steve, said I should make it a race car for the racetrack because he figured I would race it on the street and lose my driver's license. A friend sold me a 351 Windsor and we replaced all of its parts. We topped it with Edelbrock Victor Jr. heads and an Edelbrock intake, and it made 490 horsepower. We took the car to a place in Indiana for a cage and back-half, but after five years, the guy had only done about 60 percent of the work, so I brought the car home. After a little more time, Jerid Hollenbeck, who was my daughter Jillian’s boyfriend, and his friend, Steve Henes came over and looked at the car and wanted to help me get it running. They helped me weld the tunnel and install the 351 Windsor and the Turbo 350 transmission.
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WHEN DID YOU START RACING THE CAR?
I took it to a test session at Milan Dragway in Michigan for the first time in 2008, and then I bracket-raced it. Then, I went to a heads-up race at Milan Dragway, and Open Comp was part of the program that night, and I fell in love with Open Comp. When NMRA came to Milan Dragway in 2009, I raced in Bracket, but when NMRA returned the following year, I started racing in ARP Open Comp. By the second year, I was racing the car, I had it painted red, white, and blue, and when it started to get beat up from normal wear, I had it painted to its current red, white and blue scheme. That time, I had new doors and fenders on the car, as well as new chrome around the windows and new factory mirrors.
WHEN DID YOU DECIDE TO START RUNNING ALL SIX ARP OPEN COMP RACES ON THE ANNUAL NMRA TOUR?
NMRA Open Comp racer Jim Johnson encouraged me to do the whole NMRA ARP Open Comp circuit back in 2015, and I had also talked with NMRA Open Comp and Truck and Lightning racer Randy Conway, who told me that he had been watching my qualifying passes and that I had what it would take to be successful. I bought a hand-held practice tree and took it everywhere I went because I knew I would need to be good on the tree in that category. Heck, I even took it to Mexico when my wife and I went on vacation. The car was running 10.90s and now it is running 9.70s with a 351 Windsor by Holbrook stroked to 408 with AFR 220 heads and Turbo 400 by Sean’s Transmission.
WHAT WERE YOUR IMMEDIATE THOUGHTS ON THE CATEGORY AND THE COMPETITION?
I could tell right away that it was going to be very competitive, but I also felt that I could be as good as anyone else in the category. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I was qualifying in the top-10 and I started going rounds. I wasn't thinking that this guy or that guy could hand me my behind, which was good, but that did happen if I did stupid things like not get out of the throttle at the top end and break out. We have done pretty well in NMRA. I have been in the Top 10 in points the last six years, and we finished in second place one year, and I missed out on the championship that year by just one-thousandth of a second after I broke out against Dennis Corn.
HOW HAS THE 2022 RACING SEASON GONE FOR YOU?
Last winter, I took my car to Rick Riccardi’s shop in New Jersey, and he helped me make some upgrades. Rick went through my car, and we installed new brakes, brake lines, a master cylinder, and a forward-facing scoop. We replaced my oil pan, which was cracked, and we changed the fuel pump. We’re in the process of getting the car to run where we want it to run, and we’re working with the timing. It’s going to be great when we get it dialed-in. I’m already looking forward to the 2023 racing season.
PHOTOS BY THE FSC STAFF
Tom Hoffman may have not realized it at the time, but when his older brother, Steve Hoffman, took him to Milan Dragway in Michigan when he was eight years old, it helped shape his life.
Tom, who hadn't paid much attention to cars before that, wanted to see all of the cars at the track, and he wanted to hear their engines as they raced down the quarter-mile.
He was especially captivated by Carol Detrick and her 1968 Mustang Fastback and decided then and there that he wanted to race, and more specifically, that he wanted to race a 1968 Mustang Fastback like Carol Detrick’s.
Tom went on to buy one in 1998, and he has been proudly piloting it in the NMRA ARP Open Comp category for the past several years. And now, it looks as though his wife, Cindy, may join him, in a Fox Mustang that he and NMCA Dart NA 10.5 racer Rick Riccardi recently put together for her.
When Tom is not racing, he serves as an electrician at the University of Michigan, where he has worked for 20 years. He finds his work to be fulfilling, even though it has frequently required him to clock 70- or 80-hour weeks. He also enjoys spending time doing things at and around the home in Dexter, Michigan he shares with his wife, Cindy. They volunteer in the community as frequently as they can, and most recently, Tom drove a shuttle for people attending a fall festival.
Read on for more about Tom, who was aiming for a top-ten finish in 2022 NMRA ARP Open Comp points at the final NMRA event of the year at the time of this interview.
WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR VERY FIRST MUSCLE CAR.
It was a 1976 Trans Am that I bought from a friend when I was 17. It had a 455 with a Turbo 400, and it had a broken 4.56 rearend. We put a new 2.78 rear end in it. The car was not that quick, but it was fast. I know it would run about 160 mph, but when I took it to Milan Dragway in Michigan, I never got out of second gear because of how stiff the gear was, and it ran 14.00 and 101 mph. When I graduated from South Lyon High School in 1986, my friend, Mike Cash, and I drove the car to the NHRA event at Indianapolis Raceway Park, and we blew the doors off of a Grand National on the freeway on the way. That was a lot of fun.
WHICH NHRA RACING CATEGORY WERE YOU MOST INTERESTED IN AT THAT EVENT?
We wanted to watch Pro Stock. I was a big fan of Bob Glidden, and he was racing his Thunderbird at the time. He was very competitive, and I always appreciated that he was also a very decent guy. I'm not one to go shake hands or ask for an autograph, but I remember watching a clip of him rolling his car five times in Atlanta, getting out, and putting his race jacket over the carburetor so that nobody could see it. That’s how competitive he was.
WHAT BECAME OF THE 1976 TRANS AM?
I joined the Navy when I was 18 and I was shipped to Norfolk, Virginia, to be an aviation electrician. Unfortunately, my dad sold my car while I was there.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY, TOM. WHAT WAS YOUR ROLE IN THE MILITARY?
I worked on E-2C Hawkeyes, which have a rotodome on top of them for radar. When the aircraft carriers were in the middle of the ocean, the E-2C Hawkeyes were launched from them and the radars on the aircraft carriers were turned off, and the E-2C Hawkeyes did all of the radar stuff and would transmit it to the ships. That way, the ships weren’t putting out any signals that missiles could lock onto. I did that for four years of active duty, and then for five years in the reserves. I was stationed in Virginia, and I spent six months on the Mediterranean aboard the USS America. I have been to Paris, Singapore, the North Pole, and the English Channel. When I got home, the GI Bill helped pay for my schooling to become a journeyman electrician, and then in the mid-1990s, my brother, Steve, and I started working on Funny Cars. My brother was a crew chief for several teams running in the IHRA, and I tagged along to change oil and other entry-level stuff.
DID THAT MAKE EXPERIENCE MAKE YOU WANT TO RACE YOUR OWN CAR?
It definitely made me want to race. I looked at buying a car in 1996 but didn't have a lot of money. My first wife and I ended up getting a divorce in 1998, and it was at that time that I decided to purchase the 1968 Mustang Fastback that I have now.
YOUR BEAUTIFUL 1968 MUSTANG FASTBACK STANDS OUT IN NMRA ARP OPEN COMP. WHERE DID YOU FIND IT?
I was an electrician at Cannon Electric at the time, and we worked with Jonah Construction. I met a guy named Stacey, who was a drywaller for Jonah Construction, and he told me that his uncle in Hazard, Kentucky, was selling his 1968 Mustang Fastback, and he showed me pictures of it. As soon as I saw the pictures, I wanted to go look at the car. We drove from Michigan to Kentucky to look at it on a Friday night, and as soon as I saw it, I wanted it. Stacey’s uncle wanted $6,500 for it, and I only had $6,000 on me, but I gave him what I had and promised him I would mail the rest as soon as I got home. We loaded the car onto the trailer and took it home.
WHAT CONDITION WAS IT IN WHEN YOU PURCHASED IT?
It was not showroom-clean because it had Bondo on it, but it was really nice. It had a 289 cubic-inch engine and a C4 transmission that both worked, and it was black with a white stripe. Someone had literally cut two cars and welded them together to make this car. I can show you the weld marks. They’re right in the middle of the door. I have no idea why they did that. Someone must have smashed into the side of the car.
WHAT WERE YOUR PLANS FOR THE 1968 MUSTANG FASTBACK?
I was going to make it a street car, but my brother, Steve, said I should make it a race car for the racetrack because he figured I would race it on the street and lose my driver's license. A friend sold me a 351 Windsor and we replaced all of its parts. We topped it with Edelbrock Victor Jr. heads and an Edelbrock intake, and it made 490 horsepower. We took the car to a place in Indiana for a cage and back-half, but after five years, the guy had only done about 60 percent of the work, so I brought the car home. After a little more time, Jerid Hollenbeck, who was my daughter Jillian’s boyfriend, and his friend, Steve Henes came over and looked at the car and wanted to help me get it running. They helped me weld the tunnel and install the 351 Windsor and the Turbo 350 transmission.
WHEN DID YOU START RACING THE CAR?
I took it to a test session at Milan Dragway in Michigan for the first time in 2008, and then I bracket-raced it. Then, I went to a heads-up race at Milan Dragway, and Open Comp was part of the program that night, and I fell in love with Open Comp. When NMRA came to Milan Dragway in 2009, I raced in Bracket, but when NMRA returned the following year, I started racing in ARP Open Comp. By the second year, I was racing the car, I had it painted red, white, and blue, and when it started to get beat up from normal wear, I had it painted to its current red, white and blue scheme. That time, I had new doors and fenders on the car, as well as new chrome around the windows and new factory mirrors.
WHEN DID YOU DECIDE TO START RUNNING ALL SIX ARP OPEN COMP RACES ON THE ANNUAL NMRA TOUR?
NMRA Open Comp racer Jim Johnson encouraged me to do the whole NMRA ARP Open Comp circuit back in 2015, and I had also talked with NMRA Open Comp and Truck and Lightning racer Randy Conway, who told me that he had been watching my qualifying passes and that I had what it would take to be successful. I bought a hand-held practice tree and took it everywhere I went because I knew I would need to be good on the tree in that category. Heck, I even took it to Mexico when my wife and I went on vacation. The car was running 10.90s and now it is running 9.70s with a 351 Windsor by Holbrook stroked to 408 with AFR 220 heads and Turbo 400 by Sean’s Transmission.
WHAT WERE YOUR IMMEDIATE THOUGHTS ON THE CATEGORY AND THE COMPETITION?
I could tell right away that it was going to be very competitive, but I also felt that I could be as good as anyone else in the category. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I was qualifying in the top-10 and I started going rounds. I wasn't thinking that this guy or that guy could hand me my behind, which was good, but that did happen if I did stupid things like not get out of the throttle at the top end and break out. We have done pretty well in NMRA. I have been in the Top 10 in points the last six years, and we finished in second place one year, and I missed out on the championship that year by just one-thousandth of a second after I broke out against Dennis Corn.
HOW HAS THE 2022 RACING SEASON GONE FOR YOU?
Last winter, I took my car to Rick Riccardi’s shop in New Jersey, and he helped me make some upgrades. Rick went through my car, and we installed new brakes, brake lines, a master cylinder, and a forward-facing scoop. We replaced my oil pan, which was cracked, and we changed the fuel pump. We’re in the process of getting the car to run where we want it to run, and we’re working with the timing. It’s going to be great when we get it dialed-in. I’m already looking forward to the 2023 racing season.