Hank Thomas " Still getting 'er done"                                   Story By:  Mike Phillips

Hank Thomas ran his first race at Greensboro Fair Grounds in 1955.  The maiden outing ended in a crash that took Hank and the car out of the race for the evening.  With the help of several friends, the car was repaired and next ran at Robin Wood Speedway in Gastonia, North Carolina, which was ironically promoted at the time by the now, well-known Humpy Wheeler.

Hank started racing weekly and registered his first win at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the hobby division, which later became the sportsman division in the Spring of 1957.  He then went on to win the State Hobby Championship in 1958.

1959 started out great with a win and two second place finishes in the first three races.  Then the dreaded telegram came from NASCAR on the following Wednesday, promoting Hank up to the next division.  Hank sat out of driving for the balance of '59 through the 1961 seasons, electing to play car owner and crew chief for a number of drivers.  He resumed his driving position on New Year's Day, 1962, at Bowman Gray Stadium in a Modified car.  His second outing in the modified was at Hillsborough Speedway where he finished second in a sixty car field in the only Plymouth powered vehicle in the show.  His first modified win came in June 1963 at the Asheville - Weaverville Speedway.

Hank ventured into the Grand National Division (now Nextel Cup) in 1966 driving for a group of owners doing battle against the well financed factory teams.  He entered his 1964 ford in 14 events that year at such places as Bowman Gray Stadium, North Wilkesboro Speedway, Martinsville Speedway, Hickory Speedway (last GN race on dirt), Dog Track Speedway in Moyock, North Carolina, New Asheville Speedway, Beltsville Speedway in Beltsville, Maryland and Bristol Speedway with 3 top 5 and 7 top 10 finishes with his best finish being a 3rd place at Beltsville Maryland.

After winning numerous asphalt and dirt races, Hank then changed his focus toward building and fielding rented rides for other drivers and drove at selected "money" races throughout the east coast.  Probably the highlight of his career was winning a "National Modified Race" in 1967 at the Wilson County Fair Grounds in Hubert Hensley's car.  He then went on to win the "Salem 250" at Bowman Gray Stadium, set fast time and won at Hickory Motor Speedway at the first modified event after being paved, won at Franklin County Speedway in Calloway, Virginia, Raleigh Fairgrounds and numerous other short tracks the same year.  Hank was also simultaneously building winning cars for such notable people as Paul Radford, Radford's car was a #26 Gremlin modified owned by Clarence Pickurel of Ridgeway, Virginia.  Radford took his new car to the modified event at Martinsville where he set fast time and a new track record by something like 1.2 seconds and went on to win the event.  After this event numerous orders were placed for new cars throughout the northeast for notable racers like Dick Armstrong and Dutch Hoag.

For the balance of the 60's and throughout the 70's, Hank drove for various owners such as Bud Hutchens (late father of RCR's, GM, Bobby Hutchens) and Herman Brower.  He also served as relief driver in extended lap events.  Two of those events in 1977 were relieving Billy Hensley at South Boston and Phillip Smith at Hickory with a second place finish in both events.

In 1977 Hank fielded a full-time car for driver Phillip Smith, winning numerous races including a 350-lap race at Bowman Gray Stadium and narrowly missing the points championship by just three points.