Racers seem to be getting more secretive and inaccessible to the fans. Any plan on putting a tent around your car while you’re working on it between rounds?
TH: No, I enjoy the fans coming by and asking questions and I enjoy the camaraderie. I’m not going to rope my pit off!
Okay, let’s change the subject a little. When you started your Pro Stock career I believe you were still an active player. Did your first Pro Stock program basically happen as a result of your position as a professional athlete?
TH: Yeah, definitely. For me to come out as a privateer and try to run Pro Stock on my own money and try to invest everything I had involved in it…it’s discouraging for a lot of people that want to be involved in the class; they don’t have the money it takes.
You’ve had a long relationship with GM and Fred Simmonds and those guys and specifically the Chevy division of GM. Did your involvement with GM benefit both with the fact that you were a professional player and a minority?
TH: Oh yeah, definitely. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you and say it didn’t. It did. The fact that I was a professional basketball player and had a chance…at a high profile position, that had an effect and that’s smart business as far as I’m concerned. Being a minority, getting involved in the business and having my own car dealership…
That’s another thing I wanted to ask you about. I know you have your own car dealership and the people at GM told me they have a minority dealer ownership program that you were a part of. Did that come after your involvement with Pro Stock?
TH: That actually came when I started my Pro Stock deal. One of my other dreams had been to own a car dealership and I didn’t know anything about GM’s minority program until I got involved with Pro Stock racing.
Where your dealership and what do you sell?
TH: My dealership was in Darlington, South Carolina, called Tom Hammonds Chevrolet, which I recently sold about a year and a half ago.
So you don’t have another dealership right now?
TH: No, I don’t think the timing is right to open another store. I think we’ve got so much time and effort in our racing program now and we want to make sure that’s up and running before we do anything else.
Yourself, Antron Brown and J.R. Todd have a lot of success as African-American drag racers. Do you think that your success is going to have more influence on African-American kids to become involved in drag racing?
TH: I hope so…to what level I don’t know. Until there’s a program or we can do something to have some type of program where we can bring people up through the system, no one will ever get out there and do what we do. That’s just the reality of it. And it’s sad to say.
Has NHRA come to you guys with any kind of program to encourage minority kids to get involved?
TH: Not at this time. That’s not to say that something like that won’t come up in the future, but at this time it hasn’t come about.
There seems to be this feeder system…they’ve got these technical colleges that have courses to train people to work on race cars and but I don’t see a lot of minorities on professional teams.
TH: I would be more than glad to get involved in some program where I could be involved with a technical school and get recruits on my team. I’d to teach them the business on and off the track. What it takes to get a sponsor and what it takes to run a team as a business. I’m not going to wait for NHRA to come to me and try to put a program together. I think it’s up to me to try and do something to get involved.
