| The history of our team goes back to when my father, Larry Wayne Van Osten Sr., raced at the original Santa Ana, Irwindale, OCIR and Lion's drag strips. Just some of the cars he ran were a '46 Ford, '32 Bantam altered, Fuller front engine dragster and a Uyehara rear engine dragster. He raced for nearly 20 years while also building his own race cars and engines in the process. My father would travel to Fresno, Fremont, Bakersfield, Sacramento and Pomona to compete in addition to the tracks mentioned prior. My father's racing had always included his closest friends and family whenever possible, including myself while I was still in diapers! I have a lot of fond memories from the days and nights of racing and all the excitement that was part of drag racing. While I was not able to drag race at a younger age, I did take some turns running go carts when I wasn't playing baseball, football or one of many other sports. I had always had the desire to drag race and seriously never thought I'd have a shot at hitting the quarter mile myself. After college and a few years of "doing my thing", I always kept up with drag racing in the modern day scene, yet I still yerned for the old school racing. When I got married in 1997 to Annemarie I pretty much thought that any dreams of racing were just that, although my wife always understood that I had a love for racing. We worked together to build a family that now includes our daughter who was born in 1999 and built a great foundation for the future. Then came an opportune meeting at the NHRA 50th anniversary Pomona drag race in July 2000. I told my wife that I was taking my dad out there because it had been some time since we'd been to the drags together. As fate should have it, my father ran into an old acquantance in Mike Demarest (Nanook, Over the Hill Gang fame). After a few minutes the discussion turned to our desire to race and that we were looking to get in somewhere. This is when Mike mentioned his brother in law (Don Price) had a car he wanted to finish and race, but needed some cash and a driver. Taw-Daw. I can say that I was honored to be able to call Don and his wife Tootsie friends and the short time I got to spend with them can never be replaced. Unfortunately Don Price passed in May of 2001 and the team of Don Price and Van Osten Motorsports was dismantled. Fast forward to now....after some scraping of funds, some understaning from my wonderful wife and the support and guidance of my father, I now own and will be driving a first class race car in the nostalgia races through out Southern California and other West Coast venues. Now I can begin to build more history and maybe some day my kids will look back and see where all this came from and decide they want to race also. If not, that's ok too, because I know I have had my turn and got to share it with my friends and family! MORE TO COME......... CLICK HERE FOR PART 2 |
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