Thank You Mr Stanley, A Drag Racing Legend

One of Noonan Race Engineering's longest supporters is ending an era of his drag racing career, with Maryland's Camp Stanley announcing he will be shutting the garage door on his Pro Mod team.

Stanley has been a part of the Noonan story since day one, from the time he first step foot in Australia. He was a part of the famous USA Wild Bunch tours of 1989 and 1991, where he would meet a Top Alcohol racer called John Noonan – the father of Noonan Race Engineering mastermind Jamie Noonan.

 “We became good friends and I helped John get some stuff from America when he was running the alcohol dragster,” Stanley said. “Fast forward a whole bunch of years and I saw John and Jamie again at PRI when they were just starting to make billet stuff in Australia. I told them if I got a Hemi they'd be the first ones I'd call.”

Stanley was making moves to compete in the ADRL Pro Outlaw class and he could see the writing on the wall; he needed Hemi horsepower.

"I called them up and I said I was about to pull the trigger, what can you do for me? They did me a good deal and I started off with the X1 heads and went through the whole progression to the Blackhawks, the Super 600s and now the Mach 1 Outlaw heads. I've also had two blocks.”

There have been no regrets for Stanley since his move to Noonan equipment, with he and son John going on to rack up achievement after achievement, including an outright world doorslammer record of 5.64 seconds in 2013 and a blown doorslammer world record of 266mph in 2017.

“When I jumped into the Hemi thing I knew some things because I was tuning some cars that had Hemis in them. I knew the Noonan stuff worked because Jamie hauled ass in his own dragster. I have never had any issue with anything I have bought from Noonan and I have turned a lot of people on to their work.”

Stanley was an important part of Noonan Race Engineering's shift of manufacturing to the USA. He served as a de facto ambassador of the product as well as assisting the Noonan family with identifying the Spartanburg workshop they now call home.

He still calls himself a little guy on the drag racing scene, but the reality is that personalities like Camp's are giant. There are few so willing to provide assistance to others, with such a breadth of knowledge, while remaining so humble.

Thankfully Stanley is not going to be a stranger at race tracks around the world. In fact, he's on his way to Australia right now to help with a team.

“I'm not retiring from racing all together, I'm retiring from owning and funding my own race car,” he said. “It is time to stop taking money out of the bank account and start putting it back!”

Noonan Race Engineering wish to thank Camp Stanley for all of his support over the years, and we are proud to have been a part of his world record efforts.