Herbert’s Open House Deemed a Huge Success
More than 10,000 people joined Top Fuel driver Doug Herbert for an open house celebration at the new 110,000 square-foot Doug Herbert Performance Parts showroom and race shop Saturday. The day-long celebration and sale was a success on many levels.
“It was a whole day of fun and it was great that so many people came by to check everything out,” Herbert said of his new facility. “When we fired up the Snap-on Tools dragster in the middle of the day, I couldn’t believe how many people were there to watch the action and feel the rumble of the car.
“One of the guys from the local Sheriff’s Department told me he thought about 10,000 people walked through the doors during the day. We wanted to make sure everyone knew we moved locations and I guess now they do.”
The people showed up even though the weather didn’t come through for the fans. The scheduled NASCAR pit stop demonstrations were canceled because of rain and light mist throughout the day. The race cars had to be put under canopies, but the fans still came by to check things out.
Herbert signed autographs throughout the day, gave ESPN a tour of the new shop and talked to fans about racing and high performance parts. Other drivers, including Pro Stock incoming rookie Erica Enders, Funny Car veteran Bob Gilbertson, driving school legend Roy Hill and Herbert Performance Parts-sponsored 4 Time IHRA Top Sportsman Champion Gary Bingham were all on hand and signed autographs for hours.
“I couldn’t believe how many autographs Erica, Bob, Roy and the rest of the drivers signed,” Herbert said. “They all looked like they were having fun too, which is the best part. I’m glad we had so many racers take part in the Open House because the fans really got to spend some time talking to each driver.”
Just as the Open House started to wind down, the race team started moving in every direction. The crew members spent the day talking to fans about the Snap-on dragster and racing in general, but they spent the night packing for this weekend’s test sessions at Firebird International Raceway in Phoenix.
“We kicked off our sales year and now we can kick off the racing year,” Herbert said. “It’s time to get back out to the race tracks and see what this Snap-on dragster can do this NHRA season. We’re all ready now.”