Bruce Larson

Bruce Larson is a retired American drag racer from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. He became nationally known for his match races. He quit drag racing during the early 1980s. He returned in 1985 on the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Funny Car tour and won the 1989 NHRA Funny Car championship. Larson is remembered for his red, white, and blue USA-1 Chevrolet Camaros.

Racing career

Larson began drag racing as a 16-year-old at Linden, New Jersey in a chopped fenderless 1932 Ford coupe. Over the next ten years, he consistently won at local tracks using that car and later a 1954 Oldsmobile and a 1932 Chevrolet A/Gas coupe. In 1965, he switched from the coupes to a 1964 Ford Cobra and immediately set records in NHRA's A/Sport and AA/Sport classes. He used the car to win the NHRA Winternationals, Springnationals, and U.S. Nationals. Larson was working at a Chevrolet dealership at the time and he formed a Chevrolet-based Funny Car team with Greg Sutliff, the dealership's owner. They built a fiberglass-bodied Chevrolet Camaro and toured the country in match races. Larson had a 7.41-second run in 1967 which broke the all-time Funny Car elapsed time (e.t.) record. In 1969, he received national recognition when he won the Super Stock Nationals at York, Pennsylvania. He added a "USA-1" license plate to his Camaro and later painted the dragster car red, white, and blue and added "USA-1" decals to the side.