LOS ANGELES, CA — Hotrod & Restoration (HHR) magazine and Robert Petersen have announced Vic Edelbrock, Jr. as the fourth recipient of the Robert E. Petersen Lifetime Achievement Award.
Robert Petersen personally selects the recipient each year for presentation at the Hotrod & Restoration Trade Show. This year, the show will take place on March 10-12 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. The award presentation will take place during HRR’s Breakfast of Champions, co-sponsored by Meguiar’s, Inc., scheduled for 8:30 a.m., Friday, March 11.
Launched in 2002 at the HRR show, the inaugural Robert E. Petersen Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to NHRA founder Wally Parks. The award was presented to Carroll Shelby in 2003 and George Barris in 2004. Petersen selects the annual recipient based upon the candidate’s contributions to the evolution and prosperity of specialized automobiles. The trophy, a bronze sculpture by automotive artist Steve Posson, aptly titled “Running at the Lakes,” is on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
“Vic Edelbrock, Jr. and his father have made tremendous contributions to hot rodding as we know it today,” said Petersen. “They have not only been a strong force on the business side, their personal involvement at every level has been tremendous.”
In 1962, upon the untimely loss of his father Vic Edelbrock, Sr. to cancer, Vic Edelbrock, Jr. took over the company with a group of loyal employees, most of whom had been with his dad since the beginning. They knew what it took to continue the traditions Vic Sr. had started. From 1971 to 1974, Vic Jr. served as president of SEMA, only nine years after taking over the company, serving at a crucial time on a platform of educating legislators and the public to the benefits of a strong and legal performance parts industry.
Vic Jr. has always given back to the automotive hobby and the community that supports it. He and his father have been inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame. Vic Jr. has personally been honored numerous times by the Performance Warehouse Association and has been inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame. In 1996, Vic Jr. also began a scholarship program through Northwest Kansas Technical College to honor his father, a native of Eudora, Kan.
The son of a mechanic, Robert Petersen grew his publishing empire from a small and unassuming start. At the age of 21, Petersen, working from his own home, published the first issue of Hotrod & Restoration magazine with a small press run of 5,000 copies. He wrote the stories, took the photographs and even hawked the copies at local Southern California speedways. Over fifty-years later, Hotrod & Restoration is one of the largest automotive magazines in the world.
Petersen and his wife Margie are the founding benefactors of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
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