NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

When the city of Whiteland, Ind., decided it wanted to honor its most famous drag racer, 10-time NHRA Pro Stock world champion Bob Glidden, city officials turned to Bob and Mark Buchanan and Indianapolis-based bo-mar Industries to create something worthy.

For the Buchanans — “bo-mar” is simply a combination of the brothers' first names — the project was an easy one to embrace

“We're Ford guys,” Mark offered.

That personal connection was only part of the story. Buchanan had been a Glidden fan long before he was asked to help memorialize the legendary Pro Stock racer in his hometown.

Buchanan grew up on the east side of Indianapolis, not far from where Glidden began his racing career. Bob Martin Ford, one of Glidden's earliest supporters, was just down the street, while Buchanan's uncle was a Ford representative who knew Glidden well and eventually introduced the two. Glidden's son, Rusty, actually worked at bo-mar for a short time.

“I think when I was 18, I actually went to Bob's shop and looked at a 427 single overhead cam that was for sale,” Buchanan recalled.

The Ford connection eventually became more than a fan's interest. Buchanan and his brother raced a Ford-powered rear-engine dragster for years before starting bo-mar Industries.

Today, the company operates a roughly 60-person shop and does a surprising amount of work for the racing industry, including projects for many of the race teams based in nearby Brownsburg, and also built the iconic trophies for the Traxxas Shootout. But racing represents only about one percent of bo-mar's overall business. Artistic metalwork, including other roundabout sculptures, is a much larger part of its portfolio.

“We do actually quite a bit of artistic stuff, a lot of roundabout sculptures, as well as production stuff,” Buchanan said.

So when Whiteland approached the company about creating a sculpture to commemorate Glidden, Buchanan already had the experience to bring the idea to life.

The result is a nearly 40-foot-tall tribute that incorporates at its top one of drag racing's most recognizable symbols: the Christmas Tree.

The Tree sits atop the monument, approximately 30 feet above the ground, and isn't merely decorative. It actually works.

“It’s a Pro tree,” Buchanan explained. “It’s going to be active with one side pre-stages and the other side pre-stages, and then one side stages and the other side stages.”

The sequence continues through the amber and green lights before eventually producing a red light on one side. The staging sequence then reverses, allowing the other side to get its turn.

“Just kind of break it up to kind of make it neat,” Buchanan said.

The monument features three of Glidden's race cars, one on each of its legs, represented at roughly quarter scale. The Fairmont, unbeaten in a calendar year 1978-79, occupies the top position, while the Chief Auto Parts Thunderbird, in which Glidden became the first NHRA racer to score 50 wins, and the career-ending Probe, in which he was the first to 75 wins, are positioned below it.

The cars were cut from 5/16-inch aluminum using a waterjet, then powder-coated and wrapped. Brandon Baker, whose company produces wraps for many of Indianapolis' pro drag racing teams, handled the graphics.

The result is a series of miniature Glidden race cars that look remarkably authentic from the ground.

Even the parachutes carry messages connected to the racer and his hometown, including “Bob Glidden,” “Whiteland's Own,” and “NHRA Champion.”

And the project contains another small connection between the monument and the Glidden family. Buchanan said that Bob and Etta Glidden had visited the bo-mar shop and signed an autograph years ago. That makes the project feel less like a business transaction and more like another chapter in a relationship that began with a young Ford fan fascinated by one of the sport's greatest racers.