Harold “Hardluck” Hanaford
Driver
Class of 2009

       Harold “Hardluck” Hanaford began racing on the ice in 1947.  He went on to compete in flathead powered fords throughout New Hampshire and Vermont.  A staunch supporter of the ’32 Ford, Hanaford switched to a Dodge to race at the Plymouth Fairgrounds, a track 5 miles from his home, where they plowed the track and raced right through the winter.

    Hanaford won 2 of the 1^st 3 Milk Bowls at Thunder Road, in 1962 and ’64.  He was also a two time Thunder Road track champion, in ’64 and ’65.

       In 1966, as a Thunder Road champion, he took a 59 Pontiac, with an engine he’d built himself, to Daytona.  “Being a track champion, they paid me ten cents a mile to tow down, and $300 to take the green”, Harold recalls.  “I think the total check was about $800.”

     Hardluck Hanaford can still be found wheeling his familiar purple #30, a 1932 Ford flathead powered coupe, when NEAR rolls into Thunder Road every June.