Holley National Hot Rod Reunion grand marshal Eileen Daniels poses for a picture Thursday on the track at Beech Bend Raceway Park. Daniels is back in town for the 15th annual event that she helped found with her late husband, Bob Daniels, in 1997.

Eileen Daniels has worked tirelessly over the years to ensure that Beech Bend Raceway would continue to offer spectators and drivers a glimpse of drag racing history.

Daniels, who together with her late husband, Bob, helped put together the very first Holley National Hot Rod Reunion at Beech Bend, is back in town this weekend to serve as grand marshal for the 15th annual edition of the event that showcases nostalgia racing on a track virtually built for the purpose.

“I love this facility,” Daniels said. “It’s perfect for this type of event, a nostalgia event with the history of the cars that are here and all that. The green grass and the trees, the rolling hills of Kentucky is just the perfect facility for what we’re doing here.”

Daniels has had decades to form that opinion of Beech Bend since first laying eyes on the track in 1960. That’s when she and her husband began organizing events for NHRA at the track, with Bob Daniels serving as the NHRA Division 3 director and Eileen working as his partner. Before that, the Daniels’ were both drag racers based in Ohio.

“We were just low-dollar racers, but working full-time jobs and all that,” Daniels said. “We raced mostly up in Indiana. We lived in Marysville, Ohio, and we would go to Indianapolis to a place called Stout Field, which was an old airport, once a month to run. Then there were just little racetracks around central Ohio, and that’s where we’d run.”

In 1959, Bob Daniels won the 1959 Nationals in Detroit and set a new class speed record. Soon after, NHRA founder Wally Parks offered them jobs to work for NHRA. They never left.

Bob Daniels played a major role in the design and building of Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis, which became home to the U.S. Nationals in 1961, and became general manager of the track in 1979. Eileen worked alongside her husband, handling much of the administrative and hospitality duties.

That partnership continued on into their Florida retirement, as the couple worked with the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum to organize the first Holley National Hot Rod Reunion at Beech Bend in 1997.

“This is what we call a nostalgia track because the current ones are big, thousands of seats, three and four and five story towers with bunches of suites and all that,” Daniels said. “But for people who’ve been around as long as I have, they like this. Everybody’s having a good time, it brings back wonderful memories, it brings back people who were involved in the sport years ago and they all gather here.

“And that’s why they call it a reunion.”

Bob Daniels died in 2007, but Eileen has stayed active as a consultant for NHRA. Based out of her home office in Leesburg, Fla., Daniels still helps organize an annual show at Indianapolis Raceway Park over Labor Day weekend, the Gator Nationals in March held in Gainesville, Fla., and of course the Hot Rod Reunion at Beech Bend. Eileen Daniels said she’s never missed an NHRA event she took a part in organizing since 1960.

Daniels saw much of Beech Bend’s history first-hand since joining NHRA full-time in 1960. She met Beech Bend founder Charles Garvin on her first trip to Bowling Green, and along with her husband helped to spearhead improvements to the track over the years.

“We worked with Charlie Garvin,” Daniels said. “We have some wild stories about that man and his animals getting out of his zoo and getting loose in his house and all that, swinging from the curtain rods. We started putting together a series of races in the division, and this was one of them.”

In January, Daniels received the annual Patricia Garlits Memorial Award, given to honor a woman involved in drag racing who has “exhibited a lifetime of selfless devotion to the growth and betterment of the sport.”

This weekend, Daniels was hard at work ensuring the latest edition of the Hot Rod Reunion would be a success even as she’s enjoyed a bit of extra attention as the grand marshal.

“They keep coming back, and they’re here to see me this weekend – which is wonderful,” Daniels said. “I love this facility and I love this event. And it’s going to continue to grow.”