Flashback Friday: The “Bear Town Shaker” Then And Now

The nostalgia drag racing movement – and the Funny Car category in particular – has paved the way for a number of classic names and namesakes to make their return to the limelight, and yet another is on its way back to the track, albeit in a slightly more modern form that the original.

Rosemount, Minn. native Brian Stewart is hard at work preparing an all-new “Bear Town Shaker” AA/FC featuring a Mustang II body carrying the original namesake of the 1970’s, that will be tuned by Jerry Newman.

The original Bear Town Shaker – or Shakers we should say – first came onto the scene in 1970, when longtime racer left the Top Fuel ranks to drive the “White Bear Dodge” flopper. This was the first of a number “White Bear Dodge” entries that existed, with trailer builder Bill Schifsky both owning the entries at different times. The early “Bear Town” entries were painted in solid colors, while the Hoover-owned entries featured candy colors that became a staple of the Minnesota natives’ race cars. In 1974, Hoover and the “White Bear Dodge” team split up and the first of a long line of “Showtime” entries came to be.

The “Bear Town Shaker” name was derived from the hometown of Schifsky – white Bear Lake, Minn. – a suburb of the Twin Cities.

Schifsky campaigned additional “Bear Town Shaker” machines in the mid to late 1970’s, with Topper Kramer and later Rick Johnson doing the driving, with the team regarded as one of the mid-west’s top match racers. At the 1976 World Finals in Ontario, the Johnson-driven machine exploded the supercharger, destroying the body that actually features the paint scheme that Stewart is modeling his new creation after. In the summer of 1977, the “Bear Town Shaker” was destroyed at a match race in Canada and the team returned with a red, white, and blue scheme for the 1978-80 seasons; Shifsky believing the new look might bring some better luck.