It all started when Frank Bradley bought his first car, 1947 Woody station wagon he paid a mere $65 for in 1958.

That’s when Bradley got the itch, the itch to start drag racing. He traded the wagon for a roadster and, after toying with his everyday car for a couple of years, came to the realization that he needed to build his own dragster. In 1963, he did just that and began his professional career.

Forty-nine years after he bought his first car, he was inducted into the National Hot Rod Association Hall of Fame on Thursday in Gainesville, Fla., just four days before his 65th birthday.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Bradley said of his induction. “I understand there’s a sellout crowd. It’s a pretty big deal. It wasn’t really in the 60s and 70s; I had no idea drag racing would get this big. And right now it’s huge.”

Bradley was born and raised in Napa and lived there until 1987, when he moved to Southern California for a year before relocating to his current hometown of Santa Rosa. He graduated from Napa High in 1960.

On top of his 24 combined wins between American Hot Rod Association and NHRA events, Bradley was the 10th driver to become a member of the prestigious four-second club. On Oct. 26, 1989, he powered his Top Fuel dragster down the quarter-mile in just 4.998 seconds at the World Finals in Pomona, Calif.

In 1988, Bradley broke the NHRA National Performance record for speed when he topped out at 286.71 mph in Gainesville, Fla., breaking Eddie Hill’s standard of 285.98 mph.

Bradley said he stuck with Top Fuel because it was the fastest division out there.

“That’s what I liked,” he said. “It was the ultimate. The 60s and 70s was probably the best years in drag racing. You could have a lot of fun doing it.”

He won the AHRA Championship three times. The series, known as the birthplace of professional drag racing, only lasted 28 years before ending in 1984. Many of those years, Bradley raced in both series. He notched 10 Top-10 finishes in NHRA points, his highest coming in 1976 when he was second behind Richard Tharp.

Bradley won twice at Pomona. The first came in 1976 and the second, his final win as a driver, came in 1991 at the season’s first race. He also picked up a win in 1989 at Sonoma’s track, known then as Sears Point Raceway.

“I was at the ground-breaking ceremony when they first broke dirt there (in August 1968),” Bradley said of what is known today as Infineon Raceway. “That was kind of nice. We towed the dragster out on the hill, then they took the hills out. It was quite a ceremony. It was hard to imagine there was going to be a race track there. It’s a beautiful facility. It’s one of the nicer facilities.”

“My favorite track was probably Pomona. It was always a big race. My second was Sears Point; I don’t know if that was because it was in my backyard or what.”

Bradley raced for himself until 1991, during a career that spanned four decades, then became involved outside of the car for the next five years before he threw in the towel for good. He was a crew chief for such notable drivers as Connie Kalitta.

“In 1991, I was running out of sponsorship money and I wasn’t about to spend my money on the thing,” Bradley said. “I had enough money to retire on. I was just totally going to retire, then people starting calling me to put their racing organizations together. The first person who called was Connie Kalitta.”

Bradley and Kalitta didn’t see eye to eye on enough issues and said their goodbyes, though they have remained friends. Over the next four years, Bradley worked with Roger Primm, Shelly Anderson and Australian Rachelle Splatt.

As Splatt’s crew chief, Bradley helped her become the 16th and final member of the Slick 50 300-mph club. She is the only female in that club after running 300.00 mph at Houston in 1994.

A year later, Bradley got tired of all the traveling and wanted to spend his time doing other things, such as riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle, fishing and “just screwing off in general.”

Bradley’s been retired for 11 years but admits he misses going to the track — though not just the racing part of it. He enjoyed the mechanics of racing as much as he did sitting behind the wheel. He said that was the hardest part about racing and where he faced the most challenges.

“It evolved over the last 35 years,” Bradley said about drag racing. “Everything got bigger and more expensive and faster. That’s what it kept doing the whole time.”

He added that he’s not sure if all the changes, modifications and added money necessary to be a top competitor are for the better.

“When it started off, two guys could go racing with a top fuel and have some fun,” he said. “It takes longer to maintain the motor in between runs now. There’s more stuff you have to carry. It went from a two-man crew to eight-man crews. The average guy can’t do it anymore. To be competitive it takes almost $3 million to run one of these things.”

Bradley still heads out to Infineon in June and July for the NASCAR Nextel Cup race and NHRA drag races, but admits he’s not the best spectator.

“I have to be in control of the thing,” he admitted. “That’s why I did so well with my own car. I built the engines, I drove them — kind of like Frank Sinatra, I did it my way. Pretty much my whole life that’s what I’ve done. It really has worked out.”