Birthplace: Clovis, New Mexico

Current Residence: Lake Forest, California

Years with Budweiser King Racing: 26 Years

Other racing experience:  Began pro career in the late 1960s in Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars, and in 1973 reached the Funny Car finals at the NHRA Winternationals at Pomona, Calif.  Returned to racing in 1978, and a year later was the Funny Car winner at the NHRA Cajun Nationals at Baton Rouge, La.  In 1980, began an association with the Budweiser Brand of Anheuser-Busch, Inc., which today is the second longest such racer-sponsor alliance in motorsports history.  A four-time NHRA Winston Funny Car Champion, and also an IHRA Winston World Championship Funny Car crown to his credit, he is a six-time AARWBA Auto Racing All-American.  Bernstein earned the title “King of Speed” when he became the first NHRA driver to break the elusive 300 mile-per-hour barrier when he was clocked at 301.70 mph on March 20, 1992, during qualifying for the NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla., and the first to reach 310 mph, when he was clocked at 311.85 mph on October 30, 1994, at Pomona Calif.  Holds the unique distinction of being the first and only race team owner to have collected wins in each of America’s three major motorsports series -- NHRA Winston Drag Racing, NASCAR Winston Cup and IndyCar. Won the 1996 NHRA Winston Top Fuel Championship becoming the first driver to win NHRA championships in both Top Fuel and Funny Car.  Honored at the 1997 Car Craft awards banquet by receiving the prestigious Ollie Award with Dale Armstrong for all of their years of dedication to the sport of NHRA Winston Drag Racing.  Inducted into Petersen Publishing HOT ROD Magazine’s Hall of Fame as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People within the high performance industry.  Won his second NHRA Top Fuel championship in 2001, by virtue of eight national event wins.  In 2001, he reached twelve final rounds out of 24 events.  Setting an NHRA record for Top Fuel final round appearances.  He 2001 he set both ends of the world performance records, speed (332.18 mph) and elapsed time (4.477 seconds).  See career highlights and career wins for details. The 2002 season will mark Bernstein’s last as a driver and he pays tribute to his fans with the “Forever Red…..A Run to Remember” tour. 

Responsibilities: In addition to driving, handles fuel and parachute preparation, public relations, marketing and management.

Hobbies: Motorcycles, golf, and speed walking.

The avenue for success takes a willingness to strive for a higher objective.  In 1980, a young, headstrong Kenny Bernstein staked his opportunities of sponsorship from Anheuser-Busch, Inc and 20-years later he transformed it into a drag racing legacy.

  1999 commemorates the "King of Speed's" 20th anniversary of sponsorship from the Budweiser Brand on the NHRA Winston Drag Racing tour.  The kindred relationship that has developed between the corporate magnate of the "King of Beers" and the entrepreneurial businessman from Dallas has forged a foundation in motorsports resulting in five NHRA Winston Championships, 52 victories and numerous other racing-associated accolades. 

  The pattern for success was taught to Bernstein at an early age.  The benefits that he has been able to enjoy over the last 20 years from major corporate backing originate from his early learning of responsibilities and work ethic.  When he was only nine years old, Bernstein got the chance to work in the stock room of the Levine's department store which his father, Bert, managed in Lubbock, Texas.  It was one of the greatest thrills of his young life to successfully sell socks, three pairs for a dollar.  With each successful transaction, and there were many, the heady rush from a completed transaction took further hold.  And so, even at that tender age, there was no mistaking that young Kenny possessed the right mix of charisma and perseverance for a career in sales.

  Less than a decade later, other key Bernstein personality traits, like a fearless tenacity, were making themselves evident.  At a modest 5'7" and just 180 pounds, he routinely flattened opposing offensive players as a starting linebacker at Lubbock's Monterey High School.

  Just as he was not to allow size to deter him in contact sports, he also proved that he'd never let hard work stand between his desired goals.  Thus, by his mid-teens, the "workaholic" side of Bernstein emerged through a string of part-time and summer jobs that enabled him to bankroll his rapidly growing need for speed.  So, while most of his pals settled for old clunkers, he made the scene in a series of muscle cars performance modified into true hot rods.
 

  Bernstein's growing passion for high-performance cars eventually transferred itself from the highway to purpose-built dragsters competing on dozens of now defunct tracks.

  In the mid-1960s, Bernstein was majoring in business administration at Arlington State College (now the University of Texas at Arlington).  But unlike his fellow classmates, he kept a race-modified '53 Studebaker sitting on a trailer outside his room.... Ever since, business and racing have never been far apart in his life.

  "Even at that point, racing was already a big part of who I was," recalls Bernstein, "but there was no way I would've dreamed it could mean so much to my future."

  In order to keep his racing efforts afloat, he traded his college textbooks for a sales route and hit the long, lonely highways connecting Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee.   It was sell all week and race all weekend in an escalating scale of faster race cars which he funded by earnings from selling women's fashions.

  By 1970, the life of the traveling salesman gave way to Bernstein's ownership of the Dallas Wrecker Service, which grew from one truck to a fleet of nine.  In 1972, California drag racing crony Ray Alley did Bernstein a "favor" by giving him the use of a Dodge Charger Funny Car.  The racecar succeeded in little more than seducing Bernstein into the sale of his wrecker business. 

  Frustrated by his inability to be competitive with the top teams, Bernstein elected to wash his hands from racing in 1973.  He found a Lubbock shopping center that badly needed a restaurant and opened his first Chelsea Street Pub.  In typical Bernstein fashion, he aggressively pursued the business and in five years found himself with 16 Chelsea Street Pubs and 2,700 employees in five states.

  By 1978, Bernstein could no longer resist his racing urges.  He named his latest Funny Car after his restaurant's signature sandwich, the "Chelsea King", and returned to the quarter-mile tracks.

  Though he crashed twice in the early stages of his comeback, Bernstein finally got his first major rewards as a driver in 1979.  He won one NHRA national event, plus a pair of IHRA national events, which led to that series' Winston World Championship.

  An even more important development occurred that same year when the heads-up Bernstein parlayed a race event postponement into the Budweiser sponsorship that has been with him for now 20 years running.  When rain delayed the running of the NHRA Cajun Nationals at Baton Rouge, LA, he quickly concocted an opportunity for a sponsorship pitch to Anheuser-Busch management at their headquarters in St. Louis, MO.  He hustled his race transporter from Louisiana to Missouri to have his car and trailer proudly on display when the brewer's employees reported to work on Monday morning.

  Bernstein's bold maneuver, and the accompanying presentation, rewarded him with Budweiser sponsorship for the 1980 season, and the launch of the first "Budweiser King" Funny Car.   The Chelsea King Pubs were then sold, and the former restaurant magnate has been a full-time racer ever since.

  A key to Bernstein's future success took place in 1982 when he convinced fellow Funny Car driver Dale Armstrong to hang up his helmet and become the Budweiser King Crew Chief.  This decision proved to be a historic one, as Armstrong's talents as a mechanical innovator soon put Bernstein solidly ahead of his competition.

  On Labor Day weekend in 1983, Bernstein delivered an unmistakable message that he had arrived, both as an owner and a driver.  He raced the Budweiser King to victory in both the Big Bud Shootout and the U.S. Nationals, becoming the first driver to win a bonus race and its companion national event in the same weekend.  Bernstein and the Budweiser King continued on to become the most dominant force in Funny Car racing in the 1980s.  He closed the decade with 30 NHRA national event wins and four consecutive Winston Championships (1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988). 

  While he was busy pounding his Funny Car competition, Bernstein also used the mid-1980s to spawn a series of new ventures to further expand his motorsports horizons.  At one point, Bernstein simultaneously presided over a NASCAR Winston Cup team (King Racing), a sports marketing company (King Sports), an IndyCar team (King Motorsports, later renamed Budweiser King IndyCar Racing), and was partnered in King Racing Components, which handled the RacePak computer line that was instrumental in winning his consecutive drag racing championships.  Bernstein has since simplified his life by devoiding himself of those operations, but not before he became the first and only race team owner to field cars that have won races in America's three largest motorsports series -- NASCAR Winston Cup, NHRA Winston Drag Racing and IndyCar. 

  In 1990, Bernstein left the Funny Car category to try his hand at the sport's premier Top Fuel division.  One of Bernstein's most celebrated accomplishments took place on March 20, 1992, during qualifying for the NHRA Gatornationals.  On that date, the Budweiser King punched its way through the previously unexplored 300 mile-per-hour barrier, with a historic 301.70 mph blast that rocked the drag racing world!  Henceforth, heralded as the sport's "King of Speed", Bernstein supplied further credence to that title by becoming the first to break the 310 mph barrier (311.85 mph). 

  In October of 1996, Kenny Bernstein won the NHRA Top Fuel World Championship.  The title earns Bernstein a unique place in drag racing history as the first driver in the NHRA's 33-year history to win season championships in its two highest categories, Top Fuel (1996) and Funny Car (1985-88).  Thus giving Bernstein a new title as the first "Dual Fuel" champion. 

  In 1997, Bernstein won his first NHRA All-Star Winston Invitational at Rockingham Dragway and won two NHRA National Events at Atlanta, GA and Topeka, KS.  It also proved to be a transitional year for Bernstein and his Bud King team with the parting of longtime friend and crew chief, Dale Armstrong.  With Dale's departure, Bernstein gained new ground with the addition of the NHRA's all time winningest crew chief, Lee Beard.  Beard's role began in the later part of 1997 and continued into 1998 with which Bernstein added to his impressive victory total by posting wins at the Mac Tools Gatornationals in Gainesville, FL; the inaugural Route 66 Nationals in Chicago; the Pontiac Excitement Nationals in Columbus, OH and the season-ending Winston Finals at Pomona, CA, giving him his 52nd overall NHRA national event victory.  He also captured his second Winston Invitational, NHRA's All-Star event at Rockingham (N.C.) Dragway pocketing $100,000 for his efforts.  The "King of Speed" also clicked the clocks 10 times at over 320 mph with a career best of 322.42 mph in May at Englishtown, N.J.  Along with those enormous speeds comes bodily wear and tear in the form of G-forces in amounts normally reserved for astronauts and jet fighter pilots. On a typical run, the Budweiser King/Prolong dragster (and Bernstein) experiences approximately 5 G's on initial acceleration and a negative 5 G's as the car is slowed by its twin braking parachutes.  Bernstein improved his own elapsed time to 4.564 seconds at the Texas Motorplex in Dallas in the fall of 1998.  The "King of Speed" set the pace with low E.T. qualifiers at the Pennzoil Nationals at Richmond, VA and the Craftsman Nationals in St. Louis, MO.  Bernstein enters 1999 with 22 NHRA Top Fuel national event wins.

  A six-time Auto Racing All-American, voted by the members of the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Association (AARWBA), Bernstein has also served on the advisory panel to the National Motorsports Council of ACCUS (Automobile Competition Committee for the United States), with such racing luminaries as Roger Penske, Tony George and Bill France Jr., among others.  With a grueling racing schedule, plus an extensive list of sponsor personal appearance obligations, spare time is a commodity that Bernstein has precious little of.  Still, he tries to make time for what he enjoys most, including five miles of speed walking each morning, something he almost always squeezes in.  He has recently acquired another time-consuming passion -- golf, which, along with relaxing cruises on one of his several Harley-Davidson motorcycles, ranks as his primary escapes from an otherwise high stress lifestyle. 

  "I consider myself to be a lucky person in that I'm making a living doing what I love," said Bernstein.  "The demands on my time and energy are enormous, but somehow those short moments behind the wheel have always made it worthwhile."