THOMPSON, OHIO, an hour's drive east of Cleveland, is the self-proclaimed Thunder Capital, but you wouldn't know it by the quiet central park where a plaque notes the birthplace of Charles M. Hall, developer of modern aluminum. Rather, the nickname comes from the far edge of town, where two parallel strips of burnt rubber blacktop comprise the Thompson Motor Raceway.

On a cloudless weekend this past July, the Raceway held its Gasser Nostalgia Reunion, a quarter-mile time-trial competition for older street cars with high-horsepower engines. Rainbow-painted Corvettes revved while the songs of Fats Domino and the Big Bopper blasted from the grandstand loudspeakers. Just beyond the burnout box sat a black '52 Chevy two-door hardtop, a mustachioed man in timeworn leathers behind the wheel. Along its side, immaculate art deco lettering let everyone know the driver was National Hot Rod Association 1964-67 record holder Gene Schwartz.

Schwartz is a Cleveland classic. He's in his fourth decade playing bass with blues legend Robert Lockwood, Jr., while the Schwartz Brothers — a showcase for the unhinged electric testament of his singer-guitarist brother Glenn — has been a longtime draw at Major Hoopple's. But Gene's notoriety originally came in the automotive world, when as a teenager, he won the 1966 National Championship Drag Races at Indianapolis. The two-foot tall trophy still sits on the oil-stained carpet in his Euclid garage.

At Thompson, a small coterie of Schwartz's buddies circle his Chevy, looking concerned. “He might have too much engine for that car,” says Jerry Kernz, Schwartz's friend since junior high. “As long as it's coming straight off the line, the front end can come six inches off the ground. But when it comes three feet off, the back bumper's almost hitting. But Gene's a natural — he'll fix the problem. It looks like he never got outta that seat from 40 years ago.”

“You're never done with a car, but now I've got it where I want it,” Schwartz says as he tinkers with the Chevy at home, a few weeks after his subsequent victory at Thompson. He's visibly pleased to be driving again. “In 1970, I took my hands off the steering wheel and put them on the bass. I was done racing. But a couple years ago, my friend Eric Rath painted his Chevy in tribute to my original. When I saw it, it got me thinking I should do one again myself.”

For a year and a half, Schwartz painstakingly reconstructed his original '52 Chevy in his residential garage. “Some of the parts are actually from the car that held the record from '64 to '67. I put an ad out, and a guy who had the original gauges sent them to me.”

Schwartz's current car has many ties to his masterful past. The side lettering, then and now, was done by David G. Meal. In the '60s Schwartz drove for the Speed Specialties team, run by Joe “Mr. Gasket” Hrudka and Sam Gellner. Gellner's son Dean helps maintain the car's harmonic balancing today.

“This car is not an automatic,” Schwartz says in his uncut Cleveland accent. “It's a 5-speed with a Hutter motor. I use the clutch to shift it, but people say I shift so fast it sounds like an automatic. I was known for that back in the heyday when we raced 6-cylinders in the street with three speeds.”

At the same time young Schwartz was a prodigal drag racer, brother Glenn was Cleveland's premier guitar whiz. “I've got recordings of the James Gang when Glenn was still in the group,” Schwartz says. “November 16 and 17, 1967 at the North Ridgeville Hullabaloo and a bar by the airport called It's Boss. Back then, Joe Walsh was in a group called the Measles. He was always up front at James Gang gigs, and he'd come over to our house and Glenn would show him licks. Glenn is Joe's guru, Joe will tell you that.”

On a recent Thursday night at Major Hoopple's, burger-eating regulars clink Buds, while over by the skee-ball machine, Gene sits on his amplifier playing a descending bass line, his wide-brimmed Amish hat tipped over his face, a young drummer battering out a shuffle beside him. At the front stands rail-thin Glenn, sweat soaking his denim suit as he rends feverish gems from the bottomless well where his soul and his guitar come together. The song stops and Glenn grabs the microphone: “America, America, full of junk mail, junk people and junk food, high-speed chases and drive-by shootings, churches marrying men to men and women to women. We've got enough handguns to reach the moon and enough lawyers to go to hell and back. Revel in society's urine, creeps!” Witness this, and you've been Schwartzed.

Schwartz's other long-running gig is with Robert Lockwood, Jr., the Akransas-born bluesman who'll turn 90 next year. Lockwood's full group has a weekly residency at Fat Fish Blue, while Lockwood and Schwartz will perform as a duo at their upcoming annual Beachland show. “I met Robert in 1970 at 102nd and St. Clair,” remembers Schwartz. “His horn player was playing bass, so I brought down my bass and sat in. We went on the road and I played for free for eight months. Then one night at Miami University in Florida, Robert said, ‘Son, I'm-a have to start paying you.'”

Schwartz offers another anecdote from his years with Lockwood: “Back around 1980, we were playing at Red Creek in Rochester, New York. Bob Dylan was in Rochester that night, and he came to see us. About a month later, Dylan invited us to his show in Cleveland at the Coliseum. We were the first ones in his dressing room afterwards, and when we walked in, Dylan had a Bible open on the table. That's when he became born again.”

Asked if he himself feels born again behind the wheel these days, Schwartz hesitates, then smiles.

“Let's just say I'm back and better than ever.”