In Gratitude: Roddy Moore

In Gratitude: Roddy Moore

Co-curator, Virginia Folklife Area
Ferrum, Virginia

The Virginia Folklife Program at Virginia Humanities would like to express our deep gratitude to Roddy Moore, recently retired director of the Blue Ridge Institute and Museum at Ferrum College for his immeasurable assistance with the Folklife Demonstration Area at this year’s Richmond Folk Festival. Roddy is unquestionably the preeminent authority on Virginia’s car culture, as well as so many other aspects of Virginia’s traditional culture. Roddy’s contributions to the preservation, documentation, presentation, and vibrancy of the folk traditions of the Blue Ridge region have transformed lives and impacted communities in the area and beyond. He has long been an invaluable resource and contributor to the field of folklife, and a relentless advocate for the folk traditions and their faithful practitioners that we so cherish.

Jack Harris

Jack Harris

Custom Metal Work
Salem, Virginia

Originally from Norfolk, Virginia, Jack Harris’s lifelong love affair with automobiles began when he saw his first drag cars in Southern California, where his father was stationed for several years during Jack’s childhood. “I just have always been kind of obsessed with cars,” Jack says. “So for the first years of my life I took to building models of cars, planes, whatever I could get my hands on.” The Harris’s moved back to Virginia in 1968, when Jack was in his early teens. His mother rented their family garage in Salem to local master hot rod rigger Douglas “Leo” Derocher, who was building a “T-Bucket”—a highly modified version of a 1923 T Model Ford. In the countless hours that he watched and helped Derocher build the T-Bucket, Jack developed many of the first skills he would perfect throughout his lifetime. 

Anthony Kent Writtenberry

Anthony Kent Writtenberry

Autobody Metal Work and Custom Restoration
Gasburg, VA

Kent Writtenberry owns and operates Kentz Kustomz, a full-service custom auto and restoration shop in Gasburg, Virginia, on the same plot of land where he was born and raised. It was here that his father, Robert Writtenberry, once owned a used car lot and general store. “All the street racers and drag racers used to hang out at my daddy’s store,” Kent recalls. “They’d work on their cars, then race them up on Eaton Ferry Bridge on Saturday night.” As a young boy, Kent would hang around as the men worked on the racers’ bodies and under their hoods, absorbing all he could. “First I’d be their gopher, holding wrenches, whatever they needed, but I learned quick. By the time I was 10 years old, I could take a motor out of a car and put it back.”

Marty Martino

Marty Martino

Custom Auto Design and Shaping
Gum Springs, Virginia

Marty Martino grew up in the 1950s in Richmond’s West End, and like so many other car fanatics, his fascination was already at fever pitch while still a toddler. “This was really the golden age for automobile design,” Marty reflects. “They were all just gleaming, so forward-looking. They looked like the future.”  At three years old, his mother asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he told her that he intended to be a car designer.

Team Vibrant Performance – Burton Center for Arts and Technology Motor Sports Team

Team Vibrant Performance – Burton Center for Arts and Technology Motor Sports Team

Chris Overfelt, Coach
Engine Assembly and Disassembly
Salem, Virginia

How much time would it take a small group of high school students to completely disassemble and reassemble a 350 small block Chevy engine, using only hand tools? Would you believe 16 minutes, 47 seconds? This was the world record time set by Team Vibrant Performance of the Burton Center for Arts and Technology (BCAT) of Salem, Virginia, at the 2018 Hot Rodders of Tomorrow National Championship in Indianapolis. It was the third title in the last 5 years for the innovative Motor Sports Program at the multi-disciplinary arts and technology program serving the 4 high schools of the Roanoke Valley Public Schools, led by the program’s founder and coach Chris Overfelt.

Tom Van Nortwick

Tom Van Nortwick

Automobile Pinstriping
Henry, Virginia

Tom Van Nortwick of Franklin County is Virginia’s master of pinstriping, the precise application of a thin line of paint to create designs on auto body panels. Tom grew up in the mid-1950s around hot rod auto riggers and played around his neighbor’s race car. He saw his first auto races during visits to his father, a mechanic and artist living in California. It was on these visits that Tom first saw the designs of Kenny Howard, also known as “Von Dutch” and generally considered the founding father of pinstriping.