Twenty years ago Bill New wanted to create an award that would recognize one person from the Professional ranks every year for their dedication and support of Firebird and more specifically, the Nightfire 
Nationals. The award is known as the Jaker Allstar.
During the 2023 edition of the Nightfire, we recognized Canadian Tim Boychuk, right, as the 20th Jaker honoree pictured with Firebird’s Scott New.
Today the New family recognizes three Hall of Fame type awards each year including the:
- Racemaster – presented at the Awards Banquet
- Master-Builder – presented during the Boise Roadster Show
- Jaker – presented traditionally at the Nightfire Nationals
The name of this award was created to reflect back on the heritage behind the New family. Several generations back Bill’s great Uncle was Jake New. He was a real inspiration to Firebird’s founding father Bill New when he was raised in the southern Arizona mining community of Bisbee.
As the story goes, Uncle Jake was hard working, very dedicated to his family and job and always had a good attitude and demeanor when it came to life in general. This left an indelible mark with Bill at a young age and he always wanted to convey his appreciation to one person every year for their commitment and enthusiasm about what the NIghtfire is all about. He felt drawing upon the New family namesake from the pioneer days shortly after the turn of the century would add greater significance to this special recognition merit. In turn, the award became known as the Jaker.
All together, we have now acknowledged twenty different Professional racers who have helped to carry the torch for what Firebird represents in the world of Drag Racing. To each, we say thank you from every member of the New family who have continued operating the facility since its beginning (which dates back to 1968).
Former Jaker Allstar recipients:
2003
Mack McCord
2004
Mousie Marcellus
2005
Jack Harris
2006
Jim Murphy
2007
Lyle Mason
2008
Bucky Austin
2009
Richard Smith
2010
Dennis Radford
2011
Twig Zeigler
2012
Ed Jones
2013
Wayne Torkelson Jr. and John Scialpi
2014
Bob McLennan
2015
Roland Leong
2016
Dale Pulde
2017
Mike Sullivan
2018
Kirk Kuhns
2019
Mike Fuller
2021
Johnny West
2022
Randy Bradford
2023
Tim Boychuk, pictured
