I have a story for you (I actually wrote this in 2008) and it doesn't really have much to do with drag racing, per se, but it tells a little about me and a lot about racing history, especially where I come from…which is really where almost all round track racing came from. No one in drag racing ever bothered to ask me where I came from, what my credentials were, where did I get my knowledge (just where the hell did I get off thinking I knew something about racing! HA! Read on…) Don't get discouraged and stop reading because if you read the whole thing, you'll be going, "Gee whiz!" when you finish.
I grew up in a little one horse, one stoplight town…Boonville, NC… my father's family, the Woodruffs, came there in the 1800s. For the first five years of my life, I lived in a dinky little two-family house on Woodruff Road (remember the name of this road as you read). Many, many family members lived near by and we were farmers (I am still a farmer at heart) and our lives were pretty much ruled by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and one of the major milk processors, I don't remember which.
When I was five, we moved about a quarter mile off the dirt to just across the highway where Woodruff Road ended (one end of it anyway). We were only a mile out of town, but it wasn't much of a town and even our school days were governed by the need for kids to work on the farm, especially in tobacco. Only five houses away from our house was a garage, a fairly large garage by the standards of those days. No, I ain't telling you the years, at least not exactly! The name of this garage was Steelman Motor Company. The garage was started by Frank Steelman Sr and they fixed everyone's cars around who didn't fix their own, they fixed all kinds of farm tractors and other farm equipment AND…when the JUNIOR Frank Steelman got to be the age of legal driving…they built race cars. So if y'all have ever wondered why I've always LOVED race cars, the fact that I lived so close to this particular garage was probably the major reason.
One of our coaches and physical education teachers when I was in school was Mr. Bob Crissman, who was pretty much a local 'boy.' When he decided to quit teaching, he went to work for The Enterprise, a local newspaper. He also worked for the Elkin Tribune for a time. While I was going through some old stuff a few nights ago, I came across the 1984 3rd Annual Summer Racing Preview from The Enterprise. It was written by Bob Crissman. On the cover of this publication was a photo of Shorty York, N.C. # 9 from Boonville, NC with Steelman Motor Company on the quarter panel of their dirt track 1939 Ford with a flathead engine built by Frank Steelman, Jr (everyone just called him Frank Junior! He built the car and the engine).
On page 2, where the information is given about the photo, it also says this: "Another of his (Steelman's) cars, a 1937 Ford with a 292 engine, was driven by Ken Rush to a season championship at Bowman Gray Stadium (Winston-Salem, NC). Steelman's other drivers included Grand National greats Curtis Turner, Ned Jarrett, Bobby Isaacs and Ralph Earnhardt, father of Dale Earnhardt.
Also on page 2 was a column actually written by Junior Johnson titled Bonnett, Waltrip compete against each other. That is not the article I am going to reprint here, but I will reprint the first paragraph…"I am writing this racing column for Bob and The Enterprise right before the qualifying for the Atlanta race. So, I don't know at this point in time what the future holds in store for the Johnson-Hodgdon Racing Team in the Coca-Cola 500. (How many of you drag racers remember Warner Hodgdon's involvement in drag racing?)
Okay, on to the subject of this story. On page 10 of this special addition to The Enterprise, there was a story entitled: Steelman recalls dirt track battles by Bob Crissman and I am reprinting it here….
"It was a time of racing like we will never see again. A time when everybody drove dirt tracks, even the big name drivers. A time of rip-roaring, fender-bumping, smashups and chain-reaction wrecks."
"Speaking was Boonville's Frank Junior Steelman who still operates his shop on Hwy. 67 where his dad ran it before he did. And a shop where some thirty to forty race cars were built over a 14-year span. They were built, primarily, to run on dirt tracks of the Forties and Fifties, before the days of the asphalt speedway. And where cars were built for racing and driven by some of the biggest names in racing of yesteryear in the early days of a sport which is being currently revived. But one which, from 1940 until 1948, flourished throughout the Carolinas like the proverbial green bay tree.
"In the 14 years I was in racing, we had some of the roughest, but the best drivers in the land," recalled Steelman at his Boonville garage and shop. "Our pit crew and mechanics were tops, too. They were Ralph Garner of Winston-Salem and my brother David Steelman. "Bobby Isaacs was my main driver," said Steelman. He came from over near Hickory, the Newton-Conover section.
"But I had a lot of other good drivers and we would race almost anywhere on the eastern seaboard: Richmond, VA Fairgrounds, back when it was dirt; Atlanta-The Lakewood Speedway; Knoxville, TN; Spartanburg, SC; Myrtle Beach, SC; Charlotte Fairgrounds; Hickory Speedway; North Wilkesboro Speedway; Bowman Gray in Winston-Salem; Concord, NC; South Boston, VA; Greensboro Fairgrounds; Asheville-Weaverville; Hillsboro; you name it. Bowman Gray was the only paved track. (Ed. Note: There was NO Charlotte Motor Speedway then.)
"We even went up to New York and raced," recalled Frank Junior. He smiled. "Our drivers were nearly all country boys from the south. They showed those Yankees how it was done!" He continued, "My dad built a 1939 Ford Coupe for Curtis Turner to drive at South Boston, VA. "You have heard of most all of our drivers. We had Pee Wee Jones, Ned Jarrett, Ken Rush, Ralph Earnhardt (Dale's dad), Curtis Turner, Bobby Isaacs, Shorty York: a lot of them won. Our main driver, I'd say, was Bobby Isaacs.
"About the only asphalt we ever raced on then was Bowman Gray. Ken Rush of High Point drove our car there at the stadium. It was a 1936 Chevy with a 427 Ford engine. Ken won the championship at Bowman Gray that year. There were no sponsors back then," recalled Steelman. "Of course, tires, paint, parts and equipment weren't nearly as high as nowadays and it didn't cost much to keep a car running.
Frank Junior recalled his first race. He had built the car, a '37 Ford. "Shorty York drove it for me at the old High Point dirt track. I don't think we won, but Shorty finished well up front. He was always in the thick of it." One of Steelman's racing career highlights came with the last race held on dirt at Hickory Speedway. "Bobby Isaacs drove my car and won," said Frank Junior grinning. Junior Johnson was driving for Ralph Earnhardt. He came in second. And that didn't happen very often." (There's a photo of Curtis Turner and Frank Junior beside the car Curtis drove for Frank in the early fifties.) (Note by Becky: They still run the Bobby Isaacs Memorial Race every year on Labor Day weekend at Hickory Motor Speedway.)
In this same publication, there is a photo of Buck and Buddy Baker with their car, Jonesville's Barney Hall, who was the MRN anchor man at the time, Richard and Lee Petty, Linda Hurst, Tim and Fonty Flock (remember them from the fifties?) and, of course, Junior Johnson. There is also a really neat Budweiser ad on the back of the publication. There was an article about Farmington Dragway's 22nd year with a photo of Wayne Dollyhigh's Corvette and an ad for Farmington Dragway.
Want to know where I got my interest in racing? Well, here it is folks. But that isn't all. Woodruff Road was a dirt road less than a quarter mile from Frank Junior's shop. What a perfect place to test dirt track race cars, the only difference being they weren't making left turns on a quarter mile track so they could really let 'em out! One of my mother's biggest complaints was about the red dirt on her white house! And where did I sneak off to every chance I got? You got it. Got any idea how many times I got switched with a keen little hickory branch all the way back to my house? My legs pretty much looked like I'd been in the briar patch with Br'er Rabbit most of the time. But it was worth it!
How many of you can say you KNEW ALL THESE GUYS? I met every one of them. From the time I was about eight, I was a fender lizard. Sometimes, they would even hand me a wrench or a screwdriver! I loved it. Before then, I was driving tractors and trucks on the farm. I loved to see those cars go flying up that dirt road. Of course, you could only see them when they first hit the dirt, then they were obscured in that cloud of red clay dust. But just to hear the sound of those engines was the most thrilling thing about living in the country working on the farm and slipping off to get closer and closer and learn more and more.
The pay us kids got for working in tobacco (in place of slaves), other than room and board and food and clothes and all that stuff, was to load up in my uncle Sam's Ford farm truck on Saturday night for our weekly trip to Bowman Gray Stadium and since my uncles and the Steelmans grew up together and worked on the farm equipment together and were friends, they were always welcome in the pits at the races. Things were definitely different then.
By the time I started dating, I knew how to change spark plugs and that was about all they would ever really let me do, but during my teen years. While the other girls sat about in the house with the old ladies, guess who was out under the shade tree with her head stuck up under a hood? For those of you who don't know, I do have a diploma in auto mechanics from Rowan Tech in Salisbury, NC (which is now Rowan-Cabarrus Community College) and I taught several extension classes in Auto Mechanics for Davidson Community College in the mid '70s.
When I found that old paper and read that stuff, a flood of memories came back to me so strong, it put tears in my eyes. Many of those guys are gone now. But the impression they all left on me will be with me until I'm gone. The town of Boonville was in Yadkin County. Yadkin County shared their borders with Wilkes County; at that time, Wilkes County was the 'Moonshine Capital of the World' and basically, the place where round track racing got its start. Round track racing came from the moonshine runners and a track was built for them to compete against each other…North Wilkesboro Speedway, the first round track anywhere around the area. The movie Thunder Road was filmed practically in our back yards. Guys like those already written about here as well as Benny Parsons and many others were already legends (some simply because they were so good at eluding the law!) by the time I was a teenager but they were always accessible to any of us. We could go to their shops (as long as we didn't go too often or stay too long). I may write more about that moonshine later…that is part of my history, too.
It is odd that I never cared anything about round track racing, I still don't. I always thought it was boring (I still do)…just to sit and watch cars go around and around and around was to me, well, I won't say. I think that's why I always enjoyed drag racing so much. There's SO MUCH going on, all the time. I have photos of all three of my girls before they were six months old at Farmington Dragway! Teresa was born the year Farmington (Sportsman Park Dragstrip) opened…1963.
But whether it's drag racing or roundy round, it's the people that make it, not the cars or the direction in which they're going. And I had some of the BEST people in the whole world to look up to when I was a kid…they are all my heroes, if for no other reason than that they let me hang around and ask questions and get in their way. They always were good to me and answered my questions even though I bugged the hell out of them. They even let me stand right beside their cars when they cranked them up. It's miracle I'm not even more deaf than I am! I just wanted to let y'all know why I've loved you all so much all my life! STILL Drag Racing's MOST Dedicated Fan! Becky
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
My First Trip to 'Thunder Valley'
For years I had heard all the stories about THUNDER VALLEY DRAGWAY, the dragway between the mountains where the sound of power echoed and reverberated around and around until it was deafening. For someone like me, someone who was always crazy about cars and, especially drag racing, that sounded like a place I would love to be! But for years I was either pregnant and barefoot or struggling so hard to feed my girls, there was no money to do such things. My first ever trip to a national event was to Rockingham Dragway but that was like going nowhere compared to that first trip to Bristol Dragway. I managed to take my girls to Rockingham in1973, of course we had to take our own food and sleep in the car but, we got to go.
That trip just made my love affair with drag racing, fast cars and mega motors even worse! I have a photo of Mendy standing at the fence on the 'spectator' side watching the dragsters get pushed down the track to crank them and get pushed back to the starting line! I never had to sit on the spectator side but one other time, it was boring to me…just sitting and watching! I wanted to be where the real action was…in the pits. We drove the same car to Rockingham I drag raced at my home track…Farmington Dragway…a 1967 Dodge Coronet 440 convertible, which by the way, I recently, FINALLY sold! (Farmington opened in 1963, the year my daughter Teresa was born and I have photos of all three of my girls there before they were six months old!)
Boy, things changed so fast in drag racing over the next few years, it was impossible to keep up. I couldn't afford to go to the drag races, but I DID manage to see Don Carlton and Lee Edwards' last match race…May 2, 1975 at Farmington. I met the man who had been my hero for many years. Don was an anomaly in our sport. There had never been anyone like him before and never has been since. I thank God I was able to spend several hours with him then because he was a busy man and I never got to talk to him again (he may have been glad of that since I asked him a least a million questions). But, in 1979, I went to work for Farmington Dragway, doing their P.R. and writing race reports for the local weekly wipe…the Davie County Enterprise. They were an IHRA track so I also got lots of stuff printed in the Drag Review, which as we all know was/is IHRA's house organ.
One of the stories I wrote for the IHRA paper was about Danny and John Shortridge and the TCI team. For those of you who don't remember, TCI stood for Torque Converters, Inc. in Ashland, MS…thanks Bill…the premier torque converter company at that time. That was in 1980 (before QTRN). Well, Bill Taylor, TCI owner and Danny and his bunch were so happy with the story, they sent us four FREE passes to the IHRA SummerNationals at Thunder Valley Dragway. Hell, I didn't have any money, I didn't know how I would ever get up enough money for gas, etc. The girls wanted to go, too, because they had become friends with all the young folks in the sport…Dean Sox, Kurt Johnson and the Denton twins to name just a few.
We busted our butts rounding up money. We still had to take our own food, but I wasn't about to sleep in the car up there. I didn't have a credit card so I couldn't even make a reservation anywhere and I wasn't sure we were going to get to go anyway since IHRA owner Larry Carrier said I couldn't get in on a TCI pass. I don't know why, but that man got the red @$$ at me from the gitgo! I think he thought a woman didn't have any business doing what I was doing…he didn't have enough sense to realize how good I was for the sport. (I guess I was in good company…he also hated Shirley Muldowny!) I not only had a story printed in the Enterprise EVERY week, I sent stories to every paper within 300 miles of Farmington, most were small papers, but large papers, too…like the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel. I did individual stories on all winners and runners up and sent them to their hometown papers, like the Bull City Bugle in Stuart, VA and so many others. Sometimes even when Farmington didn't even get to race, I still wrote a story for the paper! (I have scrapbooks full of that stuff!) I did learn, as the years passed, Larry Carrier was intimidated by anyone who was his intellectual superior, especially women.
This was in the great days of drag racing when we had WINSTON DRAG RACING. I always said R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company ruled my life one way or another from birth until I was in my 40s…I was born and raised on a tobacco farm not far from the company and when I got off the farm, I dealt with them in drag racing. I worked with Jeff Byrd and the folks at Reynolds for the three years I worked at Farmington (yes, the same Jeff Byrd who is the President of Bristol Motor Speedway even now). So, I called Jeff and told him what was going on and he sent me four Winston Drag Racing passes. When I got to Bristol, no one said a word and I went right on in…for three glorious, wonderful days! I'm probably the only person in the history of drag racing who had to have TWO sets of tickets to get in one race!!! My beginnings were NOT easy!
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. We still had to get money to go (It's a damn good thing gas was a lot cheaper then than it is now!!!) Norman wasn't paying me anything to work for the track, it was just a deal we made so I didn't have to pay to get into the races, so…no money there. I ran a garage and we really struggled, if I had enough work, the girls would help after school. We did just about anything…mainly car detailing, but I did a lot of mechanic work and body work and painting…anything to keep us fed and clothed. I even cleaned saddles and leatherwork for the local horsey folks! It just so happened I had a whole car to paint with very little bodywork so that was good money, I also had a Hemi charger I was helping a guy with and I managed to round up several complete detailing jobs. The girls even borrowed on their $5 a week allowance from their grandma!!! Anyway, we scraped up enough money to go to Thunder Valley. We were SO excited!
We only had two things to worry about…a place to stay when we got there and getting there. I had a '65 Impala (we called it an 'antelope') with a 327/300 with a Carter AFB 4-bbl that was just starting to cruise at 120. It wasn't the engine I was worried about…it was everything else. That car was absolutely falling apart! You could NOT ride very far in it with the windows rolled up…you'd simply pass out from the fumes. There were so many holes in the floorboard, your feet would get wet in a hard rain! We even scooped snow up in the floor one time going to granny's for Christmas! But, what the hell…we were going to Bristol! We had not heard top fuel cars since 1974! Alcohol, yes, T/F no.
Hwy 421 to Hwy 321…if you haven't done that ride, you missed a lot of driving. Those roads were so crooked, the racers would go I-77 to I-81 just to stay off those roads. Dee Greer told me when she and Shirl used to come to Farmington from Kingsport, TN in the '60s to race, there were no interstates…there weren't even any four lane roads! So basically, 421 through Shady Valley was about the only way to go. There was no such thing as an enclosed trailer then, you either flat towed with a tow bar or pulled your car on flat open trailers. She said on the way to the track, they could lean out the truck windows and wax the race car going around those curves!!! HA! I don't doubt it, I never went through Shady Valley but once and it's the only place I EVER had to stop a car in the middle of the road and put it in first gear because the hill was so steep and the curve was so tight! I don't know how they ever got back and forth all those trips. It was almost as bad as going up the mountain to get to Cedar Hill Dragway (Richlands, VA)! Lordy, it's easy to get off the subject!
We drove on past the track to the Sunset motel…have you ever noticed there was a Sunset Motel in every little podunk town with a drag strip? Anyway, it was a DUMP, it was always a DUMP, I think it was built as a DUMP. Worse part was, we not only stayed there once, we actually stayed there twice! But it was only a mile or so from the track and it was a CHEAP dump! Cheap was good back then (no such thing now!). We got booked in and took off back to the track so we wouldn't miss any more action!!! Well, no one told me I needed a pit parking pass to get my car in. It was really hard to get a pit pass back in those days. Bristol has changed a LOT over the years and I'm not going to tell you about the layout, but there was this HILL! It was a horrible HILL. We had to park out front (where the offices were then) and walk up that hill and down the other side. Bristol had a reputation for making blisters on your feet and by the time we got over the hill, we already had blisters!!!
Mendy recently told me the blisters are about the only thing she can remember about that first time and we still had two more days to go! AND we still had no idea exactly WHERE the track actually was! We just followed the noise and found it. I didn't have a photo pass so I had to run Jeff down and beg. He was such a pushover. He also gave me a pit parking pass so we wouldn't have to walk over that hill on Saturday. Of course, I don't think any of us COULD have walked that hill again, especially since we had to walk it to get back out to the car that night. I really did not think we were going to make it…if you never did Bristol 30 years ago, you have no idea what you missed. You would not believe the shape our feet were in. With what I paid for antibiotic cream and bandaids, we could have slept in a MUCH nicer dump!
As I said, we'd never been in the pits at a national event before so we only had close-up experience with alcohol engines. I don't care who you are, what you've done or where you've been in your lifetime, if you have never stood near a top fuel car when they fire it up or when they hit the fuel, you have never lived! Or maybe I should say you've never experienced LIFE. There is nothing that can compare to that 'feeling.' Except maybe blasting off in a space ship! But I doubt it. I will NEVER forget the expressions on my kids faces the first time they experienced that. Indescribable! The force. The power. It's unblieveable. Of course, I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I got on that starting line…I FELT important, whether I was or not. Of course all the other photographers just laughed at me because of my 'el cheapo' camera…being a woman didn't help much. I think I threatened their manhood! I had stepped into 'their' domain and they didn't want me there. Boy…were they in for a surprise! No matter how hard Carrier…and others…tried, they just couldn't get rid of me.
I grew up where it's flat…close to the river…and those Tennessee hills absolutely wore me (and everyone else) out. The only flat places on the whole property were the pits (some of them) and the track (and some racers weren't too sure of that). But I loved it. Even though I got to drive over 'the hill' the next day instead of walking it and got in okay, we had a time getting back out that night. Behind the tower across the creek, there was this parking area. Some of it was pits but just before you started up that 'hill,' part of it was fenced off into a spectator parking area. For my first trip to Bristol, the spectators who parked there that year were motorcycle riders. Now, don't get me wrong, I've known lots of motorcycle riders over the years…many of them quite nice, I've even been one myself, at times.
But after a full HOT day of beer and drag racing, those guys were NOT nice, especially when they saw four good looking women in a beat up old Chevy! It didn't matter that three of them might be WAY under age! My girls were GOOD spectators… the type of spectators who would not leave until THE END. I used to tell people my three had to stay and watch the last thing that went down the track on Saturday night even it was a cockroach carrying a candle! Now you need to remember…things were different then…IHRA's big show night was Saturday night! The ONLY thing that has remained the same about drag racing now and drag racing then is that two cars race each other down the drag strip. Back then, there was very little association between most of the people on the 'spectator' side and the people on the pit side.
I HATED to be on the spectator side…it was scary! One of our illustrious folks who worked in P.R. in drag racing told me his son was conceived under the trees on the pit side at Bristol (His initials were D.D.)! He was probably in the MAJORITY! J On Saturday nights, you could sit on the spectator side high up on the 'concrete' seats and get high by just BREATHING! Things are just different now! I always let the kids watch the 'last thing,' but I made them hang on to my belt loops until we got to the car. There was such a crush of people all trying to get out the gate all at the same time and I was terrified someone would grab one of them. On this particular evening (remember…first national event we'd been to in six years, never on the pit side), I had to drive right past that motorcycle parking area.
And they WEREN'T just parking there…hell, they were there for the duration…lock, stock, leathers and party supplies. By the time we left the press parking area, those guys (and gals) were just beginning to fly. When they saw those four good looking gals in the beat up Chevy, they thought their motorcycle Gods had sent them presents! Hey, I was just as scared as my good lookin' girls! Traffic was moving so slow, it felt we were moving backward. It was hotter'n Hades and the heat at Bristol is ALWAYS sticky. There was absolutely NO breeze and the Hells Angels were trying to get to the four good lookin' girls! They were climbing on the hood and the trunk and trying to get the doors open. (Hey, I used to go to the fiddler's convention at Union Grove and was never that scared!) I made Teresa, Mendy and Candace roll up their windows. They were so scared, they didn't even argue.
I thought we would never get out of there…we were dying in that car! Besides the heat and no AC (they didn't put AC on souped up antelopes in the mid 60s!), we were being gassed to death! We may as well have been taking part in a government experiment to figure out just how much carbon monoxide, etc. four good lookin' girls could handle and still have one able to drive!! But the alternative was having the Hells Angels climbing into the car or dragging us out of it. They were knocking on the windows (glad they weren't wearing their knucks) and the roof, it sounded like we were under a bowling alley. We were barely creeping along but just about the time the two wheeler guys were becoming very irate because we wouldn't stop and play with them, we finally got over the hill. Thank you, God! The next day, I found another way out of that place! And used it, too!
On Friday, Jeff gave me a white jacket and we were so excited to be there, the four of us went through the Pro pits and got many, many autographs on that jacket. I still have it; after Jeff took over the operations there, I took the jacket for him to see. I think he enjoyed looking at all those signatures…many of those guys were his friends and many were gone even then. Those are the people who helped make this sport and all of us who we are today. Even though they may be gone and some people have forgotten how important they were (and are) to us, they left their imprint on our minds and souls forever.
What a weekend! We met so many people and had such a good time. Our good friends, Warren Johnson and Jerome Bradford won Pro Stock that weekend and when Jerome came out of the tower with the check, Teresa, Candace and Mendy were standing there waiting for him. He hugged all three of them with this big goofy grin on his face…after all, this WAS the race that clinched his and Warren Johnson's SECOND IHRA Pro Stock championship in a row! One of the photographers (I think it was Johnny Beech) yelled, "Hey Jerome, are those your girls?" And he said, "Yeah, can't you tell?" I was scared to death that photo was going to show up in Drag Review, but it never did! And I would give my eye teeth to have a copy of it!
I have forgotten a lot of drag races, drag racing weekends and even some people I met (and actually tried to forget some others!), but this one race will always be in the forefront of my mind…Mendy and Candace's, too, even if only for the blisters. But they do remember other things, one of the friends they made that weekend was Scott Kalitta. Now he's gone, but they will always remember his friendship and his love of drag racing. I love drag racing and I always will; when a story was published about me in the mid-90s (Bracket Racing U.S.A.), it was titled DRAG RACING'S MOST DEDICATED FAN. I was then…I am now…I always will be…drag racing's most dedicated fan. Becky White, Editor/Publisher, Quick Times Racing News - 1981-2005. I have written this in May, 2009.
That trip just made my love affair with drag racing, fast cars and mega motors even worse! I have a photo of Mendy standing at the fence on the 'spectator' side watching the dragsters get pushed down the track to crank them and get pushed back to the starting line! I never had to sit on the spectator side but one other time, it was boring to me…just sitting and watching! I wanted to be where the real action was…in the pits. We drove the same car to Rockingham I drag raced at my home track…Farmington Dragway…a 1967 Dodge Coronet 440 convertible, which by the way, I recently, FINALLY sold! (Farmington opened in 1963, the year my daughter Teresa was born and I have photos of all three of my girls there before they were six months old!)
Boy, things changed so fast in drag racing over the next few years, it was impossible to keep up. I couldn't afford to go to the drag races, but I DID manage to see Don Carlton and Lee Edwards' last match race…May 2, 1975 at Farmington. I met the man who had been my hero for many years. Don was an anomaly in our sport. There had never been anyone like him before and never has been since. I thank God I was able to spend several hours with him then because he was a busy man and I never got to talk to him again (he may have been glad of that since I asked him a least a million questions). But, in 1979, I went to work for Farmington Dragway, doing their P.R. and writing race reports for the local weekly wipe…the Davie County Enterprise. They were an IHRA track so I also got lots of stuff printed in the Drag Review, which as we all know was/is IHRA's house organ.
One of the stories I wrote for the IHRA paper was about Danny and John Shortridge and the TCI team. For those of you who don't remember, TCI stood for Torque Converters, Inc. in Ashland, MS…thanks Bill…the premier torque converter company at that time. That was in 1980 (before QTRN). Well, Bill Taylor, TCI owner and Danny and his bunch were so happy with the story, they sent us four FREE passes to the IHRA SummerNationals at Thunder Valley Dragway. Hell, I didn't have any money, I didn't know how I would ever get up enough money for gas, etc. The girls wanted to go, too, because they had become friends with all the young folks in the sport…Dean Sox, Kurt Johnson and the Denton twins to name just a few.
We busted our butts rounding up money. We still had to take our own food, but I wasn't about to sleep in the car up there. I didn't have a credit card so I couldn't even make a reservation anywhere and I wasn't sure we were going to get to go anyway since IHRA owner Larry Carrier said I couldn't get in on a TCI pass. I don't know why, but that man got the red @$$ at me from the gitgo! I think he thought a woman didn't have any business doing what I was doing…he didn't have enough sense to realize how good I was for the sport. (I guess I was in good company…he also hated Shirley Muldowny!) I not only had a story printed in the Enterprise EVERY week, I sent stories to every paper within 300 miles of Farmington, most were small papers, but large papers, too…like the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel. I did individual stories on all winners and runners up and sent them to their hometown papers, like the Bull City Bugle in Stuart, VA and so many others. Sometimes even when Farmington didn't even get to race, I still wrote a story for the paper! (I have scrapbooks full of that stuff!) I did learn, as the years passed, Larry Carrier was intimidated by anyone who was his intellectual superior, especially women.
This was in the great days of drag racing when we had WINSTON DRAG RACING. I always said R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company ruled my life one way or another from birth until I was in my 40s…I was born and raised on a tobacco farm not far from the company and when I got off the farm, I dealt with them in drag racing. I worked with Jeff Byrd and the folks at Reynolds for the three years I worked at Farmington (yes, the same Jeff Byrd who is the President of Bristol Motor Speedway even now). So, I called Jeff and told him what was going on and he sent me four Winston Drag Racing passes. When I got to Bristol, no one said a word and I went right on in…for three glorious, wonderful days! I'm probably the only person in the history of drag racing who had to have TWO sets of tickets to get in one race!!! My beginnings were NOT easy!
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. We still had to get money to go (It's a damn good thing gas was a lot cheaper then than it is now!!!) Norman wasn't paying me anything to work for the track, it was just a deal we made so I didn't have to pay to get into the races, so…no money there. I ran a garage and we really struggled, if I had enough work, the girls would help after school. We did just about anything…mainly car detailing, but I did a lot of mechanic work and body work and painting…anything to keep us fed and clothed. I even cleaned saddles and leatherwork for the local horsey folks! It just so happened I had a whole car to paint with very little bodywork so that was good money, I also had a Hemi charger I was helping a guy with and I managed to round up several complete detailing jobs. The girls even borrowed on their $5 a week allowance from their grandma!!! Anyway, we scraped up enough money to go to Thunder Valley. We were SO excited!
We only had two things to worry about…a place to stay when we got there and getting there. I had a '65 Impala (we called it an 'antelope') with a 327/300 with a Carter AFB 4-bbl that was just starting to cruise at 120. It wasn't the engine I was worried about…it was everything else. That car was absolutely falling apart! You could NOT ride very far in it with the windows rolled up…you'd simply pass out from the fumes. There were so many holes in the floorboard, your feet would get wet in a hard rain! We even scooped snow up in the floor one time going to granny's for Christmas! But, what the hell…we were going to Bristol! We had not heard top fuel cars since 1974! Alcohol, yes, T/F no.
Hwy 421 to Hwy 321…if you haven't done that ride, you missed a lot of driving. Those roads were so crooked, the racers would go I-77 to I-81 just to stay off those roads. Dee Greer told me when she and Shirl used to come to Farmington from Kingsport, TN in the '60s to race, there were no interstates…there weren't even any four lane roads! So basically, 421 through Shady Valley was about the only way to go. There was no such thing as an enclosed trailer then, you either flat towed with a tow bar or pulled your car on flat open trailers. She said on the way to the track, they could lean out the truck windows and wax the race car going around those curves!!! HA! I don't doubt it, I never went through Shady Valley but once and it's the only place I EVER had to stop a car in the middle of the road and put it in first gear because the hill was so steep and the curve was so tight! I don't know how they ever got back and forth all those trips. It was almost as bad as going up the mountain to get to Cedar Hill Dragway (Richlands, VA)! Lordy, it's easy to get off the subject!
We drove on past the track to the Sunset motel…have you ever noticed there was a Sunset Motel in every little podunk town with a drag strip? Anyway, it was a DUMP, it was always a DUMP, I think it was built as a DUMP. Worse part was, we not only stayed there once, we actually stayed there twice! But it was only a mile or so from the track and it was a CHEAP dump! Cheap was good back then (no such thing now!). We got booked in and took off back to the track so we wouldn't miss any more action!!! Well, no one told me I needed a pit parking pass to get my car in. It was really hard to get a pit pass back in those days. Bristol has changed a LOT over the years and I'm not going to tell you about the layout, but there was this HILL! It was a horrible HILL. We had to park out front (where the offices were then) and walk up that hill and down the other side. Bristol had a reputation for making blisters on your feet and by the time we got over the hill, we already had blisters!!!
Mendy recently told me the blisters are about the only thing she can remember about that first time and we still had two more days to go! AND we still had no idea exactly WHERE the track actually was! We just followed the noise and found it. I didn't have a photo pass so I had to run Jeff down and beg. He was such a pushover. He also gave me a pit parking pass so we wouldn't have to walk over that hill on Saturday. Of course, I don't think any of us COULD have walked that hill again, especially since we had to walk it to get back out to the car that night. I really did not think we were going to make it…if you never did Bristol 30 years ago, you have no idea what you missed. You would not believe the shape our feet were in. With what I paid for antibiotic cream and bandaids, we could have slept in a MUCH nicer dump!
As I said, we'd never been in the pits at a national event before so we only had close-up experience with alcohol engines. I don't care who you are, what you've done or where you've been in your lifetime, if you have never stood near a top fuel car when they fire it up or when they hit the fuel, you have never lived! Or maybe I should say you've never experienced LIFE. There is nothing that can compare to that 'feeling.' Except maybe blasting off in a space ship! But I doubt it. I will NEVER forget the expressions on my kids faces the first time they experienced that. Indescribable! The force. The power. It's unblieveable. Of course, I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I got on that starting line…I FELT important, whether I was or not. Of course all the other photographers just laughed at me because of my 'el cheapo' camera…being a woman didn't help much. I think I threatened their manhood! I had stepped into 'their' domain and they didn't want me there. Boy…were they in for a surprise! No matter how hard Carrier…and others…tried, they just couldn't get rid of me.
I grew up where it's flat…close to the river…and those Tennessee hills absolutely wore me (and everyone else) out. The only flat places on the whole property were the pits (some of them) and the track (and some racers weren't too sure of that). But I loved it. Even though I got to drive over 'the hill' the next day instead of walking it and got in okay, we had a time getting back out that night. Behind the tower across the creek, there was this parking area. Some of it was pits but just before you started up that 'hill,' part of it was fenced off into a spectator parking area. For my first trip to Bristol, the spectators who parked there that year were motorcycle riders. Now, don't get me wrong, I've known lots of motorcycle riders over the years…many of them quite nice, I've even been one myself, at times.
But after a full HOT day of beer and drag racing, those guys were NOT nice, especially when they saw four good looking women in a beat up old Chevy! It didn't matter that three of them might be WAY under age! My girls were GOOD spectators… the type of spectators who would not leave until THE END. I used to tell people my three had to stay and watch the last thing that went down the track on Saturday night even it was a cockroach carrying a candle! Now you need to remember…things were different then…IHRA's big show night was Saturday night! The ONLY thing that has remained the same about drag racing now and drag racing then is that two cars race each other down the drag strip. Back then, there was very little association between most of the people on the 'spectator' side and the people on the pit side.
I HATED to be on the spectator side…it was scary! One of our illustrious folks who worked in P.R. in drag racing told me his son was conceived under the trees on the pit side at Bristol (His initials were D.D.)! He was probably in the MAJORITY! J On Saturday nights, you could sit on the spectator side high up on the 'concrete' seats and get high by just BREATHING! Things are just different now! I always let the kids watch the 'last thing,' but I made them hang on to my belt loops until we got to the car. There was such a crush of people all trying to get out the gate all at the same time and I was terrified someone would grab one of them. On this particular evening (remember…first national event we'd been to in six years, never on the pit side), I had to drive right past that motorcycle parking area.
And they WEREN'T just parking there…hell, they were there for the duration…lock, stock, leathers and party supplies. By the time we left the press parking area, those guys (and gals) were just beginning to fly. When they saw those four good looking gals in the beat up Chevy, they thought their motorcycle Gods had sent them presents! Hey, I was just as scared as my good lookin' girls! Traffic was moving so slow, it felt we were moving backward. It was hotter'n Hades and the heat at Bristol is ALWAYS sticky. There was absolutely NO breeze and the Hells Angels were trying to get to the four good lookin' girls! They were climbing on the hood and the trunk and trying to get the doors open. (Hey, I used to go to the fiddler's convention at Union Grove and was never that scared!) I made Teresa, Mendy and Candace roll up their windows. They were so scared, they didn't even argue.
I thought we would never get out of there…we were dying in that car! Besides the heat and no AC (they didn't put AC on souped up antelopes in the mid 60s!), we were being gassed to death! We may as well have been taking part in a government experiment to figure out just how much carbon monoxide, etc. four good lookin' girls could handle and still have one able to drive!! But the alternative was having the Hells Angels climbing into the car or dragging us out of it. They were knocking on the windows (glad they weren't wearing their knucks) and the roof, it sounded like we were under a bowling alley. We were barely creeping along but just about the time the two wheeler guys were becoming very irate because we wouldn't stop and play with them, we finally got over the hill. Thank you, God! The next day, I found another way out of that place! And used it, too!
On Friday, Jeff gave me a white jacket and we were so excited to be there, the four of us went through the Pro pits and got many, many autographs on that jacket. I still have it; after Jeff took over the operations there, I took the jacket for him to see. I think he enjoyed looking at all those signatures…many of those guys were his friends and many were gone even then. Those are the people who helped make this sport and all of us who we are today. Even though they may be gone and some people have forgotten how important they were (and are) to us, they left their imprint on our minds and souls forever.
What a weekend! We met so many people and had such a good time. Our good friends, Warren Johnson and Jerome Bradford won Pro Stock that weekend and when Jerome came out of the tower with the check, Teresa, Candace and Mendy were standing there waiting for him. He hugged all three of them with this big goofy grin on his face…after all, this WAS the race that clinched his and Warren Johnson's SECOND IHRA Pro Stock championship in a row! One of the photographers (I think it was Johnny Beech) yelled, "Hey Jerome, are those your girls?" And he said, "Yeah, can't you tell?" I was scared to death that photo was going to show up in Drag Review, but it never did! And I would give my eye teeth to have a copy of it!
I have forgotten a lot of drag races, drag racing weekends and even some people I met (and actually tried to forget some others!), but this one race will always be in the forefront of my mind…Mendy and Candace's, too, even if only for the blisters. But they do remember other things, one of the friends they made that weekend was Scott Kalitta. Now he's gone, but they will always remember his friendship and his love of drag racing. I love drag racing and I always will; when a story was published about me in the mid-90s (Bracket Racing U.S.A.), it was titled DRAG RACING'S MOST DEDICATED FAN. I was then…I am now…I always will be…drag racing's most dedicated fan. Becky White, Editor/Publisher, Quick Times Racing News - 1981-2005. I have written this in May, 2009.
More Four Wide!
I wrote this before the St. Louis race and had almost decided to NOT post it here but as long as there is another 'four wide' race in the future, there are STILL things which need to be worked on and worked out. Thank you Arlene Johnson! Arlene sent me a link to the www.nitromater.com message board where I made headlines with my 'Four Wide? Why? (Why not?).' I never understood why some people who don't know anything about drag racing want to get on a message board and let the world know how little they know. You can keep your mouth shut and people won't know how stupid and ignorant you are, but you can open your mouth and let the whole world know! Posting on internet message boards is the WORST place in the world for talking about things you know nothing about! Most of the comments on nitromater.com were good. ALL the emails I have received agreed with me. But I kind of get a kick out of being talked about on TV, especially when the people doing the talking are AFRAID to say who they're talking about! At least they did pay me a few compliments and said some really not-so-nice things about some other writers.
Anyone who has ever read anything of mine KNOWS I believe there isn't a lot of difference between a racer who runs 4 seconds and a racer who runs 40 seconds. Some people may think that is off the wall, but just think about and you'll see just how true it really is. Even sponsors know this…if they were just advertising for the big guys, they'd be out in a heartbeat…there aren't enough 'big' guys to keep them in business, the sponsors are just using the 'big' guys to get to the little guy racers AND the spectators! The biggest difference between the 4 and the 40 is money. Top Fuel is not necessarily more dangerous than Street…they just have more and better rules and more and better safety equipment. Money is the name of the game…the Pros just push the envelope harder.
IF I WERE A RACER AND SOMEONE TOLD ME I WOULD HAVE TO RUN 4 WIDE FOR WINNER, RUNNER UP AND THIRD AND FOURTH PLACE, I WOULD TELL THEM TO KISS MY YOU-KNOW-WHAT! The following is a quote from someone on nitromater.com, "Let me make it as simple as possible. Why should the guy in lane 1 worry about what is going on in lanes 3 and 4 if lane 2 is beating him to where he needs to lift? He can't see them in lanes 3 and 4. HE HAS NO IDEA WHERE THEY ARE!!!! There is a wall there. He is going to drive it thinking he has a chance for second place when he has no chance at all. KABOOM!!!! WRECK!!!! If points are on the line they (racers) will do things to (maybe) be second when they should not have done it in the first place. If points aren't on the line they lift, knowing they just load up and get ready for the next race that means something…POINTS!!" What kind of an idiot race is that? If you want to run for third and fourth, just bring them back and run for third and fourth. I think any racer who had to run this way got scrued…except maybe the winner. MY opinion. How would YOU like to do it that way?
Were the Sportsman racers running at ZMax's 4-Wide happy with it? Were they more upset with track conditions and the way eliminations were run than anything else? Were they more upset because Super Stock, Stock and Comp were parked on the one side of the track and Super Gas, Super Comp and Super Street were parked on the other side? Were they more upset because Super Stock, Stock and Comp had to run the two left lanes? Were they more upset because Super Gas, Super Comp and Street had to run the right two lanes? Were they more upset because track conditions were poor to start with and sometimes, there was more than an hour of NO run time on two lanes at a time? Were they upset because there was little, if any, track clean up or prep between rounds and they let the track get cold, etc. If running four cars at the same time is so safe, why couldn't officials take some of that down time and clean and prep the track???
Were the Sportsmen racers upset enough for a whole group to go to the tower and complain? Yes. Did they get the standard, "Don't like it? So what? Run anyway!" Of course! Were there many who said they would not go back? Yes. We know they will, but who always gets the shaft at a race like this? Yes, I know they keep racing, no matter what they have to put up with, but it is the love of the sport that keeps racers coming back…certainly NOT the way they get treated (OR the money)! It's a proven fact racers will put up with just about anything to get to race. Was NHRA advised they could not run 4-Wide in Sportsman because it is important to take your opponent through by as little as possible at the finish line just as in bracket racing and that's impossible to do with 4-Wide and 3 competitors to watch at one time? It can't be done safely OR sanely!
It doesn't matter the Pros voted 61 to 2 to NOT run a 4-Wide again. It doesn't matter they've even said they will boycott the next 4-Wide for points. They will run it, even though most are very much against it…for ALL the reasons I outlined in my FIRST 4-Wide. But one of the MOST important things I left out are the sponsors (a whole paragraph didn't get put on the blog…still learning). Maybe that's because they got left out of this race…at least by NHRA. AND to top it off…racers did not get the chance to mention their sponsors as much as they usually do because they just didn't get the air time. When four cars are going down the track at the same time, how are the announcers going to mention sponsors with all the other information they have to talk about? It IS a consideration and it is a VERY important consideration…what would we do without them? Announcers only have a few seconds, it's hard enough for them to say what they need to about TWO cars! I think ALL the sponsors got scrued more than anyone. Did someone say, "We're going to have this track locked down by 5 p.m. Sunday afternoon!?" Duh! Y'all heard that on TV, right? I thought the whole point was to keep everyone there spending money as long as possible…NOT have them out on the road on the way home three or four hours earlier than you need to! Right? Well, maybe not.
Every racer knows the difference from lane to lane...track condtions, rollout, something moves a photocell, not to mention the fact that in one lane you're looking right at the tree and in the other lane, you're having to look at it over your hood scoop..how in the world would you ever be able to figure FOUR lanes when you can't even depend on two? Especially Pro Stockers? I can't even imagine what they were going through at that race. You start out a race on Sunday and the right lane is the best lane and all the faster racers are lining up to run it. Then something changes...weather, sun, clouds, a tiny bit of water, a car gets sideways and messes up the sticky and the groove. Then they're all trying to get the left lane. What about four lanes? Would you feel confident racing that way? I wouldn't! And I know you guys and gals well enough to know you wouldn't have any confidence left either! It was all a good advertisement for ZMAX and NHRA but for no one else!
It has taken NHRA YEARS to get the TV coverage and the fan base they have now. They have, of course, ALWAYS catered to the top 2% of their racers and, YES, that 2% brings the spectators. But you have to make (and keep) those fans happy. And, "NO," I didn't see any spectators leaving after seeing 4-Wide! I wouldn't have left either. It was a history-making race, no doubt about it…if only for the controversy. But I would not go back, I would feel cheated. It was just too confusing. I know a lot of spectators only go to see wrecks and drink beer, but there are serious fans who actually go because they love drag racing…not to mention all the TV viewers. They DID vote 70% to NOT come back! If THEY don't come back, we are in deep doodoo. Why take the chance? You can have all the exhibition and show races you want in a year's time. In the process, IF you have good announcers who really know the sport, they can train your fans all the ins and outs of drag racing so they can eventually understand it better. But to try to do it at an NHRA race where championships are on the line…that AIN'T the time and place to do it.
Yes, I watched the qualifying and the race on TV. I did not enjoy it. It was confusing, even for me and I've been involved with and watching drag racing for over 50 years!!! Most of it in person. When it's confusing on TV and you have a kazillion cameras hanging over every part of the action bringing it all to you right in front of your eyes, announcers trying to keep you up on what's going on in every shot and it's hard to understand, think about the spectators! Of the fans who took the time to vote on whether they liked it or not…a whopping 70% said they did not! Any way you look at it and no matter how much you discuss it, IT HAS NOT RECEIVED GOOD REVIEWS. A new movie or a Broadway play receiving reviews as bad as this race did would shut down in a heart beat! Got comments? Post them here. And please give your name…don't be afraid. I'm not! IF you would like to email me a letter you want me to comment on, send that to my email address quicktimesracingnews@gmail.com and I will answer your letter, THEN put it on the blog with my answer. Make sure you put in your letter you want it and my answer to be on the blog…I won't put it on here otherwise.
I had trouble believing the stuff I heard from people at the Las Vegas race! I understand most of it though. Racers have always had to back down. I like what Morgan Lucas said more than anything else I heard and I wish I could quote it but I didn't record it! These Pro racers keep talking about what Bruton has done for drag racing??? Would someone PLEASE tell me what Bruton Smith HAS done for drag racing? Yes, Bruton HAS 'spent' a LOT of 'money' IN drag racing but I can tell you right now, if it had not been for Jeff Byrd, none of that would have ever happened. I will NOT go into details because of Jeff's illness and my respect for him and his family, but NHRA and you racers have Jeff to thank for all this! One day, I will explain all that to you, but not right now. I respect Jeff Byrd and Bill Bader Sr. more than I respect any other people in drag racing so I will just keep my mouth shut for now.
It was said NHRA got bulldozed into this race by Bruton. I can understand that. Bruton Smith has already gotten so big in drag racing, NHRA is afraid of him. Soon, he will control NHRA (IF he doesn't already)…after all, he couldn't BUY NHRA, so he just set about putting himself into a position of control (think about NASCAR!). He started building the biggest and best drag strips in the country…tracks NHRA really cannot do without now because of the TV coverage. If you know ANYTHING about NASCAR, you will realize history is just repeating itself…only the name of the game has changed. The France family would not let Bruton get involved in NASCAR in any other capacity than as a track owner, so he built the biggest, the best, the most expensive tracks in the country to have control over the organization. Some smaller tracks, he bought and shut down just to get their race dates…North Wilkesboro Speedway…the HOME of circle track racing is one of them. It doesn't bother Bruton Smith to DESTROY the history of round track racing as long as he gets what he wants which is what happened with Wilkesboro. Look around guys…it's happening again…only NHRA is the target. He already has a strangle hold on them because of TV coverage…it's ONLY gonna get worse.
I will say this…there were a lot of comments about the safety aspects of 4-Wide. But when I wrote about all those people standing around on the starting line all the time, no one said a word! If you are all so worried about safety, what about that part of it? I would NOT be afraid to BET there were…at the very least, 30 people on the line during the final run of Top Fuel and it was probably more like 40 or 50! You want dangerous? That's it! The insurance companies used to have rules about how many people could be standing around starting line during a race. Any more comments? These are just my opinions. I am still… 'drag racing's most dedicated fan!'
Anyone who has ever read anything of mine KNOWS I believe there isn't a lot of difference between a racer who runs 4 seconds and a racer who runs 40 seconds. Some people may think that is off the wall, but just think about and you'll see just how true it really is. Even sponsors know this…if they were just advertising for the big guys, they'd be out in a heartbeat…there aren't enough 'big' guys to keep them in business, the sponsors are just using the 'big' guys to get to the little guy racers AND the spectators! The biggest difference between the 4 and the 40 is money. Top Fuel is not necessarily more dangerous than Street…they just have more and better rules and more and better safety equipment. Money is the name of the game…the Pros just push the envelope harder.
IF I WERE A RACER AND SOMEONE TOLD ME I WOULD HAVE TO RUN 4 WIDE FOR WINNER, RUNNER UP AND THIRD AND FOURTH PLACE, I WOULD TELL THEM TO KISS MY YOU-KNOW-WHAT! The following is a quote from someone on nitromater.com, "Let me make it as simple as possible. Why should the guy in lane 1 worry about what is going on in lanes 3 and 4 if lane 2 is beating him to where he needs to lift? He can't see them in lanes 3 and 4. HE HAS NO IDEA WHERE THEY ARE!!!! There is a wall there. He is going to drive it thinking he has a chance for second place when he has no chance at all. KABOOM!!!! WRECK!!!! If points are on the line they (racers) will do things to (maybe) be second when they should not have done it in the first place. If points aren't on the line they lift, knowing they just load up and get ready for the next race that means something…POINTS!!" What kind of an idiot race is that? If you want to run for third and fourth, just bring them back and run for third and fourth. I think any racer who had to run this way got scrued…except maybe the winner. MY opinion. How would YOU like to do it that way?
Were the Sportsman racers running at ZMax's 4-Wide happy with it? Were they more upset with track conditions and the way eliminations were run than anything else? Were they more upset because Super Stock, Stock and Comp were parked on the one side of the track and Super Gas, Super Comp and Super Street were parked on the other side? Were they more upset because Super Stock, Stock and Comp had to run the two left lanes? Were they more upset because Super Gas, Super Comp and Street had to run the right two lanes? Were they more upset because track conditions were poor to start with and sometimes, there was more than an hour of NO run time on two lanes at a time? Were they upset because there was little, if any, track clean up or prep between rounds and they let the track get cold, etc. If running four cars at the same time is so safe, why couldn't officials take some of that down time and clean and prep the track???
Were the Sportsmen racers upset enough for a whole group to go to the tower and complain? Yes. Did they get the standard, "Don't like it? So what? Run anyway!" Of course! Were there many who said they would not go back? Yes. We know they will, but who always gets the shaft at a race like this? Yes, I know they keep racing, no matter what they have to put up with, but it is the love of the sport that keeps racers coming back…certainly NOT the way they get treated (OR the money)! It's a proven fact racers will put up with just about anything to get to race. Was NHRA advised they could not run 4-Wide in Sportsman because it is important to take your opponent through by as little as possible at the finish line just as in bracket racing and that's impossible to do with 4-Wide and 3 competitors to watch at one time? It can't be done safely OR sanely!
It doesn't matter the Pros voted 61 to 2 to NOT run a 4-Wide again. It doesn't matter they've even said they will boycott the next 4-Wide for points. They will run it, even though most are very much against it…for ALL the reasons I outlined in my FIRST 4-Wide. But one of the MOST important things I left out are the sponsors (a whole paragraph didn't get put on the blog…still learning). Maybe that's because they got left out of this race…at least by NHRA. AND to top it off…racers did not get the chance to mention their sponsors as much as they usually do because they just didn't get the air time. When four cars are going down the track at the same time, how are the announcers going to mention sponsors with all the other information they have to talk about? It IS a consideration and it is a VERY important consideration…what would we do without them? Announcers only have a few seconds, it's hard enough for them to say what they need to about TWO cars! I think ALL the sponsors got scrued more than anyone. Did someone say, "We're going to have this track locked down by 5 p.m. Sunday afternoon!?" Duh! Y'all heard that on TV, right? I thought the whole point was to keep everyone there spending money as long as possible…NOT have them out on the road on the way home three or four hours earlier than you need to! Right? Well, maybe not.
Every racer knows the difference from lane to lane...track condtions, rollout, something moves a photocell, not to mention the fact that in one lane you're looking right at the tree and in the other lane, you're having to look at it over your hood scoop..how in the world would you ever be able to figure FOUR lanes when you can't even depend on two? Especially Pro Stockers? I can't even imagine what they were going through at that race. You start out a race on Sunday and the right lane is the best lane and all the faster racers are lining up to run it. Then something changes...weather, sun, clouds, a tiny bit of water, a car gets sideways and messes up the sticky and the groove. Then they're all trying to get the left lane. What about four lanes? Would you feel confident racing that way? I wouldn't! And I know you guys and gals well enough to know you wouldn't have any confidence left either! It was all a good advertisement for ZMAX and NHRA but for no one else!
It has taken NHRA YEARS to get the TV coverage and the fan base they have now. They have, of course, ALWAYS catered to the top 2% of their racers and, YES, that 2% brings the spectators. But you have to make (and keep) those fans happy. And, "NO," I didn't see any spectators leaving after seeing 4-Wide! I wouldn't have left either. It was a history-making race, no doubt about it…if only for the controversy. But I would not go back, I would feel cheated. It was just too confusing. I know a lot of spectators only go to see wrecks and drink beer, but there are serious fans who actually go because they love drag racing…not to mention all the TV viewers. They DID vote 70% to NOT come back! If THEY don't come back, we are in deep doodoo. Why take the chance? You can have all the exhibition and show races you want in a year's time. In the process, IF you have good announcers who really know the sport, they can train your fans all the ins and outs of drag racing so they can eventually understand it better. But to try to do it at an NHRA race where championships are on the line…that AIN'T the time and place to do it.
Yes, I watched the qualifying and the race on TV. I did not enjoy it. It was confusing, even for me and I've been involved with and watching drag racing for over 50 years!!! Most of it in person. When it's confusing on TV and you have a kazillion cameras hanging over every part of the action bringing it all to you right in front of your eyes, announcers trying to keep you up on what's going on in every shot and it's hard to understand, think about the spectators! Of the fans who took the time to vote on whether they liked it or not…a whopping 70% said they did not! Any way you look at it and no matter how much you discuss it, IT HAS NOT RECEIVED GOOD REVIEWS. A new movie or a Broadway play receiving reviews as bad as this race did would shut down in a heart beat! Got comments? Post them here. And please give your name…don't be afraid. I'm not! IF you would like to email me a letter you want me to comment on, send that to my email address quicktimesracingnews@gmail.com and I will answer your letter, THEN put it on the blog with my answer. Make sure you put in your letter you want it and my answer to be on the blog…I won't put it on here otherwise.
I had trouble believing the stuff I heard from people at the Las Vegas race! I understand most of it though. Racers have always had to back down. I like what Morgan Lucas said more than anything else I heard and I wish I could quote it but I didn't record it! These Pro racers keep talking about what Bruton has done for drag racing??? Would someone PLEASE tell me what Bruton Smith HAS done for drag racing? Yes, Bruton HAS 'spent' a LOT of 'money' IN drag racing but I can tell you right now, if it had not been for Jeff Byrd, none of that would have ever happened. I will NOT go into details because of Jeff's illness and my respect for him and his family, but NHRA and you racers have Jeff to thank for all this! One day, I will explain all that to you, but not right now. I respect Jeff Byrd and Bill Bader Sr. more than I respect any other people in drag racing so I will just keep my mouth shut for now.
It was said NHRA got bulldozed into this race by Bruton. I can understand that. Bruton Smith has already gotten so big in drag racing, NHRA is afraid of him. Soon, he will control NHRA (IF he doesn't already)…after all, he couldn't BUY NHRA, so he just set about putting himself into a position of control (think about NASCAR!). He started building the biggest and best drag strips in the country…tracks NHRA really cannot do without now because of the TV coverage. If you know ANYTHING about NASCAR, you will realize history is just repeating itself…only the name of the game has changed. The France family would not let Bruton get involved in NASCAR in any other capacity than as a track owner, so he built the biggest, the best, the most expensive tracks in the country to have control over the organization. Some smaller tracks, he bought and shut down just to get their race dates…North Wilkesboro Speedway…the HOME of circle track racing is one of them. It doesn't bother Bruton Smith to DESTROY the history of round track racing as long as he gets what he wants which is what happened with Wilkesboro. Look around guys…it's happening again…only NHRA is the target. He already has a strangle hold on them because of TV coverage…it's ONLY gonna get worse.
I will say this…there were a lot of comments about the safety aspects of 4-Wide. But when I wrote about all those people standing around on the starting line all the time, no one said a word! If you are all so worried about safety, what about that part of it? I would NOT be afraid to BET there were…at the very least, 30 people on the line during the final run of Top Fuel and it was probably more like 40 or 50! You want dangerous? That's it! The insurance companies used to have rules about how many people could be standing around starting line during a race. Any more comments? These are just my opinions. I am still… 'drag racing's most dedicated fan!'
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Four Wide? Why? (Why Not?)
Once again, someone has proved you cannot just come in and change the face of drag racing overnight! Even if you do think you have more money than God (and the ego to match!). The other 'worst' time someone tried to make major changes to our entire sport was 1988, when Billy Meyer bought the International Hot Rod Association. It didn't work then and it won't work now. I don't know where Bruton got the idea to build a 4-wide drag strip and I especially can't figure how or where he got the idea people would like a 4-wide race. It may be good for exhibition races, match races and shows in general, but the fans have enough trouble taking in everything that's happening when TWO cars are racing, let alone four. Bruton was so excited at his race, he told the world he was going to build two more lanes at his Las Vegas track! This from the man who (it is rumored to have) said he hated drag racing and would never have drag racing at his track again! (I guess anyone can change their mind.) He said he did this to help NHRA…where did he get the idea it WOULD help NHRA?
All my reasons for NOT having 4-wide drag racing have already been stated…by nearly every racer, every team owner and by most fans. When I went to ESPN.com and voted my 'NO,' it was 69% NO and 31% YES. I personally did NOT like it for all the same reasons as everyone else, one of which is safety. There are several priorities in drag racing…the first being to make money. After all, it IS a business. The second priority is safety…for EVERYONE…fans as well as racers and all the other folks…team crew members, NHRA employees, sponsors…ANYONE who is inside those pits or in the stands. It is bad enough when one car has problems, worse when two are involved. Four…God forbid! We don't NEED to put ourselves in any position where that could possibly happen! Third priority, keeping the sponsors happy. Can't do this stuff without them!
And fourth, but definitely NOT the least…the fans. The spectators. Can't do it without them either. A MAJOR, MAJOR part of the income. Drag racing is a HARD sport to understand, it always has been, it always will be. It has taken years and years and years to acquire the amount of spectators we have now and TV has been a HUGE part of that. But TV can do just as much harm just as it can help…sometimes more…IF and when something goes wrong. You KNOW how bad TV will hurt our sport if something goes wrong and they play it up wrong in the wrong way. Spectators STILL don't understand a lot of the stuff about drag racing and it is really hard to catch everything that happens in 3-, 4-, 5- and/or 6-seconds with TWO cars running. It is IMPOSSIBLE with four. I'm really worried they will just give up and stay away. They will have to pay the same amount (or more) to attend a 4-wide race and it will be over in half the time and they will miss half of it because it's just too much to take in! I think it will be a detriment to our sport.
I absolutely did NOT like the way they did the finals and I don't think the racers liked it and I'm SURE the spectators didn't like it. I think the racers got cheated having to settle for third and fourth place without the benefit of running it the usual way. What do you think about that? Would you like to do that at your track? Why not just flip a coin the way they used to do at Shuffletown Dragway when it got too late to finish the race because of the curfew? It would have been just as fair to flip that coin at ZMax as it was to run it the way they did! I also think the spectators felt cheated as well.
I haven't heard much about what the 'little guy' racers thought about 4-wide racing, but I can't believe they enjoyed it. It seems to me there would be four times as much confusion as usual…how could someone concentrate with all that stuff going on? That is one of the things the Pro racers have complained about. And, if you missed it, they voted to NOT run 4-wide again at a points race…I think that confusion had a lot to do with that. By the way, have you noticed HOW MANY PEOPLE there are milling around the starting line when the Pros are running? What happened to all those insurance company rules about a having a limited number of people going up with each car and having a limited number of people on the starting line at ANY time? I don't care HOW you look at it…that's just as dangerous a place to be as anywhere…the insurance companies used to know that. What happened? I bet there were as many as 30 people on the line at any given time when the Pros were running at the Spring Nationals in Houston! I couldn't believe it!
I wonder how many of the little guy racers went on ESPN and voted. I wish they'd actually done a survey with the vote so we could see how many racers or other people involved in the sport voted as opposed to how many fans voted which way. That would have been much more interesting than the way it was done. If any of you would like to make a comment here on my blog, you are welcome to do so. I would like to know what more of YOU think about all this.
All my reasons for NOT having 4-wide drag racing have already been stated…by nearly every racer, every team owner and by most fans. When I went to ESPN.com and voted my 'NO,' it was 69% NO and 31% YES. I personally did NOT like it for all the same reasons as everyone else, one of which is safety. There are several priorities in drag racing…the first being to make money. After all, it IS a business. The second priority is safety…for EVERYONE…fans as well as racers and all the other folks…team crew members, NHRA employees, sponsors…ANYONE who is inside those pits or in the stands. It is bad enough when one car has problems, worse when two are involved. Four…God forbid! We don't NEED to put ourselves in any position where that could possibly happen! Third priority, keeping the sponsors happy. Can't do this stuff without them!
And fourth, but definitely NOT the least…the fans. The spectators. Can't do it without them either. A MAJOR, MAJOR part of the income. Drag racing is a HARD sport to understand, it always has been, it always will be. It has taken years and years and years to acquire the amount of spectators we have now and TV has been a HUGE part of that. But TV can do just as much harm just as it can help…sometimes more…IF and when something goes wrong. You KNOW how bad TV will hurt our sport if something goes wrong and they play it up wrong in the wrong way. Spectators STILL don't understand a lot of the stuff about drag racing and it is really hard to catch everything that happens in 3-, 4-, 5- and/or 6-seconds with TWO cars running. It is IMPOSSIBLE with four. I'm really worried they will just give up and stay away. They will have to pay the same amount (or more) to attend a 4-wide race and it will be over in half the time and they will miss half of it because it's just too much to take in! I think it will be a detriment to our sport.
I absolutely did NOT like the way they did the finals and I don't think the racers liked it and I'm SURE the spectators didn't like it. I think the racers got cheated having to settle for third and fourth place without the benefit of running it the usual way. What do you think about that? Would you like to do that at your track? Why not just flip a coin the way they used to do at Shuffletown Dragway when it got too late to finish the race because of the curfew? It would have been just as fair to flip that coin at ZMax as it was to run it the way they did! I also think the spectators felt cheated as well.
I haven't heard much about what the 'little guy' racers thought about 4-wide racing, but I can't believe they enjoyed it. It seems to me there would be four times as much confusion as usual…how could someone concentrate with all that stuff going on? That is one of the things the Pro racers have complained about. And, if you missed it, they voted to NOT run 4-wide again at a points race…I think that confusion had a lot to do with that. By the way, have you noticed HOW MANY PEOPLE there are milling around the starting line when the Pros are running? What happened to all those insurance company rules about a having a limited number of people going up with each car and having a limited number of people on the starting line at ANY time? I don't care HOW you look at it…that's just as dangerous a place to be as anywhere…the insurance companies used to know that. What happened? I bet there were as many as 30 people on the line at any given time when the Pros were running at the Spring Nationals in Houston! I couldn't believe it!
I wonder how many of the little guy racers went on ESPN and voted. I wish they'd actually done a survey with the vote so we could see how many racers or other people involved in the sport voted as opposed to how many fans voted which way. That would have been much more interesting than the way it was done. If any of you would like to make a comment here on my blog, you are welcome to do so. I would like to know what more of YOU think about all this.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Drag racing! REALLY?
From Becky to my friends: I know most of y'all have always thought I was weird, but what the heck! Now I'm going to prove it. Before I go any farther, let me tell you this...I DON'T CARE WHO GETS MAD OVER WHAT I'M WRITING HERE! I grew up on a farm. I LOVE gardening. I LOVE eating!!! And so do most of you. However, if you really want to keep eating MEAT you will read this email and follow my advice. It may sound horrible to start with, but if you read it all the way through, you will change your mind. I am asking every one of you to STOP CONTRIBUTING MONEY TO THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES or HSUS!!!!!! Now wait...I'm not a horrible person...I love my kitties and Mendy's horses and we would have many more animals if we take care of them. I am sure you are wondering why someone who is in drag racing is writing about farming and HSUS...after all, they are two completely different worlds...rght? WRONG! And I will tie all this together for you.
The HSUS uses ONLY 4%...FOUR percent...of YOUR contributions to help animals!!! WOW! Didn't know that, did ya? Want to know what the other 96% is used for? Putting farmers...namely beef, pork, chicken, turkey and all other meat proucers out of business!!! YES! That's right! If you had previously known that, would you have contributed to them? NO!!! Can you imaqine Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter without a turkey, chicken or ham? No? Can you imagine Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day weekends without grilling steaks, burgers, dogs, chicken breast, etc? NO! Can you imagine NOT having a warm beef stew or chicken pie in the winter when it's cold and snowy? NO? Can you imagine having a big salad in the summertime or a stir without saute'd chicken pieces? No? Well, you'd better wake up. HSUS has ALREADY introduced legislation in California to stop the production of animal products in that state. IF that passes, Washington, D.C. is next on their agenda. THAT, my friends, is what YOUR contributions to the Humane Society has gotten you. And if you keep sending them money they will only get bigger and bigger. And they will use ANY MEANS they can, INCLUDING money laundering, bribery, fraud, obstruction of justice and HIRING crooked lawyers to reach their goals! They are no't honest in ANY of their dealings.
What does that have to do with drag racing? Follow this from the National Cattlemans Business Association: "The non-profit center for Consumer Freedom is reporting a lawsuit which is now pending against HSUS filed by FELD ENTERTAINMENT (sound familiar?) who owns Ringling Brothers Circus. Allegations named in the lawsuit against HSUS iinclude: bribery, fraud, obstruction of justice and money laundering. A federal court JUDGE found HSUS and two of its corporate lawyers and others named in the lawsuit PAID FOR 'now impeached testimoney!' That means the testimoney they gave in the lawsuit again Feld Entertainment was all lies and has now been thrown out of the lawsuit! Now you're REALLY asking how is this involved with drag racing? Feld Entertainment owns IHRA and most of you have either raced or are still racing some, either with IHRA or at an IHRA sanctioned track. Do you think Feld Entertainment is worried about a lowly second-rate drag racing sanctioning body when they have all this other bigger stuff going on to worry about? I don't think so. And that may bite you in the butt in the long run!
So even if you CAN'T support IHRA all the time, you CAN STOP contributing money to an association who is literally screwing with the entire nation's economy. Can you imagine what would happen to the US economy if all the farmers who grow and sell MEAT as their entire business or even part of it get put out of business? And don't think it stops there...DAIRY products are next! Can you imagine a life without ICE CREAM? I can't! It's my all-time FAVORITE food! Not to mention, cheese and yogurt and butter and all the things I make with those wonderful HEALTHY foods! Eggs will be next! Can you imagine NOT having EGGS to eat? You can't even make a cake without eggs!!!!!!!! We HAVE TO STOP these zealots in their tracks! We CANNOT let this continue. IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE contributing to the welfare of animals, DON'T give any more money to the Humane Society...buy a bag of dog or cat food and take it to your local animal shelter. EVERY COUNTY in the US has an animal shelter. Call them and ask them what they need...cat liter, bedding, etc. You can also donate money to them and SPECIFY what you want that money to be used for...food, veterinary services, spaying and neutering, medicines, etc. PLEASE, PLEASE do NOT contribute any more money to the Humane Society of the United States. When they send you crap in the mail, throw it in the trash. Don't even use the 'free' address labels they send you, that's just more 'free' advertising for them. Every time you put one of their address labels on something, you're actually advertising for them! If you want to use the labels, cut off the part that says where it came from!!! And DON'T pay for them...they will have to stop mailing them out if no one pays for them. Remember...animals are NOT receiving the money you donate to HSUS!
WE ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO CAN STOPS GROUPS LIKE THIS. THEY ARE FANATICS. THEY DON'T HAVE A LIFE OF THEIR OWN SO THEY THINK THEY NEED TO MEDDLE IN EVERYONE ELSES. THEY ALL NEED TO BE INSANE ASYLUMS...NOT OUT HERE TRYING TO MAKE LEGISLATION WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY CONTROL OUR LIVES IF THEY ARE ALLOWED TO KEEP DOING THIS CRAZY STUFF! All of you know me and you know I would NEVER advise you to do something like this unless I KNEW it was wrong. I hope you will send this to EVERYONE you have an email address for. We need to get this message out as quickly as possible.
I would recommend you watch RFDTV. SUPPORT OUR FARMERS! Go to their website and just look at all the wonderful programing they have. www.RFDTV.org They have a list on the website that tells you what channel RFDTV is on with all the different TV programming we have now! I am going to put this on my blog so if you want to tell someone else about it, it is: http://quicktimesracingnews.blogspot.com.
Thanks, as always your friend, Becky White
The HSUS uses ONLY 4%...FOUR percent...of YOUR contributions to help animals!!! WOW! Didn't know that, did ya? Want to know what the other 96% is used for? Putting farmers...namely beef, pork, chicken, turkey and all other meat proucers out of business!!! YES! That's right! If you had previously known that, would you have contributed to them? NO!!! Can you imaqine Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter without a turkey, chicken or ham? No? Can you imagine Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day weekends without grilling steaks, burgers, dogs, chicken breast, etc? NO! Can you imagine NOT having a warm beef stew or chicken pie in the winter when it's cold and snowy? NO? Can you imagine having a big salad in the summertime or a stir without saute'd chicken pieces? No? Well, you'd better wake up. HSUS has ALREADY introduced legislation in California to stop the production of animal products in that state. IF that passes, Washington, D.C. is next on their agenda. THAT, my friends, is what YOUR contributions to the Humane Society has gotten you. And if you keep sending them money they will only get bigger and bigger. And they will use ANY MEANS they can, INCLUDING money laundering, bribery, fraud, obstruction of justice and HIRING crooked lawyers to reach their goals! They are no't honest in ANY of their dealings.
What does that have to do with drag racing? Follow this from the National Cattlemans Business Association: "The non-profit center for Consumer Freedom is reporting a lawsuit which is now pending against HSUS filed by FELD ENTERTAINMENT (sound familiar?) who owns Ringling Brothers Circus. Allegations named in the lawsuit against HSUS iinclude: bribery, fraud, obstruction of justice and money laundering. A federal court JUDGE found HSUS and two of its corporate lawyers and others named in the lawsuit PAID FOR 'now impeached testimoney!' That means the testimoney they gave in the lawsuit again Feld Entertainment was all lies and has now been thrown out of the lawsuit! Now you're REALLY asking how is this involved with drag racing? Feld Entertainment owns IHRA and most of you have either raced or are still racing some, either with IHRA or at an IHRA sanctioned track. Do you think Feld Entertainment is worried about a lowly second-rate drag racing sanctioning body when they have all this other bigger stuff going on to worry about? I don't think so. And that may bite you in the butt in the long run!
So even if you CAN'T support IHRA all the time, you CAN STOP contributing money to an association who is literally screwing with the entire nation's economy. Can you imagine what would happen to the US economy if all the farmers who grow and sell MEAT as their entire business or even part of it get put out of business? And don't think it stops there...DAIRY products are next! Can you imagine a life without ICE CREAM? I can't! It's my all-time FAVORITE food! Not to mention, cheese and yogurt and butter and all the things I make with those wonderful HEALTHY foods! Eggs will be next! Can you imagine NOT having EGGS to eat? You can't even make a cake without eggs!!!!!!!! We HAVE TO STOP these zealots in their tracks! We CANNOT let this continue. IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE contributing to the welfare of animals, DON'T give any more money to the Humane Society...buy a bag of dog or cat food and take it to your local animal shelter. EVERY COUNTY in the US has an animal shelter. Call them and ask them what they need...cat liter, bedding, etc. You can also donate money to them and SPECIFY what you want that money to be used for...food, veterinary services, spaying and neutering, medicines, etc. PLEASE, PLEASE do NOT contribute any more money to the Humane Society of the United States. When they send you crap in the mail, throw it in the trash. Don't even use the 'free' address labels they send you, that's just more 'free' advertising for them. Every time you put one of their address labels on something, you're actually advertising for them! If you want to use the labels, cut off the part that says where it came from!!! And DON'T pay for them...they will have to stop mailing them out if no one pays for them. Remember...animals are NOT receiving the money you donate to HSUS!
WE ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO CAN STOPS GROUPS LIKE THIS. THEY ARE FANATICS. THEY DON'T HAVE A LIFE OF THEIR OWN SO THEY THINK THEY NEED TO MEDDLE IN EVERYONE ELSES. THEY ALL NEED TO BE INSANE ASYLUMS...NOT OUT HERE TRYING TO MAKE LEGISLATION WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY CONTROL OUR LIVES IF THEY ARE ALLOWED TO KEEP DOING THIS CRAZY STUFF! All of you know me and you know I would NEVER advise you to do something like this unless I KNEW it was wrong. I hope you will send this to EVERYONE you have an email address for. We need to get this message out as quickly as possible.
I would recommend you watch RFDTV. SUPPORT OUR FARMERS! Go to their website and just look at all the wonderful programing they have. www.RFDTV.org They have a list on the website that tells you what channel RFDTV is on with all the different TV programming we have now! I am going to put this on my blog so if you want to tell someone else about it, it is: http://quicktimesracingnews.blogspot.com.
Thanks, as always your friend, Becky White
Thursday, February 25, 2010
In Memory of Norman Drouillard Sr...Owner/Operator Farmington Dragway for Many Years
Norman Drouillard Sr. passed away on December 8, 2009 at 6:10 pm. If you raced at Farmington Dragway in the past 30-something years, you probably knew who he was. If you didn't race there, you may never have heard his name. Norman was the kind of person you loved to hate. He could make you so mad so fast you didn't know what to think. I know this because I worked for him and I want to tell you what that meant to me. This is MY story, but it is too intertwined to separate, so this IS my personal memorial to Norman.
In April, 1979, after several years of barely coping with life with at least one year of that being in severe deep depression, I decided to go to the drag strip one day. Farmington Dragway was my home track…it opened in 1963…the same year my first daughter was born. I have pictures of all three of my girls at that track before they were six months old! Talk about the glory days! Anyway, I'm getting off track. At that time, I was living seven miles from the track…if the wind was blowing in the right direction, I could hear the cars. I thought…just maybe…going to the track might help get me out of the funk I had been in for so long because I had ALWAYS loved cars and racing!
I did not intend to work a deal with the owners, but when I got to the track, the first person I saw…the guy who was working the gate…was good friend Larry Allen and that brought a smile to my face. We talked a few minutes and I asked him who the owner or operator was and he told me Jerry Joyce and Norman Drouillard and it just so happened they were close enough for Larry to point them out to me. I went over and introduced myself and I don't know what in the world made me do it and I don't remember the whole conversation, but basically I said, "Hey, if you'll let me in free every week, I will write a story and put it in the local paper for you. Five bucks I can use to pay on rent or groceries for my kids!"
Talk about balls! I didn't know if I could even write a story, much less get it printed anywhere!!! I just figured I could get all that straightened out later!!! But they didn't know that. They said something like, "Sure, we'll give it a try!" Norman was all for getting something for nothing and he got a LOT of something that year for 'almost' nothing. I got in free, kids were all under 16 so they got in free and I got a hot dog once a week! And I worked my heart out! I was, at that time, in school at Rowan Technical College (now Rowan-Cabarrus Community College) in Auto Mechanics. After being at the track a couple weeks, I KNEW I had just about bit off more than I could chew.
A woman. Writing about drag racing? What a hoot! At least that was the general attitude. But I kept on plugging and plugging and, finally, some of the folks realized I really wasn't there looking for a boyfriend or husband and slowly, people started accepting me. I'm telling you all this for a reason. I met an awful of people real fast! But there were also people racing in '79 I knew from the early 60s! I worked my heart out all year and graduated in the top of my class at school. I would go home from the track and type up my stories on my old Royal typewriter my dad bought me about 1957 or '58. I would do five or six different stories…each with a different headline and each going to a different small town newspaper. I mailed them out on Sunday and took one to the Davie County Enterprise on Monday…deadline day.
I know I'm writing a lot about me, but it is so you will understand. My first BIG story was on Jack McClamrock…a man who had been my hero since I first saw him race…probably in 1963. Norman was the publisher of the King Times-News so naturally a lot of my stuff got printed there. I can't remember the dates or even the years of the stories I did, but I did stories on a lot of racers and they were printed in a lot of papers. I even had newspaper folks do a couple stories on me…what I was doing was VERY unusual…women weren't supposed to be doing stuff like that… I don't know if it was because we were supposed to be pregnant and barefoot all the time or just too dumb to know 'stuff' about cars and racing…probably a little of both. After all…this WAS 1979! I met all the folks from IHRA and had lots of stories printed in Drag Review. And for that, I ended up with an invitation to the IHRA banquet in November that year.
Man, there was NO way I could EVER afford to do anything like that. I told Norman how disappointed I was that we couldn't go and he actually gave me a check for $100!!! (A lot of money back then.) But not enough. My girls took their allowance money, Teresa made me a velvet dress as her Home Ec project in school as well as a dress for her to wear. My mother bought dresses for Candace and Mendy and, somehow or another, we ended up at the Graystone Lodge in Gatlingburg, TN. I had done a story that year on Margie and Eldee Hutchins and they offered us a free ride to and from. We had never been anywhere like that, but I would never gone without those girls. I thought I was, as the saying goes, pooping in high cotton. I can't even begin to tell you how I felt. Even my girls had a wonderful time. It was the beginning of a new life for us all.
1980 was an even better, busier year. I got SO involved in drag racing and I wrote more and more and more. I feel this may have actually saved my life. I had been so deep in depression before I didn't know how I could ever pull myself up out of that hole and I'm so thankful this happened. We had a blast. The neighbors of Farmington Dragway tried to close the track that year and I went to all the meetings and spoke and wrote newspaper articles about all the things that went on in the meetings and the way we 'racing folks' were being treated. I think, through the stuff in the newspaper, they kind of got shamed into dropping the whole deal. There would probably never have even been anything in the local paper if it had not been for me because the newspaper folks surely would not have sent anyone to cover that. In 1980, I got paid $15 a week and a hot dog!!! Jerry and Mark would publish a special paper every few months for the track, especially when something extra was going on and I wrote a lot of stories for it.
Before the end of that year, I met a guy named Barry Jenkins who talked about publishing a drag racing magazine. Some of the racers pointed him in my direction and we talked but I never even considered the fact he was serious. However, in early 1981, he called me and said he'd sold enough ads to print one issue! WOW! Could I come to Pageland, SC and help him put it together. That's how Quick Times Racing News got started and he chose the name for it. So now I was writing stuff for the Quick Times as well as the drag strip. I was getting stretched out pretty thin because Candace was in art class, Mendy was in gymnastics, Teresa was graduating that year and I was teaching Auto Mechanics for Davidson County Community College…only an extension class one night a week, but there was just too much do.
However, I was in seventh heaven…life seemed to be agreeing with me and my girls for the first time in a long time. One weekend in July, when I got to the track, Norman said I would have to pay to get in…I was still working there! I can't even tell you how bad that hurt. Now maybe guys don't get their feelings hurt that way but I can't tell you how much that hurt. I left the kids there…they were all still under 16…and I went to Shuffletown. For the first 30 miles, I cried. Then I got mad. DON'T MAKE ME CRY! It makes me mad when I feel weak!!! So the rest of the way down there AND back to get the girls, all this stuff was going through my mind about the past three years and how hard I had worked and how much it had all meant to me. So the first 'nasty' editorial I ever wrote about a track operator, I wrote about Norman Drouillard Sr! (And that wasn't the only time!)
Needless to say, that went over like a lead balloon with him and I was pretty much banished from Farmington. Well, not actually, but I still had to pay to get in and I didn't write for them any more after that. I struggled with that damned paper I was trying to do…by myself now!!!
I had told Barry I needed to find a printer closer to home because leaving the girls and going to Pageland and putting the paper together, getting it printed, then bringing it home and getting it ready to mail (I always did all the mailing) was just too much. He said for me to go ahead and find someone and he would do the traveling. So I made a deal with the newspaper in Kernersville to typeset and print the paper and I would just go down and do the layout, bring it home and mail it. That was in August and as the deadline for the September got closer, I kept calling Barry and he kept saying he'd be here, yada, yada, yada. He never showed up and his name was not on the September issue or any issues after that.
Norman did not speak to me again until about 1984. K&K Insurance was killing the small tracks and I got on their ass and after I harassed them in Quick Times for months, things started to change. A new insurance company started insuring drag racing and prices finally came down. I was walking through the pits at Rockingham that spring and who did I meet? Norman and Norman and Mark. I thought, "Oh shit." Norman looked straight at me and said, "I want to thank you for all the stuff you've been writing about our insurance problems, it has really helped all the small track operators!" I was dumb-struck…he could do that to you! I didn't know what to say and by the time my brain got back to functioning, they had already walked off. I just turned around and watched them…my mouth was probably still hanging open!
We kind of became 'okay' again. I always took a few minutes to go talk to Norman when I was at Farmington. I could tell Norman things I didn't think I could tell anyone about stuff that was going on in drag racing and he confided in me many times. I got a lot of ideas from the things we talked about and I gave him some good ideas, too. The point in writing this is to let everyone know I DO REALIZE if it had NOT been for Norman (and Jerry Joyce), I wouldn't have even known I could do the things I ended up doing. I NEVER had any idea I COULD do the things I ended up doing! Hell, the only things I had ever written were papers in school and letters to far away friends. Norman gave me a chance to live a life most people only dream about. Thanks, Norman.
In April, 1979, after several years of barely coping with life with at least one year of that being in severe deep depression, I decided to go to the drag strip one day. Farmington Dragway was my home track…it opened in 1963…the same year my first daughter was born. I have pictures of all three of my girls at that track before they were six months old! Talk about the glory days! Anyway, I'm getting off track. At that time, I was living seven miles from the track…if the wind was blowing in the right direction, I could hear the cars. I thought…just maybe…going to the track might help get me out of the funk I had been in for so long because I had ALWAYS loved cars and racing!
I did not intend to work a deal with the owners, but when I got to the track, the first person I saw…the guy who was working the gate…was good friend Larry Allen and that brought a smile to my face. We talked a few minutes and I asked him who the owner or operator was and he told me Jerry Joyce and Norman Drouillard and it just so happened they were close enough for Larry to point them out to me. I went over and introduced myself and I don't know what in the world made me do it and I don't remember the whole conversation, but basically I said, "Hey, if you'll let me in free every week, I will write a story and put it in the local paper for you. Five bucks I can use to pay on rent or groceries for my kids!"
Talk about balls! I didn't know if I could even write a story, much less get it printed anywhere!!! I just figured I could get all that straightened out later!!! But they didn't know that. They said something like, "Sure, we'll give it a try!" Norman was all for getting something for nothing and he got a LOT of something that year for 'almost' nothing. I got in free, kids were all under 16 so they got in free and I got a hot dog once a week! And I worked my heart out! I was, at that time, in school at Rowan Technical College (now Rowan-Cabarrus Community College) in Auto Mechanics. After being at the track a couple weeks, I KNEW I had just about bit off more than I could chew.
A woman. Writing about drag racing? What a hoot! At least that was the general attitude. But I kept on plugging and plugging and, finally, some of the folks realized I really wasn't there looking for a boyfriend or husband and slowly, people started accepting me. I'm telling you all this for a reason. I met an awful of people real fast! But there were also people racing in '79 I knew from the early 60s! I worked my heart out all year and graduated in the top of my class at school. I would go home from the track and type up my stories on my old Royal typewriter my dad bought me about 1957 or '58. I would do five or six different stories…each with a different headline and each going to a different small town newspaper. I mailed them out on Sunday and took one to the Davie County Enterprise on Monday…deadline day.
I know I'm writing a lot about me, but it is so you will understand. My first BIG story was on Jack McClamrock…a man who had been my hero since I first saw him race…probably in 1963. Norman was the publisher of the King Times-News so naturally a lot of my stuff got printed there. I can't remember the dates or even the years of the stories I did, but I did stories on a lot of racers and they were printed in a lot of papers. I even had newspaper folks do a couple stories on me…what I was doing was VERY unusual…women weren't supposed to be doing stuff like that… I don't know if it was because we were supposed to be pregnant and barefoot all the time or just too dumb to know 'stuff' about cars and racing…probably a little of both. After all…this WAS 1979! I met all the folks from IHRA and had lots of stories printed in Drag Review. And for that, I ended up with an invitation to the IHRA banquet in November that year.
Man, there was NO way I could EVER afford to do anything like that. I told Norman how disappointed I was that we couldn't go and he actually gave me a check for $100!!! (A lot of money back then.) But not enough. My girls took their allowance money, Teresa made me a velvet dress as her Home Ec project in school as well as a dress for her to wear. My mother bought dresses for Candace and Mendy and, somehow or another, we ended up at the Graystone Lodge in Gatlingburg, TN. I had done a story that year on Margie and Eldee Hutchins and they offered us a free ride to and from. We had never been anywhere like that, but I would never gone without those girls. I thought I was, as the saying goes, pooping in high cotton. I can't even begin to tell you how I felt. Even my girls had a wonderful time. It was the beginning of a new life for us all.
1980 was an even better, busier year. I got SO involved in drag racing and I wrote more and more and more. I feel this may have actually saved my life. I had been so deep in depression before I didn't know how I could ever pull myself up out of that hole and I'm so thankful this happened. We had a blast. The neighbors of Farmington Dragway tried to close the track that year and I went to all the meetings and spoke and wrote newspaper articles about all the things that went on in the meetings and the way we 'racing folks' were being treated. I think, through the stuff in the newspaper, they kind of got shamed into dropping the whole deal. There would probably never have even been anything in the local paper if it had not been for me because the newspaper folks surely would not have sent anyone to cover that. In 1980, I got paid $15 a week and a hot dog!!! Jerry and Mark would publish a special paper every few months for the track, especially when something extra was going on and I wrote a lot of stories for it.
Before the end of that year, I met a guy named Barry Jenkins who talked about publishing a drag racing magazine. Some of the racers pointed him in my direction and we talked but I never even considered the fact he was serious. However, in early 1981, he called me and said he'd sold enough ads to print one issue! WOW! Could I come to Pageland, SC and help him put it together. That's how Quick Times Racing News got started and he chose the name for it. So now I was writing stuff for the Quick Times as well as the drag strip. I was getting stretched out pretty thin because Candace was in art class, Mendy was in gymnastics, Teresa was graduating that year and I was teaching Auto Mechanics for Davidson County Community College…only an extension class one night a week, but there was just too much do.
However, I was in seventh heaven…life seemed to be agreeing with me and my girls for the first time in a long time. One weekend in July, when I got to the track, Norman said I would have to pay to get in…I was still working there! I can't even tell you how bad that hurt. Now maybe guys don't get their feelings hurt that way but I can't tell you how much that hurt. I left the kids there…they were all still under 16…and I went to Shuffletown. For the first 30 miles, I cried. Then I got mad. DON'T MAKE ME CRY! It makes me mad when I feel weak!!! So the rest of the way down there AND back to get the girls, all this stuff was going through my mind about the past three years and how hard I had worked and how much it had all meant to me. So the first 'nasty' editorial I ever wrote about a track operator, I wrote about Norman Drouillard Sr! (And that wasn't the only time!)
Needless to say, that went over like a lead balloon with him and I was pretty much banished from Farmington. Well, not actually, but I still had to pay to get in and I didn't write for them any more after that. I struggled with that damned paper I was trying to do…by myself now!!!
I had told Barry I needed to find a printer closer to home because leaving the girls and going to Pageland and putting the paper together, getting it printed, then bringing it home and getting it ready to mail (I always did all the mailing) was just too much. He said for me to go ahead and find someone and he would do the traveling. So I made a deal with the newspaper in Kernersville to typeset and print the paper and I would just go down and do the layout, bring it home and mail it. That was in August and as the deadline for the September got closer, I kept calling Barry and he kept saying he'd be here, yada, yada, yada. He never showed up and his name was not on the September issue or any issues after that.
Norman did not speak to me again until about 1984. K&K Insurance was killing the small tracks and I got on their ass and after I harassed them in Quick Times for months, things started to change. A new insurance company started insuring drag racing and prices finally came down. I was walking through the pits at Rockingham that spring and who did I meet? Norman and Norman and Mark. I thought, "Oh shit." Norman looked straight at me and said, "I want to thank you for all the stuff you've been writing about our insurance problems, it has really helped all the small track operators!" I was dumb-struck…he could do that to you! I didn't know what to say and by the time my brain got back to functioning, they had already walked off. I just turned around and watched them…my mouth was probably still hanging open!
We kind of became 'okay' again. I always took a few minutes to go talk to Norman when I was at Farmington. I could tell Norman things I didn't think I could tell anyone about stuff that was going on in drag racing and he confided in me many times. I got a lot of ideas from the things we talked about and I gave him some good ideas, too. The point in writing this is to let everyone know I DO REALIZE if it had NOT been for Norman (and Jerry Joyce), I wouldn't have even known I could do the things I ended up doing. I NEVER had any idea I COULD do the things I ended up doing! Hell, the only things I had ever written were papers in school and letters to far away friends. Norman gave me a chance to live a life most people only dream about. Thanks, Norman.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Don't Let History Get in the Way of a Good Story
I don't know why Bobby Bennett and Bret Kepner want to change history or even where they got the ego to think they can, but I printed the history of Pro Mod in Quick Times Racing News AS it happened and there isn't much in the beginning of their story you can compare to what REALLY happened. If you don't know the real 'history,' please don't be fooled into believing lies. I want you to KNOW how Pro Modified came about, the players and the people who made it what it is. In Bobby's Part I of his 'so-called' history of Pro Mod, THE VERY FIRST LINE IN WAS A LIE! Anyone who was there or who remembers how it REALLY happened knows the very first OFFICIAL Pro Mod race was at Atco Raceway in Atco, NJ on October 27 and 28, 1989. So fans, if you think your independence day is March 10, guess what? You already missed it! It was October 27 and 28! How could ANYONE NOT remember when Walter Henry was killed? That is a slap on his memory I would NOT want attributed to something I wrote as 'history.' I'm not dead guys, how could you think you could get away with this travesty?
Jim Ruth was the owner of IHRA in 1989 and he is the man who 'created' the class! He told the racers they would go Pro in 1990 but they could run their FIRST OFFICIAL Pro Mod race at the last points race of 1989 and CLAIM their first PRO MOD points and those points would carry over to the 1990 season! It was one of the largest fields in Pro Mod history in IHRA because everyone wanted to be at that first race. It is a shame something happened to dampen the spirit of that race, but knowing Walter, if he'd had a choice???????? Jim who, by the way, owned the 'World's Fastest Pontiac Mountain Motor Pro Stocker' was pretty sick by then and already in dealings with the people who would eventually become the new owners of IHRA, but he is STILL the man who made that decision and made it all possible. Since Jim died the next year, Ted Jones has always taken credit for the class. But since Ted never had an idea of his own, we know that isn't true…he couldn't even come up with a name for it and had to have a contest to name it!
However, the TRUE HISTORY of Pro Mod started a long time before that first race at Atco. It took many years for this to come about. Many of the racers who have been slighted by Bobby's 'un-history' have called me and asked me to straighten this out. I cannot believe Charles Carpenter has been slighted by this crap the way he has. What in the heck does a blown Corvette driven by a funny car driver years earlier have to do with the history of Pro Mod? Bret…where are your brains? Where they've always been? If you want to start with a Corvette, start with the right one (keep reading!). This all started with nitrous assisted gas engines, there WEREN'T any blowers in the original Quick 8s. Blowers WERE allowed in Top Sportsman, but ONLY after a near-holy war in the class because most of the nitrous doorslammer drivers didn't want blowers allowed. Alcohol and blowers gave those drivers an edge because of the added power. They also eventually changed the class to ALL doorslammers…splitting it and having a Top Sportsman open body class and taking dragsters and roadsters out of the doorslammer class.
As far as the movement to Pro Mod, yes, you can say Charles Carpenter was the first…in a way. Charles had a car that drew attention no matter where he raced and when Jim Bryant of ThunderCraft boats heard about the 'World's Fastest '55 Chevy,' he just decided to build a car to compete with Charles…the 'World's Fastest '57 Chevy' came out in 1987. But wait…I'm getting ahead of myself. What REALLY started Pro Mod was the desire to GO FAST!!! Every person who has ever gone down a drag strip (or down the highway, for that matter) has wanted to GO FAST(ER)! Pro Mod was literally built on the same principles as funny car…go fast! Until bracket racing came along, regular guys couldn't just GO FAST! They were bound by pounds per cubic inch and stock parts…there was only just so much they could do. The only guys who could GO FAST were racers who were NOT bound by rules…Garlits, Prudhomme, Karamesines, Snow, Kalitta, Muldowney, Schumacher, Grove, Broome, McEwen, Ivo, Arfons, Breedlove, etc., too many to mention here, including the racers who ran those crazy, unpredictable Midwestern altereds.
When bracket racing came along, there was finally another group unbound by 'can't go fast' rules. They could go as fast as they could afford or shade tree engineer. I will give you one example…a man I knew in person and still idolize to this day even though he has been gone over 20 years. His name was Jack McClamrock and you could find him any weekend at Farmington and Mooresville Dragways beating the pants off ALL his opponents. If there ever WAS a Corvette that was the pre-curser to Pro Mod, it was his…ceegar ash tray on the dash, gas engine and all. Remember, Jack class raced for MANY years, but when bracket racing came about, he was in his glory. He was banned from Mooresville Dragway for winning something like 52 races in a row or some such nonsense! But he made that Corvette fly. He made a lot of other race cars fly, too. And that was in the late '60s and '70s! Thanks to racers like Jack, Farmington Dragway started the first ever 5-Second Club (1980 with only three members) and if you've never heard of that one, you've been living underground. They just completed their VERY successful 26th Annual Big 5-Second Shootout with Tim West of Asheville, NC pulling off his first win of that most prestigious race.
Racers just worked their buns off to be the FASTEST at their track and all other local tracks! Jack ran the first 6.15 ever at Farmington in 1979…and, man, that was flying! Sure it was eighth mile but he was on pure gas and the only other guys who'd done that were those Pros mentioned above. The battle was on. Fast didn't always win, but it was ALWAYS fun and the fans loved the fast cars even though they were breakout racing. Pro Stockers who had been rooted out of their game because of the expense of running pounds per cubic inch were right along in there with them only they were match racing all across the country. I attended many but the one that sticks in my mind was the last match race between Lee Edwards and Don Carlton, May 2, 1975 at Farmington (Don won two out of three by the way and bought our breakfast!) It sticks because just a short time later, Don was gone forever. I also have a picture that says, "To Becky, Don Carlton." Those go-fast guys were also instigators in the history of Pro Mod.
Altereds were dying all across the country because they had gotten so out of hand, no one could pay them enough to race. In the south, we didn't have many altereds, so they got hired in for match races and exhibitions from time to time, but by the '80s, most of them were just setting somewhere. IHRA created Mountain Motor Pro Stock and it was one of the most popular classes IHRA ever had…until a few misguided people wanted to change it back to the 500 cubic inch rule and ruined it, too.
Since everyone wanted to go fast, manufacturers were trying various ways to make sure the trend continued and eventually, along came nitrous oxide. Track operators started paying Low ET money, most paid first, some even paid second and third Low ETs. That just made everyone want to go even faster. I went to work at Farmington in 1979 and was working there in '80 when they started the 5-Second Club. Farmington's 5-Second Club was the only one for several years, then when nitrous came along, EVERYONE had a 5-Second Club. Cars kept getting faster, but that's not all. They got these beautiful paint jobs on them. Custom paint became the rage in the '70s...of course some had fancy paint earlier than that, but in the '70s, that aspect just exploded. Cars LOOKED good, cars ran FAST, they weren't bound by rules, the only rules were 'don't break out and don't red light.' Run wha cha brung and hope you brung enough!
In 1981, I started Quick Times Racing News because these racers had NO place to get their names printed, no place to get the glory they deserved…IHRA, NHRA and any others RAs were still stuck in RULES racing and in their publications, little guys were practically non-existent. Bracket racing was just what those racers did at their home tracks. But there were SO MANY of them, the sanctioning bodies decided they wanted some of that money so they allowed classes like Pro Street and Super Street. When they decided to make '.90' brackets like Quick Rod and Hot Rod and Super Rod, that limited SPEED again. So other brackets were formed where racers could again go fast in IHRA, NHRA, etc. like they were doing at home at their local track. From 1981 on, I highlighted those racers and wrote about them and their trials and troubles and wins and ETs and MPHs and accomplishments…births, deaths, marriages, divorces, warts and all! By the way, Jack McClamrock, along with Charles Carpenter and Michael Martin were on the cover of the FIRST EVER QTRN! That wasn't the only time Charles and Michael were on the cover, I did stories on them later. Charles ALWAYS said the attention and the coverage I gave the racers gave many of them the boost and encouragement they needed to do bigger and better things.
In September, 1986, I started featuring 12 cars in the center fold of QTRN…they were some of the fastest cars in the southeast. Many of those racers are no longer in the sport and some are no longer with us, but they all had a direct bearing on Pro Mod. I saw Charles Carpenter in 2002 or 2003 when he was making a 'comeback' (as he is now!) and he just shook his head when he said, "I can't believe there are so many of these guys running Quick 8s and Pro Mod and they don't even know where the class came from. Some of them look at me like they're wondering who I am and what I'm doing here!" It didn't take him long to show them something. But I know how Charles felt because when there got to be so many Pro Mod racers who got 'too big for their britches,' I just kind of faded away myself and many of them didn't know me either even though I was one of the originators of Pro Mod racing as Charles was. And if you ask him, he will tell you the same thing!
In each of those five issues, I featured ten doorslammers, one roadster and one dragster. My aim was to really highlight the quick and fast doorslammers but didn't want to make the doorless drivers mad!!! That was FIFTY fast doorslammers, I could have done that many more! There was also a story in each issue to go along with the centerfold of fast cars. The stories were written by David McGee, Dave Bishop, Woody Hatten, Phil Elliott and me. I do think you should know this…I asked Bret Kepner to write one of those stories and he said he would be glad to. I told him for which issue I needed his story and I told him the deadline date and he said he would get it to me in plenty of time. As the time got closer and closer, I called Bret several times and each time he promised he would get the story to me ASAP. I told him I needed to know if he wasn't going to do it so I could go ahead and do it myself, but he kept saying, "I'm working on it. I'll get it to you in time." He never did, he lied to me for over two months. I don't believe he ever intended to write it and lied to me intentionally! Sometime in the next year, he tried to apologize, but I just turned and walked off and never had any dealings with him ever again.
Also, in 1986, Dave Bishop had written about Charles Carpenter in Drag Review and called Charles' car the 'World's Fastest Shoebox' coining that term for all of time. Jim Bryant heard about Charles and his car and built his '57 Chevy to match race Charles, hiring Rob Vandergriff to drive…those two match raced everywhere. Among all these goings on in the southeast, AHRA Pro Stock, then UDRA Outlaw Pro Stock was the thing to do in the Midwest and Dixie Pro Stock was going strong in the deep south. All these guys basically did not want rules constricting their performance and most of them couldn't afford to build the big engines it took to run Pro Stock so they were just out doing their own thing. This movement was happening in many areas of the country all at the same time even though there was seldom any mixing outside their general areas. That soon changed. Quick Times Racing News was being read by racers all over the eastern U.S. by this time and when I started putting these 12 cars in each of my issues, it got a LOT of attention everywhere.
Don Garrick was running Orangeburg Dragstrip in Orangeburg, SC when the October, 1986 issue came out and he called me and said, "If I have a race just for these fast cars, do you think they will come and race for me here?" We talked about having a heads up, pro tree, no breakout race and I told him they had been trying to get someone to have this kind of race for a while but he needed to come up with a good purse because that was a LONG drive for most. I also told him there was only one way to find out…call them and see. He asked if I had their phones numbers, I told him I did, he asked if I would help him call, I said I would and the first EVER Quick 8 Doorslammer Race was held at Orangeburg Dragstrip in October, 1986. Since that issue was already in people's hands, we didn't even have time to advertise it, but after all the phone calls, there were lots of racers there. They WANTED to do this! I think Blake Wiggins won that first race. Orangeburg Dragstrip was now the 'Home of the ORIGINAL Doorslammer Race.' This was the single biggest catalyst to the formation of Pro Mod of anything that happened in this sport.
Don continued having these Quick 8 races into 1987, about once a month with more and more continued success. Sometimes, it would take an hour just to get into the track even though he had several people working the gate. The place was ALWAYS packed! And Don was smiling all the way to the bank…so much so he ended up selling the track in October, 1988. But the Quick 8s continued with new owners Johnny and Charles Dowey. Finally, other track operators started taking notice of the success of those early races, but NO other tracks held this type of race until a full year and a half later….at Shuffletown Dragway in Charlotte, NC in April, 1988! This was the single biggest spectator draw any of these track had ever had because spectators understand the winner being the guy who crossed the finish line first! And who doesn't love all that other excitement…the action and suspense of these racers and their ultra fast cars they can identify with…full body cars, old cars, new cars, cars that do eighth mile burnouts and weird stuff on the track like cross the finish line tail first or bounce back and forth from guardrail to guardrail!
I do have to mention one other track here and that is Hudson Drag Strip in Hudson, NC. They had been having what they called '5.85' races on Thursday nights and it was one of the most popular things they ever did…, not just for the fans, but for the racers, too. It was not a heads up, no breakout race, but it was a lot different than anyone had ever done. The four cars who qualified the closest to a 5.85 ET above and the four who qualified below a 5.85 made up first round and they were paired according to their ETs. Everyone loved it…it was just different and the racers had a chance at a purse separate from regular race dates and they all got a lot of notoriety from this. Hudson Drag Strip was the ONLY track who EVER did this type of race!
In the meantime, the IHRA Top Sportsman racers of '86 were beefing up their old cars and engines or getting new ones for '87 and I don't think there was any one single person anywhere who had any idea what was going to happen that year. But at Darlington, everyone found out, starting off the with the first EVER 200 mph pass in a sportsman doorslammer. Bill Kuhlmann, whom no one in the south had ever heard of (he was one of those Midwestern outlaw Pro Stockers) ran a 202.24 on that horrible, cold, slick Darlington Dragway at nearly midnight at the Winter Nationals.
There were other things going on in the background as well. Seems a lot of folks wanted a 'shoebox' race car because they got more attention than ANY of the others. Before the end of 1987, Norm Wizner had debuted his '57 Mega Ford, Gordy Foust was working on a new '66 Chevelle and Richard Earle was cutting up a '58 Plymouth to make a 'Christine' shoebox! Ed Hoover had totaled his crazy Camaro with nothing more than bruises and building a new car and the craze was on! In 1988, Lamar Walden debuted his '62 Chevy, Tommy Howe's Datsun became the first sportsman doorslammer to run in the 6's. Then Gordy Hmiel ran a 6.99 and Rob ran over 200 in his shoebox Chevy and the first ever all 7-second Field in Top Sportsman happened.
IHRA Top Sportsman was still JUST a bracket and the racers were tired of running a bracket race at national events when they could run outlaw heads up everywhere else. They had a meeting and decided to ask IHRA to help them get something extra. What that extra was was the Top Sportsman Quick 8 Saturday Night Shootouts, one of the most popular shows IHRA ever had. The fans went wild! I have actually seen fans rush to their seats to watch this shootout and Mountain Motor Pro Stock and go get hot dogs when the alcohol and fuel cars were running! Sometimes the spectators were cheering and screaming and yelling so loud, it was hard to hear the cars…I was on the starting line and it was still sometimes hard to hear them. No one could have predicted how popular this was going to be! When Animal Jim defeated Rob Vandergriff at the Winter Nationals in 1988 in the new Quick 8 Shootout, it sealed the popularity of this new addition to IHRA.
I will have to say this…the smartest person in ALL this craziness was Duane Nichols. In 1989, Duane put together the United States Super Circuit and without a doubt, the seven years he ran this circuit, it was the most popular racing circuit that has ever been in the history of drag racing. People were really disappointed when, in 1995, Duane pulled the plug on the whole deal. When asked why, he simply told people, he could see the beginning of the end and he wanted to be remembered as quitting while he was ahead. He certainly was ahead!
When Steve Earwood was working for Gary Brown at Atlanta Dragway, I begged him for two years to have a Quick 8 Doorslammer race and he wouldn't even discuss it. I did everything I could think of to do, I told him how crazy people were over it, not just the racers, but spectators as well. I even tried to get him to come to one of our Carolina tracks on a Sunday when Atlanta wasn't running, but he never made the effort. He just laughed at me and kept on doing the same old thing. After Steve left Atlanta Dragway, he had a chance to come to an IHRA race at Bristol and after witnessing the astonishing success of Top Sportsman, especially the Saturday Night Quick 8 Shootout, he told me he wished he had listened to me…that this was, by far, the best show he had seen in years! He even sent me a letter after that…I will print it for you some time!!! One of the things he wrote was, "I must admit I haven't been so impressed since I saw my first funny cars back in the late '60s. The Top Sportsman cars really do have that kind of impact."
NHRA was just like Steve…they would not run Pro Mod for many years, mainly because of Pro Stock. They knew the Pro Mod would be faster and quicker than their limited 500 cubic inch Pro Stockers and didn't want to upset the apple cart. One of the reasons IHRA would not switch their Mountain Motor Pro Stock over to the standard NHRA 500 cubic inch limit was because they wanted their Pro Stock to be as fan-attended as Pro Mod. No factory sponsorships for Pro Mod…never would be. However, Pro Stock would always have some type of factory sponsorships…all this going on at a time when NHRA knew they were getting ready to lose Winston Drag Racing and they were hoping the auto makers would take up the slack when the Winston money was lost.
After Steve Earwood left Atlanta and Gary Brown took over the operations, Gary's wife Patti called me and asked if I would help them get the Pro Mod racers to come to Atlanta Dragway for the first time ever. They called this race the Mountain Motor Nitrous Nationals and it was held July 4 weekend in 1990. They had NO idea how to get in touch with any of these racers (and of course IHRA would never help an NHRA track!) and that's why they called me. I helped them call all these racers and for the FIRST time, Pro Mod got introduced to fans of Atlanta Dragway and I helped introduce Pro Mod to them and to NHRA. They went as nuts over Pro Mod as anyone ever had been. Patti and Gary held this race every year until NHRA 'bought' their track. And of course, NHRA wasn't about to run Pro Mod at one of their facilities.
MANY years later, NHRA finally recognized Pro Mod and allowed them to run at their races, at first it was only at certain races in the most out-of-the-way places. And the Pro Stockers hated them. And I don't blame them. They had no rules. They had no limits. But…progress is progress and the old saying, "You can't stop progress," was very true in the case of Pro Mod. When the powers at NHRA realized how much the Pro Mod racers were bringing to their little out-of-the-way facilities, they also realized how much this class could add to the whole line-up and NHRA finally does allow Pro Mod national events. But you don't see them on TV! Oh, no! Never, never, never. They are TOO popular. They are TOO fast. They are TOO quick! Fans love them TOO much. But this is one of the things IHRA still has going for it, no matter what anyone thinks.
Now folks, you have the TRUE, REAL history of Pro Modified. It doesn't have anything to do with the people who have used it as their claim to fame. It has to do with all the 'little guys' involved in the real history you've read here. Charles Carpenter, Becky White, Don Garrick and Orangeburg Dragstrip and more than just the names you've read here ARE the 'history' of Pro Mod. There has never been and, I predict, never will be a more exciting time in the sport of drag racing, the time for this kind of growth is well past. Pro Mod spread from the southeast…mainly the Carolinas…all across the country…not necessarily like a wildfire, but it was complete. No one escaped the thrill and excitement of Quick 8 Doorslammer racing, thank God!
This one bunch of racers has brought more spectators to the sport of drag racing than any other class ever and brought it more good notoriety as well (along with some bad). It is a shame so many Quick 8 or Pro Mod racers don't know their history and have gotten so far away from their roots that evidently they don't even care. But I guess that happens after time, I just want EVERYONE to know the TRUE history of Pro Mod before it's lost in a sea of 'story-telling.' And remember…I printed the true history of Pro Mod AS IT HAPPENED and have never felt the need to change a thing! Imagine what would have happened if there had not been instigators and believers and people like Charles Carpenter, Becky White and Don Garrick at Orangeburg?
Becky White, Editor and Publisher, Quick Times Racing News for 25 years!
(I will, later, print a list of names here…if you know of someone who helped to make Pro Mod possible, send them to me and I will add them to the list I already have. In the meantime, I think you SHOULD read Bobby's history…it will at least give you some insight into the racers themselves…I know he has been contacting them, which I did not.)
Jim Ruth was the owner of IHRA in 1989 and he is the man who 'created' the class! He told the racers they would go Pro in 1990 but they could run their FIRST OFFICIAL Pro Mod race at the last points race of 1989 and CLAIM their first PRO MOD points and those points would carry over to the 1990 season! It was one of the largest fields in Pro Mod history in IHRA because everyone wanted to be at that first race. It is a shame something happened to dampen the spirit of that race, but knowing Walter, if he'd had a choice???????? Jim who, by the way, owned the 'World's Fastest Pontiac Mountain Motor Pro Stocker' was pretty sick by then and already in dealings with the people who would eventually become the new owners of IHRA, but he is STILL the man who made that decision and made it all possible. Since Jim died the next year, Ted Jones has always taken credit for the class. But since Ted never had an idea of his own, we know that isn't true…he couldn't even come up with a name for it and had to have a contest to name it!
However, the TRUE HISTORY of Pro Mod started a long time before that first race at Atco. It took many years for this to come about. Many of the racers who have been slighted by Bobby's 'un-history' have called me and asked me to straighten this out. I cannot believe Charles Carpenter has been slighted by this crap the way he has. What in the heck does a blown Corvette driven by a funny car driver years earlier have to do with the history of Pro Mod? Bret…where are your brains? Where they've always been? If you want to start with a Corvette, start with the right one (keep reading!). This all started with nitrous assisted gas engines, there WEREN'T any blowers in the original Quick 8s. Blowers WERE allowed in Top Sportsman, but ONLY after a near-holy war in the class because most of the nitrous doorslammer drivers didn't want blowers allowed. Alcohol and blowers gave those drivers an edge because of the added power. They also eventually changed the class to ALL doorslammers…splitting it and having a Top Sportsman open body class and taking dragsters and roadsters out of the doorslammer class.
As far as the movement to Pro Mod, yes, you can say Charles Carpenter was the first…in a way. Charles had a car that drew attention no matter where he raced and when Jim Bryant of ThunderCraft boats heard about the 'World's Fastest '55 Chevy,' he just decided to build a car to compete with Charles…the 'World's Fastest '57 Chevy' came out in 1987. But wait…I'm getting ahead of myself. What REALLY started Pro Mod was the desire to GO FAST!!! Every person who has ever gone down a drag strip (or down the highway, for that matter) has wanted to GO FAST(ER)! Pro Mod was literally built on the same principles as funny car…go fast! Until bracket racing came along, regular guys couldn't just GO FAST! They were bound by pounds per cubic inch and stock parts…there was only just so much they could do. The only guys who could GO FAST were racers who were NOT bound by rules…Garlits, Prudhomme, Karamesines, Snow, Kalitta, Muldowney, Schumacher, Grove, Broome, McEwen, Ivo, Arfons, Breedlove, etc., too many to mention here, including the racers who ran those crazy, unpredictable Midwestern altereds.
When bracket racing came along, there was finally another group unbound by 'can't go fast' rules. They could go as fast as they could afford or shade tree engineer. I will give you one example…a man I knew in person and still idolize to this day even though he has been gone over 20 years. His name was Jack McClamrock and you could find him any weekend at Farmington and Mooresville Dragways beating the pants off ALL his opponents. If there ever WAS a Corvette that was the pre-curser to Pro Mod, it was his…ceegar ash tray on the dash, gas engine and all. Remember, Jack class raced for MANY years, but when bracket racing came about, he was in his glory. He was banned from Mooresville Dragway for winning something like 52 races in a row or some such nonsense! But he made that Corvette fly. He made a lot of other race cars fly, too. And that was in the late '60s and '70s! Thanks to racers like Jack, Farmington Dragway started the first ever 5-Second Club (1980 with only three members) and if you've never heard of that one, you've been living underground. They just completed their VERY successful 26th Annual Big 5-Second Shootout with Tim West of Asheville, NC pulling off his first win of that most prestigious race.
Racers just worked their buns off to be the FASTEST at their track and all other local tracks! Jack ran the first 6.15 ever at Farmington in 1979…and, man, that was flying! Sure it was eighth mile but he was on pure gas and the only other guys who'd done that were those Pros mentioned above. The battle was on. Fast didn't always win, but it was ALWAYS fun and the fans loved the fast cars even though they were breakout racing. Pro Stockers who had been rooted out of their game because of the expense of running pounds per cubic inch were right along in there with them only they were match racing all across the country. I attended many but the one that sticks in my mind was the last match race between Lee Edwards and Don Carlton, May 2, 1975 at Farmington (Don won two out of three by the way and bought our breakfast!) It sticks because just a short time later, Don was gone forever. I also have a picture that says, "To Becky, Don Carlton." Those go-fast guys were also instigators in the history of Pro Mod.
Altereds were dying all across the country because they had gotten so out of hand, no one could pay them enough to race. In the south, we didn't have many altereds, so they got hired in for match races and exhibitions from time to time, but by the '80s, most of them were just setting somewhere. IHRA created Mountain Motor Pro Stock and it was one of the most popular classes IHRA ever had…until a few misguided people wanted to change it back to the 500 cubic inch rule and ruined it, too.
Since everyone wanted to go fast, manufacturers were trying various ways to make sure the trend continued and eventually, along came nitrous oxide. Track operators started paying Low ET money, most paid first, some even paid second and third Low ETs. That just made everyone want to go even faster. I went to work at Farmington in 1979 and was working there in '80 when they started the 5-Second Club. Farmington's 5-Second Club was the only one for several years, then when nitrous came along, EVERYONE had a 5-Second Club. Cars kept getting faster, but that's not all. They got these beautiful paint jobs on them. Custom paint became the rage in the '70s...of course some had fancy paint earlier than that, but in the '70s, that aspect just exploded. Cars LOOKED good, cars ran FAST, they weren't bound by rules, the only rules were 'don't break out and don't red light.' Run wha cha brung and hope you brung enough!
In 1981, I started Quick Times Racing News because these racers had NO place to get their names printed, no place to get the glory they deserved…IHRA, NHRA and any others RAs were still stuck in RULES racing and in their publications, little guys were practically non-existent. Bracket racing was just what those racers did at their home tracks. But there were SO MANY of them, the sanctioning bodies decided they wanted some of that money so they allowed classes like Pro Street and Super Street. When they decided to make '.90' brackets like Quick Rod and Hot Rod and Super Rod, that limited SPEED again. So other brackets were formed where racers could again go fast in IHRA, NHRA, etc. like they were doing at home at their local track. From 1981 on, I highlighted those racers and wrote about them and their trials and troubles and wins and ETs and MPHs and accomplishments…births, deaths, marriages, divorces, warts and all! By the way, Jack McClamrock, along with Charles Carpenter and Michael Martin were on the cover of the FIRST EVER QTRN! That wasn't the only time Charles and Michael were on the cover, I did stories on them later. Charles ALWAYS said the attention and the coverage I gave the racers gave many of them the boost and encouragement they needed to do bigger and better things.
In September, 1986, I started featuring 12 cars in the center fold of QTRN…they were some of the fastest cars in the southeast. Many of those racers are no longer in the sport and some are no longer with us, but they all had a direct bearing on Pro Mod. I saw Charles Carpenter in 2002 or 2003 when he was making a 'comeback' (as he is now!) and he just shook his head when he said, "I can't believe there are so many of these guys running Quick 8s and Pro Mod and they don't even know where the class came from. Some of them look at me like they're wondering who I am and what I'm doing here!" It didn't take him long to show them something. But I know how Charles felt because when there got to be so many Pro Mod racers who got 'too big for their britches,' I just kind of faded away myself and many of them didn't know me either even though I was one of the originators of Pro Mod racing as Charles was. And if you ask him, he will tell you the same thing!
In each of those five issues, I featured ten doorslammers, one roadster and one dragster. My aim was to really highlight the quick and fast doorslammers but didn't want to make the doorless drivers mad!!! That was FIFTY fast doorslammers, I could have done that many more! There was also a story in each issue to go along with the centerfold of fast cars. The stories were written by David McGee, Dave Bishop, Woody Hatten, Phil Elliott and me. I do think you should know this…I asked Bret Kepner to write one of those stories and he said he would be glad to. I told him for which issue I needed his story and I told him the deadline date and he said he would get it to me in plenty of time. As the time got closer and closer, I called Bret several times and each time he promised he would get the story to me ASAP. I told him I needed to know if he wasn't going to do it so I could go ahead and do it myself, but he kept saying, "I'm working on it. I'll get it to you in time." He never did, he lied to me for over two months. I don't believe he ever intended to write it and lied to me intentionally! Sometime in the next year, he tried to apologize, but I just turned and walked off and never had any dealings with him ever again.
Also, in 1986, Dave Bishop had written about Charles Carpenter in Drag Review and called Charles' car the 'World's Fastest Shoebox' coining that term for all of time. Jim Bryant heard about Charles and his car and built his '57 Chevy to match race Charles, hiring Rob Vandergriff to drive…those two match raced everywhere. Among all these goings on in the southeast, AHRA Pro Stock, then UDRA Outlaw Pro Stock was the thing to do in the Midwest and Dixie Pro Stock was going strong in the deep south. All these guys basically did not want rules constricting their performance and most of them couldn't afford to build the big engines it took to run Pro Stock so they were just out doing their own thing. This movement was happening in many areas of the country all at the same time even though there was seldom any mixing outside their general areas. That soon changed. Quick Times Racing News was being read by racers all over the eastern U.S. by this time and when I started putting these 12 cars in each of my issues, it got a LOT of attention everywhere.
Don Garrick was running Orangeburg Dragstrip in Orangeburg, SC when the October, 1986 issue came out and he called me and said, "If I have a race just for these fast cars, do you think they will come and race for me here?" We talked about having a heads up, pro tree, no breakout race and I told him they had been trying to get someone to have this kind of race for a while but he needed to come up with a good purse because that was a LONG drive for most. I also told him there was only one way to find out…call them and see. He asked if I had their phones numbers, I told him I did, he asked if I would help him call, I said I would and the first EVER Quick 8 Doorslammer Race was held at Orangeburg Dragstrip in October, 1986. Since that issue was already in people's hands, we didn't even have time to advertise it, but after all the phone calls, there were lots of racers there. They WANTED to do this! I think Blake Wiggins won that first race. Orangeburg Dragstrip was now the 'Home of the ORIGINAL Doorslammer Race.' This was the single biggest catalyst to the formation of Pro Mod of anything that happened in this sport.
Don continued having these Quick 8 races into 1987, about once a month with more and more continued success. Sometimes, it would take an hour just to get into the track even though he had several people working the gate. The place was ALWAYS packed! And Don was smiling all the way to the bank…so much so he ended up selling the track in October, 1988. But the Quick 8s continued with new owners Johnny and Charles Dowey. Finally, other track operators started taking notice of the success of those early races, but NO other tracks held this type of race until a full year and a half later….at Shuffletown Dragway in Charlotte, NC in April, 1988! This was the single biggest spectator draw any of these track had ever had because spectators understand the winner being the guy who crossed the finish line first! And who doesn't love all that other excitement…the action and suspense of these racers and their ultra fast cars they can identify with…full body cars, old cars, new cars, cars that do eighth mile burnouts and weird stuff on the track like cross the finish line tail first or bounce back and forth from guardrail to guardrail!
I do have to mention one other track here and that is Hudson Drag Strip in Hudson, NC. They had been having what they called '5.85' races on Thursday nights and it was one of the most popular things they ever did…, not just for the fans, but for the racers, too. It was not a heads up, no breakout race, but it was a lot different than anyone had ever done. The four cars who qualified the closest to a 5.85 ET above and the four who qualified below a 5.85 made up first round and they were paired according to their ETs. Everyone loved it…it was just different and the racers had a chance at a purse separate from regular race dates and they all got a lot of notoriety from this. Hudson Drag Strip was the ONLY track who EVER did this type of race!
In the meantime, the IHRA Top Sportsman racers of '86 were beefing up their old cars and engines or getting new ones for '87 and I don't think there was any one single person anywhere who had any idea what was going to happen that year. But at Darlington, everyone found out, starting off the with the first EVER 200 mph pass in a sportsman doorslammer. Bill Kuhlmann, whom no one in the south had ever heard of (he was one of those Midwestern outlaw Pro Stockers) ran a 202.24 on that horrible, cold, slick Darlington Dragway at nearly midnight at the Winter Nationals.
There were other things going on in the background as well. Seems a lot of folks wanted a 'shoebox' race car because they got more attention than ANY of the others. Before the end of 1987, Norm Wizner had debuted his '57 Mega Ford, Gordy Foust was working on a new '66 Chevelle and Richard Earle was cutting up a '58 Plymouth to make a 'Christine' shoebox! Ed Hoover had totaled his crazy Camaro with nothing more than bruises and building a new car and the craze was on! In 1988, Lamar Walden debuted his '62 Chevy, Tommy Howe's Datsun became the first sportsman doorslammer to run in the 6's. Then Gordy Hmiel ran a 6.99 and Rob ran over 200 in his shoebox Chevy and the first ever all 7-second Field in Top Sportsman happened.
IHRA Top Sportsman was still JUST a bracket and the racers were tired of running a bracket race at national events when they could run outlaw heads up everywhere else. They had a meeting and decided to ask IHRA to help them get something extra. What that extra was was the Top Sportsman Quick 8 Saturday Night Shootouts, one of the most popular shows IHRA ever had. The fans went wild! I have actually seen fans rush to their seats to watch this shootout and Mountain Motor Pro Stock and go get hot dogs when the alcohol and fuel cars were running! Sometimes the spectators were cheering and screaming and yelling so loud, it was hard to hear the cars…I was on the starting line and it was still sometimes hard to hear them. No one could have predicted how popular this was going to be! When Animal Jim defeated Rob Vandergriff at the Winter Nationals in 1988 in the new Quick 8 Shootout, it sealed the popularity of this new addition to IHRA.
I will have to say this…the smartest person in ALL this craziness was Duane Nichols. In 1989, Duane put together the United States Super Circuit and without a doubt, the seven years he ran this circuit, it was the most popular racing circuit that has ever been in the history of drag racing. People were really disappointed when, in 1995, Duane pulled the plug on the whole deal. When asked why, he simply told people, he could see the beginning of the end and he wanted to be remembered as quitting while he was ahead. He certainly was ahead!
When Steve Earwood was working for Gary Brown at Atlanta Dragway, I begged him for two years to have a Quick 8 Doorslammer race and he wouldn't even discuss it. I did everything I could think of to do, I told him how crazy people were over it, not just the racers, but spectators as well. I even tried to get him to come to one of our Carolina tracks on a Sunday when Atlanta wasn't running, but he never made the effort. He just laughed at me and kept on doing the same old thing. After Steve left Atlanta Dragway, he had a chance to come to an IHRA race at Bristol and after witnessing the astonishing success of Top Sportsman, especially the Saturday Night Quick 8 Shootout, he told me he wished he had listened to me…that this was, by far, the best show he had seen in years! He even sent me a letter after that…I will print it for you some time!!! One of the things he wrote was, "I must admit I haven't been so impressed since I saw my first funny cars back in the late '60s. The Top Sportsman cars really do have that kind of impact."
NHRA was just like Steve…they would not run Pro Mod for many years, mainly because of Pro Stock. They knew the Pro Mod would be faster and quicker than their limited 500 cubic inch Pro Stockers and didn't want to upset the apple cart. One of the reasons IHRA would not switch their Mountain Motor Pro Stock over to the standard NHRA 500 cubic inch limit was because they wanted their Pro Stock to be as fan-attended as Pro Mod. No factory sponsorships for Pro Mod…never would be. However, Pro Stock would always have some type of factory sponsorships…all this going on at a time when NHRA knew they were getting ready to lose Winston Drag Racing and they were hoping the auto makers would take up the slack when the Winston money was lost.
After Steve Earwood left Atlanta and Gary Brown took over the operations, Gary's wife Patti called me and asked if I would help them get the Pro Mod racers to come to Atlanta Dragway for the first time ever. They called this race the Mountain Motor Nitrous Nationals and it was held July 4 weekend in 1990. They had NO idea how to get in touch with any of these racers (and of course IHRA would never help an NHRA track!) and that's why they called me. I helped them call all these racers and for the FIRST time, Pro Mod got introduced to fans of Atlanta Dragway and I helped introduce Pro Mod to them and to NHRA. They went as nuts over Pro Mod as anyone ever had been. Patti and Gary held this race every year until NHRA 'bought' their track. And of course, NHRA wasn't about to run Pro Mod at one of their facilities.
MANY years later, NHRA finally recognized Pro Mod and allowed them to run at their races, at first it was only at certain races in the most out-of-the-way places. And the Pro Stockers hated them. And I don't blame them. They had no rules. They had no limits. But…progress is progress and the old saying, "You can't stop progress," was very true in the case of Pro Mod. When the powers at NHRA realized how much the Pro Mod racers were bringing to their little out-of-the-way facilities, they also realized how much this class could add to the whole line-up and NHRA finally does allow Pro Mod national events. But you don't see them on TV! Oh, no! Never, never, never. They are TOO popular. They are TOO fast. They are TOO quick! Fans love them TOO much. But this is one of the things IHRA still has going for it, no matter what anyone thinks.
Now folks, you have the TRUE, REAL history of Pro Modified. It doesn't have anything to do with the people who have used it as their claim to fame. It has to do with all the 'little guys' involved in the real history you've read here. Charles Carpenter, Becky White, Don Garrick and Orangeburg Dragstrip and more than just the names you've read here ARE the 'history' of Pro Mod. There has never been and, I predict, never will be a more exciting time in the sport of drag racing, the time for this kind of growth is well past. Pro Mod spread from the southeast…mainly the Carolinas…all across the country…not necessarily like a wildfire, but it was complete. No one escaped the thrill and excitement of Quick 8 Doorslammer racing, thank God!
This one bunch of racers has brought more spectators to the sport of drag racing than any other class ever and brought it more good notoriety as well (along with some bad). It is a shame so many Quick 8 or Pro Mod racers don't know their history and have gotten so far away from their roots that evidently they don't even care. But I guess that happens after time, I just want EVERYONE to know the TRUE history of Pro Mod before it's lost in a sea of 'story-telling.' And remember…I printed the true history of Pro Mod AS IT HAPPENED and have never felt the need to change a thing! Imagine what would have happened if there had not been instigators and believers and people like Charles Carpenter, Becky White and Don Garrick at Orangeburg?
Becky White, Editor and Publisher, Quick Times Racing News for 25 years!
(I will, later, print a list of names here…if you know of someone who helped to make Pro Mod possible, send them to me and I will add them to the list I already have. In the meantime, I think you SHOULD read Bobby's history…it will at least give you some insight into the racers themselves…I know he has been contacting them, which I did not.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)