[ponyakr]

while lookin thu our scapbook i saw something that sparked the idea for this post. now this is a pontiac street racin story. i'll send a pic that will show the funny car that sparked this story. the name on the car is "wild wilford". now this guy was wild. he'd do a tremendous smoky burnout all the way across the line & continue to about 1/2 track. but the show wasn't over yet. he'd put 'er in reverse & back up almost as fast as he'd gone forward & there was nobody there to direct him back like most cars. i guess every body was too scared of getting run over to get anywhere close. every body just got out of the way. i've often wondered how nhra & ihra let him get away with it. it looked really dangerous. but the crowd loved it & i reckon they figured it mite bring in a few extra fans. now fast forward a couple of years. there's this guy in town (whom i'll refer to again as joe) who drove a '69 or '70 gp, 400, th400. by the way, my dad called evrybody joe. i think he picked it up in service during ww2. he called me joe too. he'd say, "hey joe, hand me that crescent wrench". well joe would come by the shop occasionally, set around sippin on a tasty beverage, which he always seemed to have, & soak up the pontiac racing atmospher. so i guess he finally took all he could stand & bought a '68 bird from a local junk yard. he planned to pull the motor & trans from the gp & put 'em in the bird, to make him a street racer. he told me his plan & said he wanted to shut down some of those tounge waggin bbc guys in town. well by now, you know me, i was all for it. i told him to bring the cars over to the shop. he could use my tools & i'd even be glad to help if he needed it. well he did, & i did, & the bird was soon on the street. but a few days later he came back & said he thought he needed a little more cam before he challenged the bbc guys. so i ordered him a ra4 duplicate & he soon had it fired up & thumpin. i'll never forget this scene. he leaned over the fender to listen, sorta cocked his head to 1 side, & said (in a very countryfied voice) "you know i like that, its sorta got a rang to it". then he asked if i had any slicks for sale. well, by now i had everything, so i fixed him up with a decent set of 9" slicks, & he was off to conquer the world. he only got to race a couple of times. he beat the bbc boys so bad, when the word got around nobody else would run him. now remember, this is a small town & there aren't any 8sec nitrous cars runin the streets like today. his hi 12's were more than enuff to take care of the local big mouths. so just out of boredom i suppose, or maybe he just enjoyed it, he would strap on his slicks, stop at the 1st redlite on main street, do a smoky burnout, then blast off when the lite turned green. then he'd proceed to the next lite & repeat the procedure. the police all knew him so they'd just tell him to cool it, & go on home. when i heard these tales, i imediatly linked him to wild wilford. so from that day til this, i call him " wild willy ". he still answers & knows just what i mean by it. he later got tanked up & went to see his girlfriend. they had an argument & he got mad & tore out up the road, then told me later, " big d, i was so messed up, i forgot to shift & it went off like a hand grenade". but it died as the badest ride in town! the end.