[ponyakr]

dirt track racin is not for everybody. its dirty. dusty & muddy. whether your running fast or not, there's always some fool ready to plow into 'ya, ending your nite, & requiring a full week of hard work to put it back in race condtion. its not a lazy mans sport. it takes a lot of hard work to keep your car ready to race, week after week. when we were bracket racing there were many weeks when we didn't even unload off the trailer-- there was nothing to fix. that don't happen in dirt racin. there's always someting to fix. even if you don't get wiped out buy the demolition derby dude, you still have to go over the car every week to see what needs to be repaired or changed. & it always needs washing. the track is always wet & muddy when you 1st go out, & after a few laps of " packin the track", you've got mud caked all over the car. in bracket racing we've had slicks last a whole season & front tires several seasons. that don't happen on dirt. tires wear out quick, especialy the rr. & sometimes you don't even get through the race with 4 usable tires. there's always sharp objects of all kinds hangin off some of the cars & the slightest side by side contact can slice a brand new tire open & render it a pile of junk. once the race starts, for the driver, its a nasty world. the track is still muddy & the car in front of you will sling mud in your face. you must have a clear helmet shield with thin plastic tearoffs you can peel off when they become caked with mud. otherwise you'll lose all ability to see whats in front of you. by the end of the race your dirty, sweaty & tired. so with all these negatives, what makes guys wanna put theirselves thru this? its the thrill of competition, the desire to compete & do it better than your opponent. & when things go right, its loads of fun! i'm a witness.

[ponyakr]

i just had a flashback of something that for some reason i forgot to mention. one sat. we pulled into the pits of our local dragstip a little late & were looking for a place to park. all the spots where we usually parked were taken, so we kept driving slowly ahead, looking for a spot. it looked like there might be 1 beside a big oak tree just to the left of the staging lanes. but just before we got to it, we noticed 2 men standing in front of us, arguing. well the fists started flying & soon 1 guy had the other down & was thrashin him severely about the head. they finaly got up and the winner started walkin back to the tower. the other man ran over to a nearby pickup & came back waving a gun & shouting obsenities at the guy who had just given him a whuppin. i don't know what kind of a gun it was, but it looked to me like a cowboy style 44 magnum. & he was right in front of us. i didn't know whether to duck or start backin up as fast as i could without running over somebody. thankfully, some guys came over & wrestled the gun away from him & tried to calm him down. when the other guy had started walking away we had recognized him as the track manager. we later got the whole scoop. the guy with the gun was a hot head with a drinking problem. he'd started an argument with the manger which resulted in the incident we witnessed. for it, the man was banished from the track for life as i remember it. he later died in a racing rollover at another track. he'da been o.k. but his harness was loose & he was thrown partially out the window. so the moral of the story is, if you drink, wait til after the race to start, especially if your driving a race car. it can make things a lot more pleasant & enjoyable for others.

[ponyakr]

i mentioned before that bracket racing is not a spectator sport. at most of the tracks we raced the only spectators in the stands were there just briefly to watch their car run then they went right back to the pits. but circle track racing is just the opposite. you can see evidence of this at almost all the nascar tracks. i think some tracks seat over 100,000 fans, not counting the millions watching by t.v. most people don't understand the competitive aspects of dealing with reaction times, dial-ins, & breakouts. but its e-z to understand it when the rule is, the 1st man to finish 500 laps wins. also it can be quite exciting to feel the ground shakin & hear the deafining roar of 43 800hp race cars as they they streak by at 200mph. what's not to like? but unless you live close to a big track, most folks don't have the funds or the time to spend a weekend at a nascar race. thats where the small local dirt track comes in. for very little money' you can spend a fri or sat nite enjoying some very exciting competition. no, they're not as loud as the big boys, but they still disturb the peace. if you've never been to a dirt track race, i urge you to check 1 out the next time they book in a big late model show at a track near you. you may like it more than you thought. you've noticed from the t.v. coverage of nascar events that many are loyal fans of certain drivers. although dale jr. has'nt done done to well lately, if he does any thing good in the race, you know it imediately because he has lots of loyal fans. if you go to enuff races at your local track, you'll , no doubt find yourself pulling for certain drivers. some really get into it. i,ve seen guys go rite up to the fence & flail their arms like a windmill, trying to root their car on to victory. i knew 1 woman that took it a little too far. she,d cuss & holler at the drivers & the flagman til soon the bleachers were empty for at least 20' around her. my advice would be, try it, you might like it.

[ponyakr]

if you decide to try dirt trackin as a racer instead of a fan, its a different world. its a very hostile invironment. it don't matter to some guys if you are a beginner or a vetran. if you get in their way or slow them down, they'll nail you, whatever it takes to move you out of their way. back in the old days, a major incident on the track, usually meant a fight in the pits. most tracks have reduced this problem slightly by inforcing the no alcohol in the pits rule. but it still happens. some fans actually like the fights. they think it just adds to the excitement & entertainment value of the sport. but i'm a gearhead, i like the competition. now if your going to get into dirt racing with a pontiac, i warn you, its an extremely hostile world. its world ruled by chevy. & they don't take kindly to a pontiac trying to enter their kingdom. all the rules are geared to favor the small block chevy, using a 350 block. many chevy boys try to say that all pontiac motors, including the 350's are big blocks & therefore not allowed. 1 very popular class specifically excludes all bop motors. in the rules, when listing the legal blocks, it reads gm(chevy only) some classes allow bop--but 350 block only, some just show a max ci limit. before you enter, check out the rules. if you doubt that its a chevy world, look thru a circle track parts catalog. except for a few ford parts, its nothin but chevy. this is such a well known fact that many of the parts are not even listed as chevy, its just assumed that everybody knows its for chevy. several classes allow any iron head. look at the list of hp aftermarket iron heads for chevy. brodix, dart, & on & on. but at this time, if you run a pontiac in an iron head rule class, you are limited to 40+ year old iron heads, which must be ported to make any decent power. of course, if you have the big bucks you might be able to find a set of ra4's before the deep pocket collectors buy'em all up & lock'em away. that may have already happened. but there is a good side to this. it is very rewarding to beat a chevy on his home turf!

[ponyakr]

a pontiac racer friend, who hereafter i'll refer tom as mb, got disgusted with bracket racing & decided to try dirt trackin. he decided to start with a '68 bird(which he later discovered was probably not the best choice) he was a good mechanic so he soon had it ready to race. he invited me to go watch him race. i had never been to a dirt race so i did'nt know what to expect. i was pleasantly surprized. these cars were loud & fast as they came roaring by, scratchin & clawin & slingin dirt everywhere. the track was a high banked red clay oval 1/4 mile around. the fast cars were runnin rite at the top, up close to what i later found out was called the cushion. the fastest car in mb's class was a white mustang with a 351 cleveland motor. it was screamin. sounded like 7000rpms or more. when he got to the turn he would hang his right rear tire against the cushion & in a flash he was headed back down the opposite straight. but wait, where's mb, he,s in the race too. i looked & there was poor mb. he was going really slow, compared to the mustang, & he was sliding back & forth, all over the track. it looked almost as if he was on ice. by the way, i just thought about it. the driver of that white mustang is the father of the boy that drove our modified last year. i wanted to know what mb had to say about the race when he got back to the pits. he said, the motor sounded o.k., but no traction at all. all he had was some real hard street tires with a few grooves cut across'em. well, i'd learned long ago from bracket racing, find out whats workin for the fast guys. so we eased on over to the mustang to see what he was using. the name was right there on the side, Dirt Bozz. we felt of the tread. it was soft as a drag slick & had plenty of grooves already in it. i already had a little speed shop, so i called around & found out that a place in ark called marsh racing tires sold the dirt bozz. so we got some headed our way. from that time on, mb's luck began to change.

[ponyakr]

i thought of something that i havn't talked about much that some may find very interesting. in '73 i started racin at an airstrip track in haynesville La. there was no tree & no timing equipment of any kind. we had no idea how quick or fast we were going, much less what our reaction time was. the spots were given in so many feet head start, which for the 1st 100' or so was marked off with paint on the track surface, between the lanes. for any spot longer than that, it was strickly up to the flagman to estimate. for those long spots, the flagman would sit on the fender of the car & ride down the track to what he considered the correct distance. purty advanced technology huh? then he would back up a short distance & flag the race from there. i think i've mentioned beating the pinto with a bounty on his head. i suspect he got that bounty put on him thru wins he got as a result of spots that were far too long. the car was obviously stone stock & he drove it to every race. nethier me nor T.J. could remember( its been a few years) exactly what class he ran, but it was somewhere in the w-x-y-z range. i ran d-stock. i remember that the spot was 410 ft. so the flagman got on the fender & they rode of into the sunset. can you imagine what would happen today if somebody jumped onto the fender of somebody's race car? anyway they drove on down to what looked to me to be at least 1/2 track. the flagman got out & took his position. at this point i didn't think i had a chance. this spot looked ridiculous. so, just to add a little drama to the situation & to help entertain the crowd (this is the track where we had so many fans) i got out & held my hand up as if shielding my eyes from the sun & looked intently down the track as if trying to make out some distant object. yes, this really happened. i am not makin this up. then i climbed back in the goat & got ready. & it really was sorta hard to detect the motions of the flagman that far away. anyway, i got to the line 1st(according to the finish line man, there to determine winners) & drove back down passed the crowd, who by now were jumpin & cheerin & goin wild. yah, they loved the ole goat. i don't blame 'em, i did too!

[ponyakr]

i must now give credit where the credit is due. thru all these wins (which was almost every race that 1st 2 years) that were flagged, i cannot take any of the credit. all i did was pop the clutch & row thru the gears. the ole goat did the work. & it wasn't because i hopped it up with cheater parts. i assure you it was stone stock, just as delivered from the factory. i had driven it about 61,000 miles when i took it off the street to race. at the time the only work ever done on it was a new timing set. & that was the results of an engineering blunder at pontiac. i don't hear much about it anymore, so some of you may not even be aware of it. the smart engineers at pontiac decided to use nylon(plastic) teeth on the cam sprocket to make the engine run quieter. yes, even on the ram air motors. they were almost guaranteed to strip off by 50,000 miles. mine did about 40k. today there would be a recall & gm would be forced to change 'em out. i had no more problems with it after that. when i got ready to race, i installed a new clutch & pressure plate & raced the motor stone stock & unmolested all of '73 & '74. i guess thats 1 reason they were so popular back then, they were bad to the bone right from the factory. but with only a few exceptions, you could'nt just go to the dealer(at least in our neck of the woods) & buy a goat off the lot & hope for much performance. except for the judge, the dealers would order their cars loaded out with air, power everything, standard engine & pitiful gears like 3.08 or 3.23. & it got worse in the mid '70's. how about 2.41 & 2.56 ta's. no thrill there. i guess thats why so many people just wrote 'em off as cars that looked good but were real slow. i could have gotten 4.33 gears in my goat, but i knew it would be a daily driver, so i compromised with a 3.90. it would have been quicker with the 4.33's, but as it turned out,it didn't really need the extra help.