[ponyakr]

in '68 i transferred from college in ruston to college in monroe & moved over there. thats where i started workin at the pizza place where i earned the money to buy my gto. i've told ya'll that story, so fast foreward now to 1976. i've told you about how it was our worst year ever in racing, blowing a roller motor & with it my entire racing budget. move on now to october. we went to the state fair in shreveport. i'd loved the fair for years. i especialy love the corn dogs they sell there. you could watch'em being made, then by 1 hot, rite out of the grease. i'd usually eat a dozen or more. then there was the circle track. i'd watched the hemi cars battle the 427 fords on that track(which we would later have a few drag races on). it was just a small time circuit, but i remember that the top hemi drivers name was Ernie Derr. while walking thru the different buildings of booths & displays, i stumbled across a little table with some free literature on it, so i picked up a couple & put 'em in my pocket. little did i know that those little books would soon change my life. i didn't have any race cars to work on, the season was lost. so i'd just jump in bed early & read the latest car mag, or the latest H-O racing specialties monthly newsletter about pontiacs. 1 nite i noticed those little booklets i'd picked up at the state fair. so i decided to take a look at'em. i figured they were just "junk mail" & i'd just glance at'em, then throw'em in the trash. but as i read, i found that they were explaining to me Gods plan of salvation for man. well, i knew they were telling the truth, cause i'd heard it preached from the bible growing up. mom always made us go to church. but i began to think of all this drinkin & sin i'd gotten into since answering this "call of the wild. well it was more than i could take. i broke down & then answered this new call i was hearing. from that monent on i was a new man! & it was no accident. T.J. & my mom had been praying for me for years. well their prayers were finally answered. i didn't call T.J. to tell her. i just showed up at her door. as i walked in, i didn't have to say a word. she knew that her prayers were answered, i was a new creature & all that old life was history. we just stood in the middle of the room & hugged & cried for a long time without exchanging a word. so even tho our racing that year was a disaster, it turned out to be the greatest year of my life. nothing else even compares. now i'll leave you with these thoughts. if your praying for a friend or loved one, don't give up, your answer may be rite around the corner. & if you've never had this experience, i invite you to try it today. you won't be sorry. its been over 35 years ago & i've never regretted it for 1 second. its the greatest single thing thats ever happened in my life. so i highly recommend it. PTL!--------------------john 3:16 , romans 10:9,10 ,2 cor. 5:17

[bryansMtngto]

are these the pages to a book?? like Titled Where I come from?? or the life and times of Ponyakr? Have to admit have gotten some good laughs out of a few of the pages. and enjoy some of the Vintage Pics.

[ponyakr]

1 day back when i had a harley sporster, i was outside tinkerin with it, fixin to take a little ride. about that time i heard some noise & when i looked up i saw 2 girls walkin down our driveway. they were talkin & pushin 2 bicycles. as they got closer, i recognized them as copperheads sister & my 1st girlfriend. they had been best friends from their school days together. i can remember that they were the hottest girls there at all our home dance party record hops. they knew all the latest dances, the twist, the mashed potatoes, the pony--you know all the old stuff from the early rock-n-roll days of the '60's. all the boys wanted to dance with these gals. i guess they were the most popular girls in school. so now i'm wondering why these girls are walking down my driveway, pushin bikes. well, i soon learned that they were just havin a little reunion & decided to take a bike ride. but the chain was loose on 1 of the bikes & had come off. when they spotted me outside they figured i could put the chain back on for'em. so we made small talk while i put the chain back on & tightened it up. & they were soon on their way. then i jumped on the harley & went to town to make a few loops. now as i thought about this last night, the thought came to me,"i bet 1 of those bikes belonged to copperhead. the girls probably just borrowed them from the boys for their little outing". i'll ask him about it next time i talk to him. he's done some charity work on my old drag car. he installed a new starter & a soft touch rev controll box. & he even used his truck & trailer to haul the car to the track. so maybe this is just payback for me wrenchin on his bike years ago. thanks copperhead!

[ponyakr]

i have no book to sell nor any plans for 1. i assure you i would never have started this without help from the boys on the racing site. when i tried to share some of what i'd learned thru many years of bracket racing that i thought mite be of help to someone just getting into the sport, some of the big boys took offense, saying i was trying to tell them how to race when they already knew more than me. i told them several times that the info i shared was not for heads up classes or electronics classes using tranny bakes & delay boxes, but only for footbrake classes. i also said that these were things that had worked for us & had produced many wins. this seamed to make some mad & they began to ask what i had ever done that made me think i could give advice on the subject. so i decided i must tell my story. thus the thread where i came from. as T.J. & i began to look back thru our old racing scrapbooks & records we began to think of things we had'nt thought of in years. so as we thought of something that we thought someone might enjoy hearing about we posted it. lately when my eyes 1st open in the morning sometimes the thought of something will come to me & i go look it up in our records, then share it. this whole thing is more of a surprise to me than anybody else. 1 more thing. the post that i made that made some so mad was "how to win more races" well i've read that info over very carefully at least 10 times & i've had T.J. to read it & i can't find 1 single thing i'd change. thats exactly how we won races & not just a few. it may not work for everybody, but it sure worked great for us. 1 more time, let me say, i harbor no ill will towards anyone. if i have offended anyone, i apologize, please forgive. also for those who have or will speak negatively against me, i forgive!
.

[ponyakr]

now the activities to which i am about to refer are those that i do not recommend that you attempt. also i say that i no longer participate in these type of activities. however this is an accurate account of the facts, & is presented here strickly for entertainment purposes. if you have been following my story, you by now know that i used to partake of the tasty beverage(from pass time on the speed channel) from time to time ('67-'76). thru the years we called it by many different names, such as, suds, brewsky, a cool one, etc. but to save space for this article, i'll call it "brew". somewhere back in the early '70's, somebody told me about a brew called coors, that tasted much better than my brand. so, i kept askin around til i found 1 that i could taste for myself. well, the rumor was true. it was much tastier than my brand. so i went to several brew shops to try & buy some. what i found out was, no coors was sold in La or any of the other gulf coast states. i'm reminded here of smokey & the bandit. do you remember what the snowman was haulin in the 18 wheeler? thats rite, a load of coors, takin it to a state that didn't sell it. so you see, this story is pontiac related. further inquiries revealed that the closest source was probably dallas, Tx. so i borrowed T.J.'s '68 camaro(a christmas present from hi school) & headed towards dallas. i stopped at a little brew store in a little town called terrell. i didn't even have to ask. there in the middle of the floor was the biggest stack of brew i had ever seen. it looked like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. apparently this was the 1st chance on I-20 for all folks from the east to stock up on coors. the man asked how much i wanted, & i said "fill'r up". now this incident probably started my dislike of chevys, especially camaros. all we could stuff in was 15 cases(below eye level so the law wouldn't see), leaving room of course for the ice chest so i could refresh my self on the trip home. i remember saying to myself, "i ain't comin in this little thang anymore. its hardly worth the trip". so that was the 1 & only bootleg run for the camaro. my '68 cad was much better suited for brew runnin, 35 cases + a 2 case icechest. i never could talk anybody into makin a run with me, but when i got home they'd come runnin. never took a drop on the trip west, but comin home was a different story. i just set'r on the same speed as the flow of traffic, so as not to raise any suspisions & cruised on back in, sippin on a cold brew all the way. by the time i pulled in at our local bowling alley, i was feelin no pain. when i was spotted, the brew drinkers came runnin. hey, i ain't proud of it, but thats the way it was. by the way, let me add, i have not had 1 drop of brew since october of 1976. i remember 1 hot day in '77 i was workin on T.J.'s new bracket car & all of a sudden i got this overwhelming urge for a cold brew. so i got me a big drink of ice water & discovered that i was just thirsty. never have considered takin another sip

[ponyakr]

now the activities to which i am about to refer are those that i do not recommend that you attempt. also i say that i no longer participate in these type of activities. however this is an accurate account of the facts, & is presented here strickly for entertainment purposes. if you have been following my story, you by now know that i used to partake of the tasty beverage(from pass time on the speed channel) from time to time ('67-'76). thru the years we called it by many different names, such as, suds, brewsky, a cool one, etc. but to save space for this article, i'll call it "brew". somewhere back in the early '70's, somebody told me about a brew called coors, that tasted much better than my brand. so, i kept askin around til i found 1 that i could taste for myself. well, the rumor was true. it was much tastier than my brand. so i went to several brew shops to try & buy some. what i found out was, no coors was sold in La or any of the other gulf coast states. i'm reminded here of smokey & the bandit. do you remember what the snowman was haulin in the 18 wheeler? thats rite, a load of coors, takin it to a state that didn't sell it. so you see, this story is pontiac related. further inquiries revealed that the closest source was probably dallas, Tx. so i borrowed T.J.'s '68 camaro(a christmas present from hi school) & headed towards dallas. i stopped at a little brew store in a little town called terrell. i didn't even have to ask. there in the middle of the floor was the biggest stack of brew i had ever seen. it looked like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. apparently this was the 1st chance on I-20 for all folks from the east to stock up on coors. the man asked how much i wanted, & i said "fill'r up". now this incident probably started my dislike of chevys, especially camaros. all we could stuff in was 15 cases(below eye level so the law wouldn't see), leaving room of course for the ice chest so i could refresh my self on the trip home. i remember saying to myself, "i ain't comin in this little thang anymore. its hardly worth the trip". so that was the 1 & only bootleg run for the camaro. my '68 cad was much better suited for brew runnin, 35 cases + a 2 case icechest. i never could talk anybody into makin a run with me, but when i got home they'd come runnin. never took a drop on the trip west, but comin home was a different story. i just set'r on the same speed as the flow of traffic, so as not to raise any suspisions & cruised on back in, sippin on a cold brew all the way. by the time i pulled in at our local bowling alley, i was feelin no pain. when i was spotted, the brew drinkers came runnin. hey, i ain't proud of it, but thats the way it was. by the way, let me add, i have not had 1 drop of brew since october of 1976. i remember 1 hot day in '77 i was workin on T.J.'s new bracket car & all of a sudden i got this overwhelming urge for a cold brew. so i got me a big drink of ice water & discovered that i was just thirsty. never have considered takin another sip

[ponyakr]

T.J. just found a whole gro sack full of pics. when she gets'em on her digital camera i'll share some with ya'll. some of the pics in that bag triggered this post. when i get'em posted you'll see a shot of the starting line at amarillo,Tx. it was called the world finals--1974. you'll see a crosswalk over the track, just behind the burnout area. they'd let folks stand up there & watch the cars take off. i had gone to the race in '73 & i remember standin on that crosswalk & watchin, as close to 40 funny cars did burnouts, then blasted off. before this i had never seen a nitro car of any kind, live. so i was not prepared for what i would witness. it was the most awsome display of noise & speed i've witnessed either before or since. i stood on that crosswalk as it vibrated from the power of these machines. my eyes began to water & my ears began to ring as the guys did their thang. but i was not about to move. i stood there til every funny car had run. now i'd seen pics, but they don't give a clue of the show these cars put on. they don't hint of the nitro "cackle" you hear at a live show. even when you watch'em on t.v., they have the sound so filtered & toned down, if thats all you,ve ever seen, you'd be shocked to hear 1 live. maybe everybody on this site has already experienced it. if you have'nt, i urge you to plan to attend a big race somewhere. you'll never forget it. due to economic conditions, & just how much it costs to run a nitro car, there are'nt that many cars running like there used to be. sometimes they don't have enuff to fill a 16 car field. but, there'll be enuff there to put on a good show. i talked T.J. & a couple of the boys into going back with me in '74. thats when T.J. took all the pics we'll share. also at the '74 race we got a surprise. my old harley sportster showed up. a boy from our neighborhood who'd wound up with it, rode it to amarillo, about a 12 hour drive. he made it a little quicker than that, but he got stopped twice. he brought his sleepin bag with him & camped out, enjoyed the races, then jumped back on & rode back home. he was a better man than me. i'd never attempt a trip like that on a sportster.

[ponyakr]

in '74 & '75, before i built the speed barn, a man who i'll call ys, let me use his shop & helped me wrench on my stockers. 1 corner of his shop was home to my stash of coors. most of the time it would be almost to the ceiling. when it got low, i'd make another run. now ys was a chevy guy. he had a '69 z-28. sometimes when we'd get tired of wrenchin, we'd git the ice chest & a case of brew, jump in the z-28 & hit the streets. ys also had a little front engine digger. 1 nite we took both cars, & ys took his digger to our local track. it was either the last tt or the 1st round when ys made a pass & ran off the track just passed the lites. from where we were we could't see a thing. it appeared as if ys just disappeared off the radar screen. so the race was stopped & we went down passed the finish line to see what had happened. here's what we saw. veering off to 1 side of the track, it looked like a lawn mower had made 1 pass through a deep stand of grass & weeds. it appeared as tho it hadn't been mowed in years. it was maybe 4 or 5' tall. we saw the trail, but we still didn't see ys. so we started walking down the trail & finally saw some movement ahead. ys was getting out of the car but was finding it hard going in the deep grass & weeds. we could barely make out the back of the car. we drug it out of the weeds & back to the pits. then we gathered around to here ys's story of what had happened. he said that just before crossing the finish line, something came loose on the motor & completely covered his face shield with oil. he could'nt see a thing. he just tried to hold it straight, but veered off the track. actually, the weeds had done a good job of slowing him down. we all had a lot of good laughs about this for several years. we told him he should send the track a bill for mowing their grass.

[ponyakr]

i just thought of something interesting. back when i first started racin my goat ('73-'74) we didn't use nhra index times. we used track records for our dial-in times. at any time during the time trials, you could notify the tower that you wanted to make an attempt to lower the track record for your class. from that time on, all the cars in that class had to use the new track record as their dial-in. my goat was much quicker than the track record, so i lowered it a lot. if you ran quicker than your track record, you broke out. so it was basically a bracket race. that even makes all my wins a little more special. there's not many folks sucessfully bracket racing a 4-speed. i certainly would not attempt it today. now this incident i'm about to tell of happened towards the end of the '74 season. they came out with a soft tread tire with just a few shallow grooves that was legal for nhra stockers. this imediately dropped my et by 1/2 sec. so i set my record lower to compensate. by then nobody else runnin my class could come close. then at 1 race i ran a c/s stage 1 buick. they said he won, but didn't give out any time slips. so i went to the tower to find out the details. but i got a hostile reception. the buick guy was a local & good buddies with the chevy boys. when i politely asked about the details of the race, all the fangs came out. they told me in no uncertain terms that i had lost & the thing for me to do was load up & go home. & they were very rude in doing so. so i concockted me a plan. the next week when i teched in i lied & told them i had a ra4 370hp motor, which put me in c/s instead of d/s. i knew the tech guys were chevy dudes & would'nt no the difference. i knew i was much quicker than the buick, so i ran for the c/s class record & bombed it as low as i could. then i loaded'r up & came home. the season was almost over so i don't know if the buick ran any more that year or not. he probably talked his buddies in the tower into doing away with the record i'd set. they ran off nhra index numbers in '75 so we never saw the buick run again. now, i wouldn't do something like that today. but that was a different time, & i thought it was just the action called for in repayment for their bad attitudes & the harsh treatment i'd received. just part of history. precious memories.