[ponyakr]

so, what'cha gonna do? i'll tell ya what'cha gonna do, if you ain't prayed up, your gonna be involved in a muti-car pile-up, with a lot of damage, injuries & maybe even deaths. thank God this was not B.C. no, now me & T.J. could pray & believe together for our safety on the track & on the trips. so here's what happened. i was going way too fast to downshift to 3rd to help slow down & there wasn't time for that anyway. all i could do was just mash the brake pedal as hard as i could, which i did. now by the law of physics & motion there is absolutely no way we could possibly haved stopped. but we did! T.J. says she remembers that it looked like there was only about 2" between us & the car stopped in front of us. we just looked at each other & said at the same time "angels"! here's why we knew that without a doubt. psalm 91:11,12 "for he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. they shall bare thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." heb 1:14 says the angels are sent forth from God "to minister for those who shall be heirs of salvation." in the old testament, there is an account of the prophet elisha & his servant, when they were in a pickle. an enemy army had surrounded the city with horses & chariots. the servant said, what we gonna do master? elisha said "fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them...& the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, & he saw: & behold the mountain was full of horses & chariots of fire round about elisha. hey, just because you don't see um, don't mean they ain't there. now this may be too strong for some of ya'll. but its too late to tell me it ain't so. i've seen too much! PTL!

[ponyakr]

yep, we made it to green valley with out a scratch. here's the proof.

[ponyakr]

i read thru my "how to win more races series" this morning. there i said that wasn't nearly everything i knew about it. as i thought on this, i thought of something to add that mite be of help to some who may be just getting into bracket racing. it concerns dial-ins. tracks use different staging procedures. we've run across several. some just use 2 lanes & you run the car beside you. & each lane is given a certain lane for the race. but some draw or dial to see who gets which lane. some draw or dial to see who runs who. in this case you may run the car behind or ahead of you instead of the car beside you. sometimes the 1st car pulled gets lane choice, or they may have to run a specified lane. some tracks pull from 4 staging lanes, with varying methods of lane choice. some pull the 1st car aside to get the bye if there's an odd # of cars. some give the bye to the quickest car, or the best rt. all these things can be confusing to a beginner racer. there are enuff things to think about & concentrate on without getting distracted by staging lane drama. so, this may help. try to find a good pit crew member or friend to help you in the staging lanes. you need to know the dial-in of your oponent! you may not find out who your running til the last second. if using 4 lanes & your in the front row, you know you'll run another car in the front row or the car behind you. your helper can write down the dial-ins of your 4 possible opponents clearly on a piece of paper or chalk board big enuff for you to read when he holds it up to your ds window. if another car is pulled 1st, your helper can circle his dial-in & hold it back up to your window. but if you're pulled out 1st, you'll have to look for the dial-in after you get to the burnout area. sometimes this is e-z, sometimes you just can't do it. all may not be lost tho. some tracks may allow a pit crew member in the burnout area. if so, he can write it down in big numbers & show it to you. if not, you may still have 1 more chance. some modern timing systems display the dial-in for each lane on the finish line scoreboards. if this is the best you can do, so be it. but this gives you another distraction you don't need. try to get your opponents dial-in as soon as possible, so you'll know who's lites will come down 1st! if your the slowest car in the bracket, this info don't matter much. but if your like the vast majority, you'll fall somewhere in the middle. this info is even more important if your opponent is only very slightly slower than you. that means their lites will start down just before yours, which can be very distracting. you need to know in advance, so you'll know what to expect. if you run a track you're not familiar with, ask around & find out their staging lane procedures. this is just 1 of those seemingly minor things that can sometimes seperate winners from losers. 1 more thing--don't forget to use every red lite run as a time trial. if your opponent red lites, use it for a tt to help dial-in for next round. if you red lite, still use it for a tt. if its a buyback round, it'll help you dial in for next round. if it puts you out for the nite, still use it for a tt. if you run the same track every week, record all the info & it mite help you dial in next week. don't waste a pass by just letting off & puttering on thru. make every pass count. good luck!

[ponyakr]

10-4 there good buddy. see ya soon for some of those good " i wore 'em out " stories!

[ponyakr]

you can't eat a trophy or use it for fuel. they're just to look at & remind you of some acomplishment or an honor you received in life. i got 1 for riding a horse & several playing b-ball. but most of ours were won racing pontiacs. i've already mentioned that we talked the track owners into giving us $5 instead of a throphy. hey, at 60 cents a gal, thats 8+ gals of gas. & T.J. sold several to a single neighbor dude. i remember keeping a large cardboard box full in the corner of the shop for years. we finally went thru them & took all the small ones to the trash dumpster. we kept a few of the larger ones. here are 4 of the keepers. the 1st 1 is from 1 of the biggest races i won in either '73 or '74. the 2nd is from the La state championship race T.J. won in '75. the 3rd she won at the big end of the year race at prescott, ark in '77. they called it the southwest ark championship race. the 4th is from the only trophy dash i won in dirt racing in '84. the 5th, of course is a group shot. "know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? so run that ye may obtain." 1 cor 9:24. " i press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." phil 3:14. winning races & throphies is fun, but don't stop there. keep trying to achieve more, like helping someone who really needs help or giving hope to someone who has lost their hope. there are huge throphies waiting for those who dare to help others.

[ponyakr]

got 1 & 4 reversed-- sorry about that ya'll!

[ponyakr]

i forgot to mention 1 of the best road trips i took in my ole goat. it was in the summer of 1970, just before i went to army basic training at fort polk, La. my ironworker apprentice (punkin) buddy had already had his basic training there, so he knew what awaited me there. i'll refer to him as rp. he suggested that we go on a nice weekend trip of some sort before i left for basic. i'd never set foot in the gulf of mexico, so i decided thats what i wanted to do. we thought about florida, but that would eat up too much time just driving there & back. so we decided on galveston, texas. it was only about a 6 hour drive. it was a real nice ride down thru a sparsely populated area of tx. there were no interstates or freeways til we got to houston. it was just a nice, wide, smooth 2-lane most of the way, with very little traffic. you know immediatly when you cross the state line, without seeing a sign, just by the vastly improved roads. i guess tx had a lot of oil money to build roads with. i remember 1 incident from the trip down. this was back in the days of the 8-track tapes. cassetts weren't available yet, & cd's hadn't even been dreamed of. quite often for any 1 of several reasons the tape would get wound around the rollers & the only way to get it out was to cut it & dig it out. this happened to us, so when rp got it loose from the player, he began to pull the tape out & let it stream out the window & behind us, back down the road. i don't know how many feet of tape was in an 8-track, but it seemed like it was flappin in the breeze for nearly 100 yards behind us. there was no traffic, so who cared? well, we finaly made it to galveston & it was like musclecar heaven. you could drive rite down the beach. cars were lined up, parked on both sides of a 2-lane "main drag" they left open for the "parade", which went on non-stop, starting just before noon til far into the nite. & there were bikini clad beach bunnies everywhere. the ole goat seemed to fit rite in, idling down the parade route, with a slite lope from the ra3 cam, & with silver paint sparkling in the 100 degree tx sun.