[ponyakr]

a wheel toatin, gear jammin, 389 record holder

[ponyakr]

this is the way they sat on the nite of the "mopar madness". the gray primer goat was a 455 ra4, th400 wheel toater.

[ponyakr]

his real name was johnny. but he went by "Keith Black". he was a clown. he'd do push-ups lookin for oil leaks. he really added a lot of color to the races. we loved him.

[ponyakr]

5 pontiac powered dirt cars--d-1, d-2, d-3, 5x hobby class, 5x late model class

[ponyakr]

i find myself in the position of having to print a full retraction. it seems that i have unintentionally printed a falsehood. it concerns my tale about a racer finding a snake in the trunk of his racecar. i saw him today & he told me i had it all wrong. he said i didn't call him snake, i called him "copperhead". you gotta watch us old dudes, sometimes we remember things a little bit different than they actually were. i tried to remember, but i just don't recall copperhead. but it does make sense, when i think about it, 'cause his hair was red. it sounds just like somethin i'da come up with. anyway, a big apology to "copperhead". by the way, its been rumored that copperhead is planning a big comeback tour this year out of semi-retirement. ya see we're old, but we ain't dead yet. good luck copperhead! now this brings up another tale. copperhead had 2 brothers that were also red heads. i saw 1 of them the other day & ask him if he remembered me comin over to their house & taking them riding on my cushman scooter. he said he did then asked me if i remembered letting him ride it in his yard & having a wreck. no i have no recall of that happening. here's what i remember of how it went down. i was about 14 or 15 & had just discovered girls. well, as boys will, i sized 'em up & made my choice. this girl was sorta tall & shapely & good lookin--she was my pick of the liter. now it just so happened that this girl was copperheads sister. so i concocted me a plan. i'd go over to his house & take him & his brothers ridin on my scooter, if in return they'd promise to try & talk sister into going riding with me. & NO, it didn't work. lookin back on it now, i figure the only reason she ever rode with me was to shut her brothers up so they'd quit pestering her. anyhow, for the few times she did go, it was really a thrill to a young boy who knew absolutely nothing about girls. as i remember it was about 2 years later before i ever had a date. so to all you red headed brothers, i say many thanks for trying to help me out back then. that scooter was the 1st of many 2-wheel street rides i had. it was a red cushman with a wisconsin husky engine & a 2 by the tank shifter. any of ya'll had 1? after that i had several hondas, a couple of yamaha dirt bikes & finally a black harley sportster with lots of chrome. but once i started racing, the thrill of 2-wheelers faded away, so i sold the harley. i also quit hunting & traded my duck gun(an 870 wingmaster pump 3" magnum) for a '67 goat with a blown up 400, th400, & posi rear with 4.11 gears. precious memories.

[ponyakr]

here's a late model story. back about '08 or '09 i'd just bought my 1st racingjunk.com car. the former owner said he ran 11.90's with it. i had it shipped down from kansas on a truck for about $450. if i remember, gas was about $4 a gallon, so we figured it would be cheaper than going to pickm it up. especially if you count time spent. everything looked o.k. it was obviously built by someone who had done it before. i was well pleased & could'nt have built 1 like it nearly as cheap. if you don't have a car & plan to start from stratch, you can probably save a lot of $ & work if you buy a car thats already built, or at least a roller. there are some real nice cars that come thru at reasonable prices. the worst thing i found wrong with my car, the front wheels were bent. they must have come off a car that did tall wheelstands. & it had tall moroso front tires. i'd learned years before that we could'nt cut decent lites with tall front tires. so i got some 15x4 cl's & bought the shortest street tire i could find. i think it was a 185, & just under 24" tall. the 9" slicks were almost gone, but i figured i mite get by with them for a couple of races. i'll have to admit after the traction problems i'd seen caused by a 455 i was skepticle to say the least. but the guy i bought it from said it hooked good. he was right. after a decent burnout i pulled to the line, fully expecting to have to lift when the tires broke loose. but to my great surprize, it just nailed me back in the seat & blasted off.it was a little quicker off the line than T.J.'s quickest ride with a 60' time in the low 1.60's. every pass i made it hooked perfectly. now to me thats a real testament to how well ladder bars work. & then what really blew me away, a couple of days later, i jacked up the rear end & noticed when i turned the right wheel forward, the left wheel turned backwards. this thang was a 1 wheeler! once again i thought, what if we'd had ladder bars back in the old days. how many more races could we have won? but thats water under the bridge--you can't go back.

[ponyakr]

back to the race, i didn't really figure i had a chance against all the young bucks. but again i guess its just like riding a bike, you never forget how. after somebody explained the buyback rule to me i remember thinking " well, i've got a couple of 20's with me, at least i'll get to make 3 passes during competetion. that'll be good seat time." but as it turned out i didn't need a buyback, my 1st 2 victims did. after i figured out the converter was to loose to leave from an idle & still cut a good rt, i started jackin it up to 2000rpms on the brake. that produced a .510 & a .514 rt. now we were gettin some where. just as i thought, a .520 or better rt would still win rounds just as they had in the old days. now if you cut consistent .500 rt's, i can't compete. but nobody at our track can do that footbrakin. well i was goin strong & havin a blast, then the old stock starter syndrome kicked in & it would'nt start for the 4th round. copperhead & another friend tried to help me get it started, but it was finished. so we loaded'r up & ordered a new gear reduction start next week. copperhead put it on for me & the next week i made it back to the 3rd or 4th round & met up with the dreaded maverick. he had several full trees hadicap on me & i guess i finally got tired of waiting & just barely red lighted. but i was back on the track, had a blast & was lookin foreward to a full season in 2010. it never happened, as i've mentioned the track never opened at all in 2010. so we've started stirrin up dust at our local dirt track. maybe the strip will get everything lined out & i'll be able to do some more bracket racing. but if not, i really enjoyed the 2 races i did get to run. it was sorta like a grand reunion, a homecoming to the sport that had meant so much to me. once a gearhead, always a gearhead.

[ponyakr]

i'd loved goats for years before i ever heard of a firebird. starting in '67 a few camaros started showing up 'cause we had a chevy dealer in our little town. but the nearest pontiac dealer was nearly 50 miles away(where i eventually bought my gto. so i don't recall a '67 bird in our town. but i could never tell the difference between '67&'68 birds or '67&'68 camaros except for the vent windows on the '67. but 1 day a redbird showed up in our town. as i recall it was a '68 with 400, 4sp & it was even red on the inside. red is not my favorite color. i knew this guy. he worked at our local papermill i think. he knew me so we struck up a conversation about the bird & he soon asked if i'd like to drive it. well, what do you think? so i slipped behind the wheel, which was a little to close for my liking, even with the seat all the way back. but he was short, so it was just rite for him. well it was purty spunky & fun to drive, although it seemed a little small to me. little did i know then how many '68 birds i would later buy, sell & race. fast forward now to 1978. neither me nor T.J. remembered this, but here's what i found in our scapbook in her handwriting & even in red ink. "feb 26, 1978--haynesville D- took my car when i stayed home, & that rascal won & then won top dog too!" i don't ever remember racing her car, but it happened at least once. i do remember (she says she does too) that i always made seat hold down brackets that would allow the seat to be closer than stock for her(so she could reach the pedals good) & allow it to go back further than stock for me. i did this so i'd be comfortable when making a test run. i always liked to make sure everything was all right before turning her loose in a new race car. then sometimes i'd make a pass to help identify a problem she had detected. i'm really glad now that she kept accurate records of our racing days. it not only helps us remember, but also gives you a more accurate account of what actually happened. 1 thing i better explain. T.J. mentioned that i won top dog. not every track ran that. at haynesville they ran 4 classes : super pro, pro, street, & motorcycle. the 4 class winners would run for another pot which they called top dog. we both won it many times. but i always hated to run motor cycles(T.J. just said she did too). it was just too hard to see them & tell how fast they were going. we beat most of them but still prefered to run cars.

[ponyakr]

i'm still amazed at all the details still trickling out of my memory banks. some of this stuff i'da probably never even thought of again if i had'nt begun sharing it with you. i'm probably enjoying this more than most of you. i can't wait to see what i remember next. i'm reminded of a much used quote from 1 of my favorite preachers "i don't know if i've done ya'll any good tonite or not, but i've preached myself happy". i've never considered myself a story teller, but i'm really enjoying sharing my story with you. so if i seem to get a little carried away at times, please forgive me & stay tuned. you might enjoy some of it. & i think i can see the end of it from here, not sure tho. i remembered 2 more cars in our muscle car parade that i forgot to mention. 1 was a black full sized ford galaxie fast back, with a 406, 4sp. it was loud & looked good but probably too heavy too compete with the later musclecars. i'm not a ford man but i think it was a '62 or '63, not sure tho. i do remember 1 bad ford. when i was in the 8th grade '62-'63, our home room was on the corner of a new building, not 30' from the little road that came thru campus. in warm weather the windows always stayed open, cause we had no air conditioning. a guy that lived rite beside the school, bought a little fairlane with a 289 hi-performance motor & 4sp. he built some cutouts for the exhaust. some days he'd come rumbling by, pipes open, rattling the windows. well, it couldn't help but grab your attention. we'd all look as he drove by, the teacher would tell us to quit lookin & go back to work. "are you kiddin, i'm not about to miss this show". he'd pull out onto the hiway, stop, rev it up & pop the clutch & tear out with pipes bellerin & tires squallin. then you'd hear another bark as he shifted gears. this was the greatest thing i'd ever witnessed. i was probably hooked from that time on. i probably thought at the time "someday i'll have a car that will do that". & then there was this red coronet fastback with a 426 hemi & 4sp. what an awesome ride. this guy didn't really seem like much of a gearhead so he took real good care of the car. i often wondered why he had a car like that anyhow. later the car came up for sale, the price--$1000. i could'a bought it but i remember thinkin, "its nice, but its still not a pontiac". boy, if i could'a just loked into the future, i could'a kept that car a few years, then sold it & bought lots of pontiacs. who knew?

[ponyakr]

in '67 a boy that had dated my sister got out from his hitch in the navy & came back home to our little town. he soon began teaching some of us younger guys many of the vices he had learned in the navy. he & i struck up a good acquaintance & as we shared things about our lives, he found out that i liked musclecars. he got a job at our local paper mill & soon had enuff for the down payment on his 1st new car. i probably had some influence on his choice. of course we know that my choice would be a gto. but with no dealer in town, he figured it would be better to buy local so he could get quick repairs if needed. so 1 day a car showed up at our local chevy dealer. it was a gold '68 ss396, 4sp, manual steering, no air. & it had a 1-wheeler rear end. why did dealers order musclecars without posi--some of these options only cost a few measly bucks back then. i guess they did it so they could sell just a little cheaper than their comp. anyway, he took me down to the dealer to show me this car & asked me what i thought. so i gave him my opinion. a few days later i seem to remember being on a load of hay for some reason. as i looked down i watched him pull down our driveway with that gold paint sparkling in the sun. he said "jump in lets go for a ride". he got in the right side & put me under the wheel. by now i'd driven sticks for over 10 years, so i knew just what to do. we eased out onto the hiway & headed for town to join the musclecar parade, already in progress. no, it wasn't the car of my dreams, but in it i could now be part of the musclecar parade, instead of just watching it from my dads pickup in the bowling alley parking lot. he bought amoco white gas from our local american station. it was the highest octane gas available in our town. so, all the musclecars used it. it was also the highest priced gas at a whopping 39 cents. some guys would buy cheap gas at rose oil if they were planning a big drinkin nite with no street racin involved. they could save an amazing 10 cents per gal or more. wow!

[ponyakr]

well my new runnin buddy, whom i'll refer to as jay, took his ss to a neighbor, who was a good welder, & had a set of straight thu mufflers installed. it wasn't near as fast as some of the other cars in town, but now looked & sounded just as good as any of 'em. so we'd "ride with pride" as we paraded thru town. now this was the new "thrill of my life". & it was extremely exciting to me. well, 1 day jay came over & picked me up 1 day to go make a few loops on a sunday afternoon. now by this time i finally had a girlfriend. she was actually jays neighbor. so, on the way to town i told jay to stop by her house so i could tell her where i was going & that i'd come over to see her after we made a few loops. but when she heard the news she decided that she should go with us. but, hey, this was a guy thang. i told her i'd only be gone a couple of hours, then i'd be back to see her. well, she thru a fit & used some words i didn't think she even knew. lookin back, i don't blame her i'da been mad too. but this new found musclecar thang had a grip on me. it was just about the strongest emotional attachment to something i had ever experienced. so, i made a choice. i chose the musclecar scene over the girlfriend. i remember thinking, "am i crazy, what am i doing?" now this girl was beautiful & smart--much smarter than me & she had never treated me bad. so at that time i'm sure a lot of people thought i was crazy. but, we made the brake, & the rest, as they say, is history. now i didn't take this lightly, cause this was the only person outside my family that i'd ever gotten close to. after this we finally did get back on speakin terms. she even later went on a water ski trip with me & T.J. & my friend from hi school with the '64 389 cat. she went on to finish college & became very sucessful in her field, eventually teaching others in the medical field in some large cities. she now gets to travel the world. to me she's sorta like a celebrity or a big sports star that you used to know before they were famous. i'm proud of her acomplishments & glad to say that i knew her back before she was famous. i just remembered this, the last time i talked to her was on the phone. she'd found out that i had a clean '66 gto, and was interested in it. her & her husband bought it & took it back to the big city.

[ponyakr]

now i was a free man. jay & i could ride the roads & make loops as single, unattached young studs(we thought). we'd ride the backroads, sippin on tasty beverages & listening to country music on the 8-track tape player. our favorite was hank williams greatest hits. sometimes thats the only tape we'd listen to all night. it would go round & round(we wore out several) & after we got a little buzz goin, we'd sing every word right along with ole hank. stuff like: Your Cheatin Heart, Jambalaya, Hey Good Lookin & even I Saw The Light. "i gotta hot rod ford & a 2 dollar bill & i know a spot right over the hill, there's soda pop & the dancin's free, so if you wanna have fun come along with me. hey hey, good lookin, what'cha got cookin? how'sa bout cookin somethin up with me". some of you mite be sayin, yuk! how could you listen to that junk? hey, we were both from the country & grew up on farms. i'll tell ya whats "yuk", all this filthy talkin rap & hip hop & the hard rock screamin thats goin on! well, movin rite along. now after we got all jacked up sangin with hank, we'd put on our black cowboy hats & cruise back into town "makin the scene". so during 1 of these scenes T.J. was cruisin in her mom's olds 98 (they were huge back then) & spotted us. now she was a cowgirl, you know, rode horses & everything. so when she saw these 2 dudes in a musclecar & with cowboy hats on, it got her attention. she's made a joke about it ever since. she says "boy those cowboy hats'll git them women". she asked around to find out more about us. i remember seeing her drivin around in that big ole tank & she was so short it looked like she could hardly see over the dash. & she wore these funny lookin little glasses. so i never gave her much thought. then 1 day i saw her get out of the car & without her glasses. my mouth probably hung open as i gawked. she wasn't very tall but she had the most beautiful long straight hair i had ever seen. i was smitten! i remember thinkin "whoa, that little girl is beautiful". well, to shorten this a bit i'll just say, we got together & began to have an occasional date. i could tell that this little girl was special. on our 1st date, we went to see "the sound of music". she dropped her glasses & we could'nt find them in the dark, so we just laughed & disturbed everybody & ate popcorn & had a good time. but, i'd learned from my previous experience to keep the macho musclecar thang seperate & let her know that it was important to me, so she'd give me my space. well she probably didn't like it very much, but she did it any way. God bless T.J. for "hangin in there".

[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.