Your Funniest Drag Racing Story

[Old Hippie]

I've heard some doozies when we've been swapping lies in the pits -- now that it is too cold to be working on cars -- why not take a few minutes and let loose with your funniest story to happen at a drag racing event.

I'm sure I'm some how involved in at least one or two of them.

[poppaj]

The funniest thing I have ever saw was Ray Christian and Slim ajusting the valves on his Hemi Cuda on an open trailer while they were going about 65mph on windy old Rt. 23 on the way to Edgewater...I passed them, he waved and I thought I was going to blow them of the trailer They were sure hanging on..What was even funnier was the StateTrooper passed them ahead of me and didn't pull them over...But that was back in about 1978...The same night once we were at the track he said something to Billy Stepp and his henchmen chased Ray all over the pits...He thought they were going to thump him...Billy was just playing a joke on him, but it took a good 15 minutes to catch him to let him in on it...

[Old Hippie]

I've got a couple of funny ones -- and yes they involve me doing something stupid.

About five years ago, Big Red Ram was still being built and I ran the black Coronet with a tired old 451 and a trans-brake automatic. I'd made arrangements for Dallas and I to go to Frank Hawleys in early February to get our Class IV Comp licenses. In late December they called to firm up the early February class -- and ask how much I weighed. When I said 300 pounds -- they said "Holy Chit -- you'll never fit it our door slammer"

They tried to instead talk me into getting my dragster license -- and cross qualify later. I wasn't interested in that and asked if I could bring my own car. I was told I could -- but that it needed to do at least mid 9s.

The best I'd ever done in the Cornet was a 10.92 -- and that was on a perfect evening. However, I had bought an used Indy 540 motor from Dean Stevens -- and it was in Mark's and Damon's shop -- having Damon look it over.

Mark and Damon told me that they could do a quick engine swap (also required a hood swap) for me and I bought the car up. The next weekend I came up and we were going to take the car to the track (Denton -- which was not known for its fast car friendliness) to see if it would stay together. I'd spent the night up there at Damon's, and in the morning on the way to Marks shop -- is was so cold that we had to leave the truck running for a half hour to let the defrosters melt the ice on the windshield. (We don't have no stinkin ice scrapers in Texas)

When we got to the shop -- Mark was about frozen -- as they'd run out of propane during the night and it was 30 degrees in the house and shop.

By the time we got to the track -- it had finally warmed up to a balmy 38 degrees.

I was a little apprehensive -- as the fastest I'd ever gone in my life was 10.92 and I had no idea what the car would do, plus it was a frozen track, and prep wasn't going to happen as there were only three cars there.

Now the car had a three step MSD 7AL3 -- and I had a 5000 chip in the burnout socket, a 3800 chip in the launch socket, and a 7500 chip in the race slot. My trans-brake button back then (now it is on the shifter) was on the left steering wheel spoke. That was a little bit of a problem -- as I'm a wide body and the net (which I'd never used before) had my left elbow sandwiched between it and my side -- with no room to move my left arm.

So I pull into the water box with a millions things racing through my mind (not a good thing) and do a burnout while Mark is spotting me. Mark doesn't like my burnout and backs me up for another. Then I pulled to the line to stage, push in the trans-brake button, and as soon as the top Yellow lights -- I floor it and let loose of the button when the last yellow lights -- while at the same moment of thinking "man this new engine sounds pretty damn loud and high reving at launch".

Ok -- so you know what the deal was. I wasted my launch step with the second burnout and I launched at the third stage of 7500 RPM. Well the car goes straight up and I immediately shifted to second. When the car came down (pretty hard even though I hadn't lifted) I must have cocked the wheel a little to the left with my steering arm being sandwiched, and so I'm heading towards the wall (I was in the left lane). An over correction and I'm heading towards the reflectors -- and so I finally shut it down at just past the 330 and drove back to the pits.

In the pits was virtually the whole track laughing their asses off at me as I pulled in. Up to that point -- everything had been a reaction (this was the first time in my short career in racing a real race car (raced 14-15 second cars since the early 70s) where I'd ever had trouble with controlling the car) to that point -- but once I got out of the car I finally had a chance to have thought about what had happened and got a little shaky.

[poppaj]

NICE Did you try it again that day...

[Old Hippie]

Yup made a couple of more passes with launches in a more reasonable 4000 RPM range.

The next week at a local track that also doesn't car care of their track -- I took 16-year-old Dallas to get use to the Trans-brake button before the trip to Florida the following week.

This is a old track in the country that occasionally has cows crossing it. It isn't NHRA sanctioned -- and anything goes, including drunk redneck 4X4 races.

Anyway -- two drunk rednecks in the pits decide to find out if a Ford 4X4 is faster than a Chevy 4X4 and get inline right in front of Dallas in the black Coronet. To that point -- mid 12s was as fast as Dallas had gone.

Anyway -- these guys are doing there burnouts while screaming Yahoooo and waving the Beers out of the driver's windows. They line up and when they go -- the Ford in the left lane in front of Dallas has all kind of wheel spin and hop, the tail gate drops, and huge chunks of dried mud drops all of the way down the track.

So what does a responsible track do with a 16-year-old kid in a 9-second car about to make his first trans-brake launch ever? They wave him up as if nothing had just happened. I'm sitting on the top bleacher in the stands so I can watch from that angle -- and start running down bleachers two at a time screaming STOP. As I get to the bottom bleacher Dallas launches and immediately has to correct. About 100' he hits this mud clod about the size of a halfed basketball and you see the dust smoke from that. His car gets a little side ways and he stayed in it much to my horror.

I ran back to the trailer to wave him all of the way onto it -- as his racing night for staying in it (plus the track being so screwed up) was over. The next time he drove that car was at Frank Hawleys. We had to hot lap the poor car to get five good passes out of six attempts.

He was after me, and his sixth pass was after mine and he blew a freeze plug 3/4 of the way down and got in his water. I was fortunate that Frank passed him as there was no runs left in the car. Neither of us had to make any do overs -- while virtually everyone else was having to buy extra passes at $250 a rattle. A lot of people that showed up treated it more as an amusement park ride than getting a license. Most didn't pass as their money ran out before skills kicked in. I've never seen so many people have such a hard time with the concept of a trans-brake -- especially in as easy of a car (compared to the Coronet) that the tube chassis Firebird was.

[poppaj]

Sounds like Toothpick's first pass, 15yrs. old, I had a mild 440 in the coronet that went 11.90-12.0...On a Wend. T&T at Trails zero prep or cleanup...I told him "If it gets squirrely LIFT" of course it did and he didn't, fish tailed to the 660'... Of couse the wife was watching..Long 15 mile drive home if you know what I mean....

[storm king]

My favorite story is my Dad's story. A lot of you guys have probably read other posts of mine telling how Dad is the one who got my brother and I started racing in order to keep us from doing it on the street. So he was our real roll model.
At our local track he was known by track officals; as "The Nervous Man". Now Dad was not nervous; but they would irritate the **** out of him because every stinking week we rolled into that track, the same tech people would give us crap about our carburators. They kept telling us they were the wrong carbs for the car. Dad told them he did't care, it's what came on it. And they were, the first season, our car was bone stock except for headers and slicks. Anyway over time he had developed a reputation as someone who you didn't want to piss off (he was a Golden Gloves boxer; and a good one at that). So a few season on, we're racing our 990 Super stocker, running through the field as usual, and we get to the finals against a '68 Mustang Cobra Jet, which I think was SS/E, to our SS/B. Now you always got 45 minutes between rounds, and on this day we were doing our usual between round work, like changing plugs, etc. The tower calls us to the staging lanes to run the very moment we get all the plugs out of the car. Where we pitted was visible from the tower. They called it so precisely, they must have been watching us.
About two minutes later they announce that if we don't report to the staging lanes immediately, they would "wipe" us.
We throw the old plugs in , head to the staging lanes and the announcer says, "wipe Storm King". Dad goes out the pit gate, hangs a left toward the tower, and all these guys in the tower see him coming and start falling all over themselves to get out of there before he arrives. The announcer is still going on about "Wiping Storm King" over the PA, and then you here the tower door slam. Over the PA, to the entire track you heard, "If there's going to be any wiping today, it's going to be me wiping your ass up and down this quarter mile". The grandstands went nuts, cheering and hollering in support of my Dad. You see, the Mustang guy got beat by us pretty regular; and he talked the announcer into trying to hot lap us and not give us enough time for the usual maintenance the hemi took. So they tried to pull a fast one on us so the 'Stang could make a lone run for the money.
In short, we ran, beat him, but not by as large a margin as usual because the plugs were a bit fouled up, and that's the last time the track tried to screw around with us.
I miss "The Nervous Man".

[Old Hippie]

I enjoyed the photos posted on your cars at the other site.

[Old Hippie]

Originally Posted by Old Hippie

I've got a couple of funny ones -- and yes they involve me doing something stupid.

About five years ago, Big Red Ram was still being built and I ran the black Coronet with a tired old 451 and a trans-brake automatic. I'd made arrangements for Dallas and I to go to Frank Hawleys in early February to get our Class IV Comp licenses. In late December they called to firm up the early February class -- and ask how much I weighed. When I said 300 pounds -- they said "Holy Chit -- you'll never fit it our door slammer"

They tried to instead talk me into getting my dragster license -- and cross qualify later. I wasn't interested in that and asked if I could bring my own car. I was told I could -- but that it needed to do at least mid 9s.

The best I'd ever done in the Cornet was a 10.92 -- and that was on a perfect evening. However, I had bought an used Indy 540 motor from Dean Stevens -- and it was in Mark's and Damon's shop -- having Damon look it over.

Mark and Damon told me that they could do a quick engine swap (also required a hood swap) for me and I bought the car up. The next weekend I came up and we were going to take the car to the track (Denton -- which was not known for its fast car friendliness) to see if it would stay together. I'd spent the night up there at Damon's, and in the morning on the way to Marks shop -- is was so cold that we had to leave the truck running for a half hour to let the defrosters melt the ice on the windshield. (We don't have no stinkin ice scrapers in Texas)

When we got to the shop -- Mark was about frozen -- as they'd run out of propane during the night and it was 30 degrees in the house and shop.

By the time we got to the track -- it had finally warmed up to a balmy 38 degrees.

I was a little apprehensive -- as the fastest I'd ever gone in my life was 10.92 and I had no idea what the car would do, plus it was a frozen track, and prep wasn't going to happen as there were only three cars there.

Now the car had a three step MSD 7AL3 -- and I had a 5000 chip in the burnout socket, a 3800 chip in the launch socket, and a 7500 chip in the race slot. My trans-brake button back then (now it is on the shifter) was on the left steering wheel spoke. That was a little bit of a problem -- as I'm a wide body and the net (which I'd never used before) had my left elbow sandwiched between it and my side -- with no room to move my left arm.

So I pull into the water box with a millions things racing through my mind (not a good thing) and do a burnout while Mark is spotting me. Mark doesn't like my burnout and backs me up for another. Then I pulled to the line to stage, push in the trans-brake button, and as soon as the top Yellow lights -- I floor it and let loose of the button when the last yellow lights -- while at the same moment of thinking "man this new engine sounds pretty damn loud and high reving at launch".

Ok -- so you know what the deal was. I wasted my launch step with the second burnout and I launched at the third stage of 7500 RPM. Well the car goes straight up and I immediately shifted to second. When the car came down (pretty hard even though I hadn't lifted) I must have cocked the wheel a little to the left with my steering arm being sandwiched, and so I'm heading towards the wall (I was in the left lane). An over correction and I'm heading towards the reflectors -- and so I finally shut it down at just past the 330 and drove back to the pits.

In the pits was virtually the whole track laughing their asses off at me as I pulled in. Up to that point -- everything had been a reaction (this was the first time in my short career in racing a real race car (raced 14-15 second cars since the early 70s) where I'd ever had trouble with controlling the car) to that point -- but once I got out of the car I finally had a chance to have thought about what had happened and got a little shaky.

Damon and Mark thrashing on the car the night before "the Launch"


Moments before the launch

[mfr440]

This is an easy one!

My funniest story is when I won my class - while sitting on the JOHN!


Milan, Mi Chrysler Classic in 2003, we had run a couple rounds of class eliminations. I beat Larry "Thor" Smith in the 1/4-final, nailing him with a .501 light, and on-the brakes 11.08. I knew that I had the bye into the finals, because the other three remaining cars had already had a bye. So I was pumped! But then the rains came, and I was sure they were just going to cancel Class Eliminations.

So while Mother Nature was doing her thing outside, she called me as well. I was in the restroom doing my business when the announcer came over the PA and said that Max Wedge class eliminations were done, and the class winners would be determined by the best package from the previous round. Lo and behold, they called my name for "C" class! I couldn't stifle a "YES!" when I heard it. I am sure the other occupants of the restroom were wondering why the person in the 2nd stall was so joyous?!

So I finished up, left the stall, and there stood Larry "Thor" Smith! He congratulated me on the win, but said he wouldn't shake my hand until I was done washing up!