"Sextoria"
I don't know what it means but it looks and sounds good.

Len: That's wild. Small world - for sure. Fulper's Auto Parts. I have one of their T-shirts....What color was your Chevelle? Any lettering?

Anyone else got D-42 pics from this era? I have a few more. I'm looking for pics of the 1971 IHRA Summernationals. The weekend Muldowney blew up the funny car in the lights. Pretty bad fire. I won Bracket 3 i nmy '53 Buick and only have the time cards and a picture of the check. Love to find some 8mm's of that weekend. I'll send an Email to John Judoga.

Gold Dust Videos had 8mm of the 1963 Drag News Invitational at Dragway 42.

There's some history on the Moose Crew website, http://www.themoosecrew.com/history.html

And this... their site notes it as being 1964.
http://www.themoosecrew.com/photos/records.jpg

Don't forget about the York Reunion and Nostalgia Nationals! They're having a Gasser Reunion this year. Show & Cruise Fri-Sat in York, PA, and then Nostalgia Super Stocker, Gassers and more racing at Beaver Springs on Sunday. Coming up mid-July. www.yorknostalgia.com

I have all of that stuff. As I mentioned - I'm looking for the 1971 IHRA Summer Nats at D-42 coverage.
Thanks.

Re: Len Imborgno - Jim Skelly - Performance Preserves
 

Ok - at the overwhelming request of one person - here's the race history of Bruce Buicks '53 Buick. (Guitar playing stage name.) oh...it gets worse....ha!

IHRA was the new sanctioning body at our favotrite drag strip, Dragway 42, and they held their first ever "Summernationals" in August I believe. All I remember from the Pro side (two separate tracks side by side,) was Shirley blew up the Mustang and spun it bad thru the lights. Anyhow.....

A bunch of us kids were wanting to see our older brothers and the old guys in town race at a "national" event, I'm pretty sure Dave Sebring was one of those guys. You might have just seen him in nat dragster getting a promotion in sales some place. Those guys were ALL in their LATE 20's. Old, old, old, but they all had the most killer cars in town. Can't remember all of their names, Don - with a Hemi 69 GTX, Ron with a real ZL-1 red Camaro. Troutman and his LS-7 Chevelle that almost beat the record holder Knaffel Pontiacs GTO. A lot of 340 Dusters and 350 Novas. Sebring had a fast Duster at that time. He had owned some fast older Mopars before that too.

So a bunch of us kids had learned that we could run at this event too, IF, we entered on Saturday, in a Class, and then lost. Cause on Sunday the track had added this new thing called "bracket racing" and only Class losers were going to be allowed to compete. We weren't real sure how it worked, but two of us decided to give it a try. The other guy, whos name also slips my mind, but I remember he was 16 and I was 17, he took his dads '65 black Comet 289 4 speed. Fortunately for him he made it back home Sunday night without breaking the car. His Dad woulda killed him. Big mother his Dad......

I went thru Tech and told the tech guy what I was up to - he looked the Buick over and finally shoe polished "N/SA" on the window. If I remember right that was the lowest Class in IHRA. Somebody needs to let me know about that. I made five time trials that Saturday, and later that night got the call for Class. AllI remember is getting whomped by a brown '57 Chevy wagon that said "Good ol' Charlie Brown" on the side. I think he went 14.27. Here's the Saturday time slips with the one marked LOST being the Class run. You'll see all kinds of notes I scribbled on the ET slips. Especially the ones from Sunday. Coming up next.


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Re: Len Imborgno - Jim Skelly - Performance Preserves
 

Part #2.
Sunday morning rolled around real early. This event was such a huge "happening" that most everyone had stayed overnight. Kinda unheard of to us, but man. What partying. Bon fires everywhere. Lots of beer that I hadn't aquired a taste for yet. But I tried. Hell peer pressure can really get you doing dumb things sometimes. But this was a 100% fun time. We talked all night about strategy. We didn't know what the hell to do, but we talked about it. The one thing we did figure out was we needed a hell of a lot of runs in order to see what to dial. And this first time? NO changing of the dial. You picked it before eliminations and that was that.

My buddy with the Comet and I were the first ones in the staging lanes Sunday morning. We were the first pair down the track. It was 9:00 A.M. sharp. I've lost count on the time trials at the moment - but here they are - read them top to bottom in columns starting from the left side.

One thing I began to notice - (the Buick only had one great big ol' Stewart Warner water temp guage,) the hotter it got, the quicker it ran. As you can see it began dropping by a tenth or so, then hundreths, then single digit hundreths. The four 21.84's about threw me - I thought, "This is it - I'll dial 21.84" - but I had a few more time trials to go before the one o'clock cut off.

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Re: Len Imborgno - Jim Skelly - Performance Preserves
 

Here's the next set of Sunday morning time trials in order as they were ran. Now then - here's the killer - As you see the car was happily inching it's ET's lower and lower until the last run. I had finally got down to 21.80 at the hottest part of the day so far, and then I made the last time trial. The damn thing jumped .014 hundreths! Just knocked me out. I thought I had it made until that run. Everyone was flipping out how consistent the car had been, then that friggin 21.64 popped up. Talk about stress.

No one was any help. Hell, no one we knew had ever heard of bracket racing before. Even the "old" guys. No one knew what to suggest. I kept looking at those Et slips and finally came up with the thought...."it goes quicker as it gets hotter. I have to guess how many runs I might make and how hot it might get."

It was frustrating as all get out. I was pacing around right up until they called first round. I decided cause it had creeped so slowly to 21.80, and now it had cooled off some, and I wouldn't be making that many runs even if I got to the finals, I went ahead put a 21.70 on the window.

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Re: Len Imborgno - Jim Skelly - Performance Preserves
 

I can't remember all of the cars I ran against that day. I do remember one of them was a VW that was slower than me. And THAT messed me up. And with the low first gear those things have I thought Crap! He was way out on me at the green. But the old Buick stormed (ok, creeped,) around him about the time he hit fourth gear. It had launched like a rocket, but when he hit fourth it was like he hit the brakes. But it had worried me for a bit.

The Buick had cooled down a LOT before the first round. And I wish like heck I could remember who and how I beat anyone with a 21.70 dial, especially with the first win being a 22.01. It took seven runs including the final that day.

I had formulated another game plan before the first round too. I would leave the dynaflow in low range until the speedo was straight up - dead on 60 mph - then no matter where I was I clicked it to high range. Which as I remember just a few feet before the finish line.

Back then the win lights were strung across the track right at or just a very few feet after the finish line. I remember not being able to see them. Unless the other guy left the time slip booth all pissed off I had to wait to get my slip to know if I had won.

So, now that it's easy to reflect on what happened that day, I'm thinking the Buicks block was so heat soaked from all of those time trials and it was a hot summers day, I see now the date was 8/15/71, that the ET's started dropping quicker than they did during TT's. I started wondering if the 21.70 was low enough.

22.01, 21.97, 21.93, 21.90, then jumped to a 21.77, which had me real worried, but the next one, semi-finals if you will, was a 21.74 and it had me sweating bullets now. There was one run left and I was too close to my dial.

I do remember this competitor... It was a small block 1968 Chevelle dialed in at the bottom end of the bracket. 15.00 flat.

As I had mentioned to Len in a previous post - at 42 you could get REAL close to the starting line as a spectator. Their chain link fence narrowed right up close, close enough that I could see and more importantly hear all of my Kent buddies going crazy.

Of course there were no reaction times to cloud our heads back then. All I knew I was holding the brake harder and harder and laying into the gas pedal more and more. Had my routine together too. I'd light that top light and stop, take off my horn rimmed glasses, wipe the sweat off my face, put my glasses back on and bump in. Count - FIVE amber lights - and on this last run - after all of my pre-stage prep - and my pals hanging on the fence, and in front of 30,000 people, the Chevelle sitting next to me at an idle, and of course the Buick was a quiet as a church mouse, as the lights came down I remember pushing the gas pedal a-l-l of the way to the floor. Remember, other than the announcer who was REALLY having a ball with me all day and the Chevelle idling, it was pretty damn quiet.

When I let off the brake - the Buick for the first time ever - the right rear tire - went CHIRP!!

I saw all my pals F-A-L-L off the fence laughing their axxes off. It was hilarious. The Buick, my unbelievable super slow beast, actually chirped the tire when it left. What a riot.

I remember now after looking at the car, I had taken the PolyGlass tires off my '65 2+2 cause it was sitting the garage with a broken four speed.

Here's the et slips including the semi-finals. Remeber - read left column top to bottom first -

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Re: Len Imborgno - Jim Skelly - Performance Preserves
 

It CHIRPED the tire!

Oh man - it was soooo funny. Anyhow.

The Chevelle - is sitting at an idle when I left. I was running with my drivers window rolled down. I'd look at the folks in the stands. Wave. I mean c'mon, I had a long way to go to get to 60 mph and I was having the most fun I could have. Or make. It was nutty. This friggin '53 Buick getting all of this attention that afternoon. Remember all of those "older" guys we went to see?
They were hating me 'bout now. Fulper's goofy little brother is out there geting attention like crazy. Not one of them talked to me later. Reminds me of several guys I know now - that I used to look up to but after I started going fast in Super Stock quit talking to me. Oh well. Live and learn 'bout those special personalities eh?

Anyhow - the Chevelle has to wait 6.7 seconds. I actually watched his lights come down and saw him leave from my inside rear view mirror. It was a four speed car and watching him row the gears in the mirror was something else. I watched him til it was time for me to shift, once.

At the stripe he came around me like Terry Sherrill. I looked up at the lights and once again I couldn't tell who won, but I could hear the crowd going nuts.

As I was coming down the gravel return road I saw the Chevelle blast off from the ET shack, throwing rocks everywhere. I thought....me?

The ET shack girl had the BIGGEST grin on her face, oh man......I had won.

I had paid $75 for the car, and just won $125 bucks!

Shoe polish: The "Green Wastelands" was a self made reference from the WHO's "Teen Age Wastelands" song. The car was green. Portholes were identified as "Zoomies." Of course as I mentioned way earlier - a reference to some relatives I never met, "Fulper's Auto Parts," and some other teenage nonsense fun.

The kid - the check - the Buick:

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THE CHECK -

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The winning 1953 Super -

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oh, the final ET ? I'm surprised no one has asked yet...