Forgettable Racing Stories
 

With Phoenix being fresh in some of our minds, I'd like to hear some of your stories about racing weekends from hell.

Can you top the 2 weekends in a row funfest at Phoenix? Might not be too hard seeing as we at least got to run class in Super stock. Even a few time runs in Stock!

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Cecil Co. divisional about 5-6 years ago.Took over 5 1/2 hours to run one round of qualifying for Alcohol F/C and Dragster.End of story.

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A forgettable week was during the 2002 Numidia D1 LODRS. On Tuesday of that week, fuel pump went out in my Camaro on the way home from work at 2 am. Friday morning on the way to the track, bent the hitch of the trailer in a restaurant parking lot that was on a grade. Friday at the track, the alternator went in the Sunbird (thankfully Billy lived not too far away and was able to go home and get one that night). We had swapped batteries out of the Suburban to put in the 'Bird that day. Forgot to latch the hood al the way down so Friday night on the way back to the hotel, we got about 500' down Rt 42 and the hood blew up, nearly smashed the windshield, bent the braces and would not close at all....stuck at about a 90 degree angle. Thankfully Dad and I (with help from Billy again, as he was driving by and saw us) was able to bend them with a breaker bar to at least get the hood closed to drive back to the hotel and tie it/hold it closed with a rope. Quite a fun four days.

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I can't top 2 weekend in a row BUT the local track got the bright idea back in the day (1992 or some where in their) to have the Mid West Pro Stock cars come in for a show.....WELL the local track is "not the best" but was an IHRA track....they came with 8 cars & I think one of them ran something like 5.70 (this is an 1/8 mile track) . We had a local guy that run 5.50's & was faster then them! anyway the track owner got the bright idea to "spray the whole track" ......he did this @ like 9:pm then dew fell on it....about 10:30 he lit the track with a torch! VERY PRETTY to see an 1/8 mile track go up in flames! after it burnt out then he sent "all the race cars " out on the track to do laps ...as in just drive round & round . I had a 73 Nova footbrake car that ran 8.0's & was the the one to "test" the track.....8.90 something about hit the xmas tree when I left so the race was POSTPONED! lol

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2009 IHRA World Finals, Sports Nationals, TOC, Summit All Stars, etc. Rockingham NC



http://www.classracer.com/classforum...ad.php?t=21243

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Well, since the IHRA was at State Capitol this weekend, how many folks remember the FIRST IHRA National Event at that track....almost two decades ago?

Trust me...there weren't many of you there TO remember it.

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I remember , I towed my h/r car ( C.O.D) on open trailer and pick-up truck. the trip itself was a disaster.You are right not many to remember this race.

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Houston national event a few years back, we all got stuck, couldn't get our rigs out, NHRA wouldn't let us even try. We had to get home on our own, come back the next weekend to another postponed event. By the time we did get pulled out the next weekend nobody from NHRA was even there to supervise the situation. There was one track employee there with an old tractor, he had his hand out, and he jackknifed trailers into trucks, tore up hitches etc., and just shrugged his shoulders and said he was sorry. I got my pickup out on my own, but my trailer had to be pulled about an 1/8 of a mile through mud knee deep.

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1996 Steele Alabama,On the way down there the newly rebuilt motor in our dually decided shatter a piston... So the decision was made to buy a crate motor from a local dealership and we changed it at a local guys garage.. Get back on the road and finally get to the track... Well they had gotten snow there in the weeks before, we got there it was beautiful sun was out, in the upper 60's... Well... all the water in the ground from the snow decided to come up through the track, there was nothing they could do so after 1 round of time runs the race was cancelled..

Man I miss the old days..

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There were times I felt like John Force -- I've crashed and I've been on fire ( only to not see Elvis ) but nothing and I mean nothing compares to the empty feeling I had when half my engine was "stolen" at Pomona in '08 ....................................

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At a bracket race about 5 or 6 years ago my wife and I were testing our cars in Edmonton. I was at the back of the staging lanes and Charlene was near the front. I walked up to her to see how she was doing and someone called me saying my car had been hit. I ran back only to see the back of my car caved in. The idiot behind me was letting his buddy run his car and was showing him how a trans brake worked. It worked all right. The guy thought I was going to kill him. I walked away and came back a couple of minutes later to calm down. After asking him if what part of stupid doesn't he understand, what he was going to do about it. He said get it fixed and send him the bill. I guess it gave me the excused to repaint the car. He did pay for the damages he caused.

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how about a nhra points race in edmonton canada 76-77 dont remember which year they towed us into the track rained all weekend till sunday raced and they towed us out.

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Well,
IN 1993
Jason Line & myself left Minnesota for the Atlanta POINTS MEET. & the Gator Nats.
Got caught in the STORM OF THE CENTURY (first snow in atlanta in 100 years)
25 inches of snow!!!
Got stuck in a Dry County ... at the Bull Dog Inn Motel! (for3 days)

Took off for FLA. & HAD TO PASS ( with our trucks and trailers) A ROAD GRADER PLOWING A 6 LANE FREEWAY WITH A 5 MILE LONG LINE OF CARS BEHIND IT!!!

We got to FLA. to find someone had "helped us out" by CANCELING OUR MOTEL RESERVATIONS!!!!!

Then it rained for 2 days and that place was a SWAMP!!

NHRA ran 2 rounds of S/C &G/G and then kicked them (who were no longer in the race ) out so we could park stock, & super stock on the tared pit spots and let us
up out of the mud.

By this time we did get 1 Q- pass

My car broke an axle.

I had a single for class and could not make the call !

After crawling around in the mud and pounding the twisted axle out with a sledge hammer and with the help of Jason, Al Provost & Mike McDonald, we got her fixed!
I was way to dirty to get in my car and move it to the tar.

Jason drove my car to the tar for me:)

Came back the next morning at 8:30 AM (stock is going to run at 11:30)
Only to hear THE CALL ...STOCK ELIMINATOR TO THE LANES!!!!

We scrambled to get things ready

I jumped in, hit the key.....the battery was dead!!!!!!!:(

The fan was left on.. Thanks Buddy :)

How is that.

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I agree Jim that whole ordeal sucked!!

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i had the pleasure of sandwiching those weeks in phoenix with a 700 dollar towing bill on the way to, and a broken trailer leaf spring on the way home.

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In 1980 I began racing a 1969 Camaro I had built at home. I planned to just bracket race it but got talked into racing it as a SS/JA. I started out running over the index a couple tenths usually. We made various changes trying to pick up the performance. I had an intake manifold extensively modifed and hoped it would pick the car up a tenth or better. I had to attend a WCS event just to be eligible to enter the SummerNationals coming in July. The intake was not done untill the friday of the last event I could enter to get in for the Summers.....Cayuga....I bolted the intake on and must have been messing with my carb. I piled stuff in my pickup and got my 13 year old son with me....This is an 8 hour or better ride from my home in NJ.......I drove all night....took a nap.....got there just as Greg X was about to close tech....filed out my tech card, got my credit.....Started to unload the car and get ready to race it.....Had to set the timing.......Started it up and was warming it up and doing the timing and heard some evil sounds.....motor even shook......

Well in my haste to leave the night before I must have been messing with my Q-Jet and forgot to tighten the base srcews.......guess where a couple ended up!!! Tha'ts right they were stuck to the top of a piston and I discovered that after I pulled a head after finding a smashed sparkplug......It also cracked the block......SOoooooo I packed up found a motel...had something to eat and a few beers......Stopped at Niagra Falls the next day to show my son the awesome power of that place and headed home......Oh and we got caught in a wicked hail storm as we got thru Syracuse and it was easily the scariest weather event I was ever exposed to......I thought we were gonners......and my son could easily back me up on that one even after all these years.....

Got new pistons...sleeved the block.....made it to the Summers...got dumped in Rd 1 of class......car was still slow.......Back in that era SS/JA was one of the most populated classes......Charlie Taylor.....Jim Boburka.....I lost to Freddy Krawiec......The best cars went around 11.20 or a little faster....Charlie Taylor was the fastest usually...........

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Got finished racing on a Sunday at Englishtown one year and was leaving to make the quick 5 hour ride home. Got onto the Garden State Parkway and had my first flat with my open trailer. Pulled off to change it and wouldn't you know, the spare rim had the wrong bolt pattern. Drove around central NJ on 3 trailer tires for over an hour looking for a gas station that was open that could swap the good tire onto the rim that had the flat tire and the right bolt pattern. Finally got that fixed and we were on our way. Almost made it into Massachusetts when I was traveling down the center lane of Rt. 84 and a moving van in the fast lane passed me and then decided he wanted to take the next exit and he must not have seen that I had a trailer because when he pulled right, he went right into the drivers side of my trailer flattening both tires and took the trailer fender off. Lucky for me, when CT Trooper Peasley showed up, he was not too happy with the non-english speaking driver of the moving van and wrote him up for everything he could. Trooper Peasley asked me several times to make sure there was no damage on the racecar that he could include in the police report. Thankfully, there was no damage to the racecar or truck. Trooper Peasley called the tow truck and I ended up paying about $200 for two used tires to get us home. Our quick 5 hour trip turned into a long 10 hour trip.

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Shreveport ,LA ....IHRA World Finals 2000. The last year I drove Doug Herbert's IHRA Snap on Tools Top Fueler. Saturday Night. Wayne Bailey and I shook hands before our final qualifying run. He said, "Jim, let's just go out and have some fun!" Three minutes later, his broken in half racecar went by me in the lights at 290mph, he was a least 50' in the air. $h** was on fire, and flying everywhere. And Wayne died. Something's aren't forgettable.

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Lots of 'little' annoyances back in the pre-internet / pre-GPS days:

- Driving from North Jersey to race at Englishtown. Fifteen minutes into the trip I come off a curved overpass and ram a car that stopped to make a left turn The crash destroys the front end of my Torino GT and I break the bridge of my nose on the steering wheel.

- North Jersey to Atco in a rusty old Datsun 200SX for an import race. 25 miles from the track the exhaust system breaks. I remove the muffler and tailpipe, drive the rest of the way, win my bracket, and return home, all with an open exhaust.

- This time I'm driving from North Jersey all the way down to Sumerduck in Virginia for a $1000 footbrake race. It starts raining when I get to VA and by the time I'm close it's pouring and the forecast says it won't stop. I drive past the turnoff and head home without even bothering to find the track. 600 miles for nothing. (These are all solo trips in street-driven bracket cars BTW)

- Finally, I'm at Maple Grove on a Saturday night for the Bracket Finals. After I'm eliminated, I decide I'll go north to run Numidia the next day. By the time I get there at 1AM I'm dead tired, so I park outside the track gates and go to sleep. I wake at sunrise and wait for the track to open. 8AM: nothing happens. 9AM: still nothing. It's almost 10 when someone towing a drag car drives past me, gives me a funny look and continues down the highway. I finally realize: "Duh! There's no race today" I rush home, and two hours later I make it to Island Dragway and manage a last second time trial just as cars are being called for eliminations.

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Jim I remember when that happened....I bet your the only person that remembers who Wayne was running that pass......

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Real similar to this. We had a week once, weather was bad all week. Really couldn't decide whether it was worth getting ready or not. We prepped and loaded the car on
a Saturday during a lull. Woke up Sunday morning, sun was shining, weather was nice. I proceeded to my my partners house, picked him up, off to the races we went.

We get to the track, there's about a dozen other cars sitting in line. This probably about 9, track usually opened at 10, no problem. We wait for someone to show up. 10 comes and goes, no one. 10:30, still no one. This was mid 80's, no cell phone instant communication like today. Finally, we pool up and find someone with a driver car, I just happened to have one of the track operaters number. We send someone to call them. They come back 15-20 minutes later, tell us, they "woke him up". Said, the weather report was for rain last nite, THEY decided not to race Sunday. Nice 50 mile trip for nothing. It never rained that day!

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I was running a bracket race about 10 years ago and learned a lesson about top end. A 5.70 1/8th mile car got loose and went on the roof, tripped the timers over 120 and came through the guardrail upside down. The car hit a dually and catapulted into the air. I was unhooking my battery and time stood still as this car flew through the air. My dad and others were on the fence and I could see them running. The car went over my dads head and landed on a scooter. I could not see my mom or sister for a few moments, thankfully they were out of the way. Two people were swept up in the mayhem, both by the quarters unfolding with the roof as the welds broke. The driver walked away, one of the carbs hit my sisters car where she had been standing moments earlier. The potential was there for 8-10 serious injuries or worse. The lesson learned.... dont watch on top end or park there if at all possible. Those few seconds seemed like forever. We stood around and took it all in, we all realized that a dually saved everyone. That car would have taken a direct path into the pits on the ground.

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that is why Houston is on the no race there list

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Boy I have a few but I guess the best of the worst are being stopped in a construction zone in Missouri with a motorhome stopped behind me and having a 18 wheeler shove the motorhome 4 ft into my trailer. Pushed me into a flatbed truck demolishing everything. Nobody got hurt though. But without a doubt the best of the worst is stopping @ Lake Station Flying J on way home from Chicago race. Gone 10/ 15 minuets to come outside to find entire rig stolen. Now that my friends is an awful empty feeling. Away from home about $10 in my pocket no cell and keys that fit nothing and all your hard work and property gone. got very lucky to get it all back less tools spare parts tv vcr ect. Trans ruined in truck had to stay 4days till I got it fixed. Not a good weekend.

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Jim you're right, I'll never forget that either.

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Jim and Kent, I spent some time with Wayne's daughter, Harmony, today and she appreciates everybody keeping Wayne's name out there.

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Jim, I'm assuming you and Wayne weren't related...not that that makes the experience any easier...

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No relation despite the uncanny resemblance.

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Paris dragstrip around '95....car, truck and trailer torn up in a hail storm....along with my dads car and truck parked right next to mine. Lots of cars torn up that day.

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I remember that race. I used to bracket race there and we all knew it was going to be a problem. IHRA was pissed and never held a race there again.

JimR

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I've attended 3,099 events in my life and 1996 IHRA Steele event was the only one...the ONLY ONE...at which I ever witnessed cash refunds issued to every person on the property.

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Bret, you can't just round up 1???

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July 3, 1993, my first summer with my Cavalier @ a race @ Bandimere Speedway. Afternoon winds came up to nearly 100mph!!! Porta Johns were being blown over, the young lady @ the e.t. booth was sprayed with broken glass caused by the rock pebbles that adorned the pit area from the end of the 1/4 mile to the final (main exit) from the race track...thank GOD she was ok. I left my tool box out with my spare tire, and jack (I street drove my car then). Since rock pebbles heavily pitted my car (hince half of the need for repainting back in '06), all of my glass had to be replaced (especially the rear window when a large gust of wind slammed so many pebbles into the back of my car, that I heard this loud WHOMP, followed by the whole rear window falling into my rear seat as I drove to the fence overlooking the race track hoping it would shield me from the rocks. In so doing I tried to recover my tool box, because (by todays prices), it had around $1,000 worth of tools in it. when I tried to position the car so I could grab the box, was when my rear window was slammed into, and if I'd have positioned my car any other way I would've risked having my door ripped off, or unsprung...the pit in my right side tail light is my reminder of that harrowing day.

Ohh, the topper, if all of that wasn't bad enough, once the winds died down and I was able to return to my pit area, my tools were gone (STOLEN, AS WAS MY JACK)!!! I told the track about it, and it was announced at their next Bracket Race, but I never got them back. My tools (and the box) were marked (I'll update this post tomorrow with the actual marking), 221 (the number I had on my '76 Chevy Vega when I won the equivalent of the state championship in high school drags, from a Memorial Day Dragfest also @ Bandimere). Thank GOD my car then being a street car, and my having full coverage insurance, or I wouldn't have gotten my glass replaced, and most of my tools replaced as well. OHH TO HAVE BEEN BLESSED TO HAVE THE JERK WHO TOOK THEM IN A SQUARED CIRCLE FOR JUST FIVE MINUTES...I HAD JUST CAUSE TO BE LIKE A SHARK IN A FEEDING FRENZY, & WAS FIT ENOUGH TO DO SOME DAMAGE!!!!!!!

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Maple Grove. Hurricane. That's all I can say.

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Actually, Jody.....NO. I'm a freak about that kind of stuff. LOL!

Nothing against those who suffered at Maple Grove for that event but there will never be a another drag racing/hurricane nightmare like IHRA Bristol during Hurricane Hugo in 1989. I eventually told everybody the governor of Tennessee had declared October to be "Fall Nationals Month". The fourth time was no "charm" but that's how many weeks it took to get it completed. Randall Campbell said he mortgaged his house to stay in the race!

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Hey Bob I was there for that story.

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I've got all of your stories beat. A few years ago at Boise, someone got the brilliant idea to suprise everyone by having a funny car do a burnout down the length of the staging lanes with no advanced warning. It did suprise everyone, particularly the three people that got run over, one of which died. Needless to say, the remainder of the event was cancelled.

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I have been to Montana race a couple of times twice the pits turned to mud and a hail storm that left its marks on every ones trailers, broke the windshield out of Jody S/S. The track had equipment and dump trucks running bring in gravel. Weekend turn out all right for racing got it in.

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I was there also. At 13 years old that was the scariest storm I've ever been in! I remember seeing a funnel cloud right above the track and being terrified. But kinda funny though every track we went to after that, people said, "Been to paris lately?" Dad had an open trailer so of course the top and passenger side of the race car was beat to hell...holes in the lexan windows and glass hood as well. Not good times!

Aaron