off the beaten path,,,,,,maybe a little fun

[Don Himes]

"Reclusive Genius"? His legend keeps on growing! I just thought he was a "crusty 'ol poop" myself. One day at E-Town, Billy saw me heading toward my race car with two hands full of tools. He jumped up from his trailer and screamed at me "Put down the tools and back away from the car!" Apparently my "expertise with wrenches" was better known than I expected. He then jumped under the car and replaced all of my body mounts. The car had been moving and hitting the slicks upon launch.

[FLEMING]

The first year I started racing this guy in the lanes beside me dialed 5.68 (it was a bone stock nissan pickup) I was trying to be polite and point out there was no way that truck could run that .. The guy pulled his slip out of his pocket and pointed to his reaction time... "See here he said, it ran 5.68 the last run".. I said well good luck! LOLOLOL

A good one on me.. I went with rusty to hattisburg points race in 1997, they had a friday night bracket race $10 entry $2,000 to win.. So rusty decided that (WE) would get in it.. So he goes down and enters us, I had never made a lap in his monza, but I had driven his dragster (which was my wifes car then)... So I he decides it would be best if I raced the monza?? WTF?? LOL SO I roll up to the water box in the car that is leading the national points race by a TON I do my burnout and notice that the distance from the edge of the water to the starting line is really really short.. People were rolling thru the lites because they couldnt get stopped so I did the same... I was backing up and saw the lites flicker as I rolled backwards thru the beams, I stop, put my top light on and start bumping to get my second one on.. Mark horton walks up and opens the door and tells me I am staging with my back tires!!!!! LOLOLOL Too damn funny.. Glad people thought it was rusty and not me.. LOLOLOL

[Michael Beard]

>> Mark horton walks up and opens the door and tells me I am staging with my back tires!!!!!

I'm afraid I've been there, too... LOL I was driving Adger Smith's Super Stocker, and he said that the line lock wasn't working sometimes. Sure enough, it didn't work in the burnout box, so I tried to just "Pro Stock" it to get some heat in the tires, and stop before the line. He had recently switched classes and put a bigger hoodscoop on the car, not to mention the seat is mounted really low in the car. As it turns out, I had no idea where I was... Sam Kearns walks out in front and points back toward the line, so I put it in reverse, back up, I saw the pre-stage/stage lights flicker, and he waved his hand. So I stop. He looks at me again like, "Are you DUMB?" So I back up more to finally get the *front* tires behind the line. And Tim Lee got it all on video tape. Some hero! LMAO!

[THE LEGEND]

Dumb as a coal bucket. Thats really funny.

Back in the early 90's I had a guy come to me and asked if I would look at his delay box. He called it a computer as did a lot of "DUMB AS A COAL BUCKET" people did back then. I said whats wrong with it. He did'nt know. He had just put it in and kept redlighting. I asked what numbers he had in it. He said he put all zeros in so he could have a perfect light. I told him it must be a bad box LOL
Chip

[Michael Beard]

Wayne Golanka got to drive Billy Nees' U/SA Nova a few times. The first time, Billy gave him the talk-through of how to drive it. "Bring it up a little, bump it in, hold the brake as hard as you can, and mat it. And don't look at the tach!"

Wayne came back from his first run, with an .800 light. What happened?
"I couldn't help myself! When I put it on the wood, I looked at the tach! I couldn't stop staring at it!" he yelped in disbelief.

John DiBartolmeo got to drive the car, and got a similar speech. John's sitting in the car, with Billy leaning in the passenger side. "Hold the brake, and then put THAT foot on the FLOOR."

John's head whipped around, "Are you SERIOUS?"

I ran against him on his first time shot. I was in the Turismo, so even though he only ran in the 14's, he got to beat somebody to the finish. Keep in mind that the slowest thing John D had ever driven was his 12-sec Chevelle he won the first Bracket Finals at York US30 with. When he got out of the car, his grin was wider than his face. (I've had a couple of Super Stock guys drive the Turismo over the years, with similar reactions.... "This thing is FUN!") Kinda like a go-cart I guess.

[TGould]

1968, Continental Divide Raceway (near Denver). Sitting in the staging lanes(door half open) for Pure Stock Eliminator. A snow fence runs the length of the lanes on the driver side. They call us to go, I put in the clutch to start the Corvair and the car rolls backward ....clackety, clackety, clackety, BANG, hinge broke, door dropped. I got out on the passenger side, shut driver door, got back in, won the Eliminator.

[david ring]

I love talking to Billy Nees-he told be to build a four cylinder Chevy II-I love the early shoeboxes and of course four cylinder cars-if they'd come out the X/SA automatic class, I might have done it, but honestly, there is no money left over after the comp car eats what I earn up. Next best thing is the six cylinder Shoebox that a d2 racer has-really appreciated getting to see that car at the Sportsnationals in Columbus a couple of years ago. If I ever wanted to drive, my dream car would be an S-10 EFI four cylinder-there's a guy down in Mississippi that's got one that's really fast, saw that at Bristol one year-forget if its was the national event or a points race-but then there's that story of the comp car eating up....

But here's my story about Billy I was at the Keystones one year and Allyn Armstrong came over and needed something (I don't honestly remember what part-I think it had to do with the starter gear ring on a flywheel) and I said to him, we don't have it, but let me go get Billy Nees and have a look at your problem. Sure enough, Billy figured out what Allyn needed to solve the problem and told him he could probably get it at the junkyard around the corner from the track-sure enough, Billy's fix worked.