Jim Hale

[bill dedman]

Originally Posted by Adger Smith

Bill,
Who was the guy that had the AA/fuel Weenie Roaster roadster. Seems like he had a meet packing company... Mike Heim?? I saw him there once or twice. I know I saw him at Carlisle. Wasn't there a Watus Simpson that drove for Vance, too... I don't know how many feet it was from I-30 to the top of the hill, but it always looked pretty high. It was an odd thing to go by there during the week and see a Cessna sitting on top of the hill getting ready to take off. Didn't Tom Parker start up a small track over at the fair grounds? That was probably 20 years ago.. Time flies...

Yes, Mike Heim owned a few pretty formidable drag cars over a period of years; first a street roadster with Chevy power (the one that Jimmy Camp died in, I believe, on opening day of the new Little Rock strip) and several Chevy-then-Pontiac powered supercharged 20-percent engine setback altered/roadsters, that pioneered the high engine placement for weight transfer benefits, and finally, a Top Fuel car called "The Pusher."

They had some elevated pits at that strip, that were on the same level as the strip, for the really fast cars, so driving "up the hill" to the "upper pits" was not required for the diggers, et al.

You're right; Watus Simpdon did drive for Vance, and a guy named Bob Coleman also, I believe, at one time.

I was not here when Tom Parker started that Little Rock "Fairgrounds" strip, but it was still in operation (barely) when I moved back to Arkansas from California, in 2004. I ran my car there a few times, but it was an eighth-mile facility with a "death-trap" shutdown area that included an off-camber CURVE and a trip into the hog barn, if you didn't have EXCELLENT brakes! It's a miracle nobody was ever killed there.

Mike had a friendly running feud with O.D. Brail, the strip manager at Carlisle (AR), for Middle Eliminator supremacy in Arkansas, as O.D. campigned a similar, but blown Chrysler, Hemi-powered Altered that had a spot on Drag News' Standard 1320 list, and was killer-fast. They traded wins, back and forth. Mike's Top Fuel effort came after I left Arkansas, so I never got to see it run.
An updated facility on that same site was stillborn...

Arkansas has NO quarter-mile racing, as of now.)