where i came from?
 

i got on this site cause i'm a pontiac freak & i wanted to share in all the good info. but when i added my well intentioned 2 cents worth, i got some flack. several seem to want to know just who i am, what i've ever done & why i think i have a right to give any info to people who allready know more than me. if your not interested please just move on to another thread. i harbor no ill will towards anyone! if i have offended anyone in any way i apologize. please forgive! it is not my intention to badmouth or disrespect anyone in any way. i did not come on here to bare my soul-- but i guess inquiring minds want to know, so here goes, this is my story. i'm posting this on the street thread cause thats where my story begins. the 1960's & 70's was a great time to be young & alive in this country. almost magical. when i think back on it i say "wow that was great". then at times i think " did that really happen?" then i go to a car show & see all the old muscle cars & remember when these old cars used to prowl the streets. on a friday or saturday nite it was like a parade of every kind of muscle car there was. i remember the 1st goat in our town- red '64 3x2 4sp. it was love at 1st site-- it was the greatest thing i'd ever seen! i bought the 45rpm record " lil gto" & played it over & over every day til my family was sick of it. from that time on it was never a ? of if, but when i'd own my very own gto! more to come.

where i came from? part2
 

for the 1965 model year pontiac put out some pr posters of the new gto. there were several colors & poses. i heard about it & ordered a whole set. they were beautiful! i hung them on the walls of my room. sometimes i would just stand in front of them & stare at each one. sometimes when i went to bed i'd leave the lite on & stare at them til i went to sleep. then an area pontiac dealer started runnin gto ads with big tigers in different poses. i collected e'm all. it wasn't long til my room was wallpapered with goats. i had many dreams of driving a '65 4sp goat up the road from my house. i vowed that my 1st car would be a gto. but at that time the best i could do was borrow my dads gmc pick-up & go to town to watch the parade. & what a parade it was--'65 gto 3x2 4sp lite blue,'66 gto 3x2 4sp black, bb chevelles, camaros, '68 bird 400 4sp red, mopars of every type- even a hemi-charger, mustangs & other fords, 442's-- round & round the loop they went, barkin the tires when the law wasn't lookin. what a show! & i parked in the bowling alley parking lot right next to the highway so i'd have a front row seat. we'd listen to elvis, the beach boys, jan & dean & all the good rock & roll groups on the am radio til a car with loud pipes came through. then we'd listen as they slowly loped around the parking lot & back onto the highway. we always hoped they'd burn some rubber & grab some gears. they usually would if they new their fans were watching. yah it was great & i was there-- it really happened- i'm a witness.

where i came from? part 3
 

fast forward now to 1969. i'm in college now & working at a pizza joint all the hours i can. i decided the time had come. its time for my gto! so i looked around & found a clean '65 4sp lite blue- $1500. my boss was a good man & liked to help the college kids when he could. i told him what i wanted to do & he gave me some good advice. he asked " your not going to leave me are you?" well i liked the job & i loved pizza (we could eat all we wanted every day--i did) so i wasn't planing to quit. he said "why don't you buy a new car instead of that used one?" he reasoned that the notes wouldn't be much higher cause they'd finance it longer & i'd have a new car instead of a used 1 that might have problems. god bless "Mr. Joe". i took his advice & went straight to the pontic dealer. they had a new judge on display. i'd read some about 'em so i said that's what i want. but i said " i aint gonna drive around in no haloween orange car even if it is a goat. what other colors can i get?" he went inside & asked his boss & said that was the only color availabe at that time. i said "well can i get the same motor & ram air stuff in a regular gto in a different color?" the answer was yes so we dug into the options list & built my 1st & only new car. silver with black interior, ra3, 4sp, 3.90 gears, hood tach, fm radio, no air, manual steering. $3400 + change. notes $125 a month including ins. yah this was really happening. soon i'd be driving my very own gto! (ps) T.J. reminded me to be sure & tell ya'll i also ordered it with a bench seat so she could sit in the middle & shift. it worked out great. i'd mash the clutch & she'd snatch the gears.

Where are you from (geographically)?

K

where i came from? part 4
 

about 6 weeks later i was driving down the 4 lane main drag just passed the pontiac place when i saw a car hauler with a load of pontiacs headed to the pontiac dealer. i spotted it imediately. there it was in the middle of the bottom row. My GTO! i made a u-turn as soon as i could, followed the truck & watched 'em unload the cars. i was like a kid at christmas & santa had brought me the car of my dreams! i talked to a salesman who told me they'd have to check it out in the shop before i could leave with it, so we finished up the paper work & soon there is was. he handed me the keys & i jumped in & drove off down the 4 lane. it was perfect, everything felt just right, like it was made just for me. i only made 2 changes-- a hurst t-handle & the widest tires i could find for the back- i think they were h-70's. the wider stuff like n-50's weren't around yet. i'd usually go back to our little home town at least one day of the week-end to be part of the muscle car parade. i'd watched 'em do it for years so i new just what to do-- lope slowly through the bowling alley parking lot, then pull out onto the 4-lane keeping a sharp eye out for the law. if the coast was clear i'd pop the clutch & bark the tires,then get some 2nd gear rubber, then ease it into 4th & lope slowly up the hill passed the dairy queen. it was a great time to be alive & i'm glad i got to be a part of it!

Too bad you didn't spend the extra $389.00 for the RA IV - only an extra $11/month over 36 months. ;)

Cool story, keep it coming.

BTW, welcome to the board.

where i came from part 5
 

fast forward again to 1973. i'd been to the local drag strip & i just knew i had to do that. so i learned all i could about it, put in a new clutch & flywheel, got some m&h racemasters(hard street tires- slicks weren't legal yet), had some downpipes made for the ra3 manifolds(they stepped up to 3" tubes & looked like headers from the bottom) & i was ready to race! i'd seen that lots of guys used tow bars to get their cars to the track so when i took the goat off the street i bought an old "68 cadilac(it was huge) to use for a tow car. it had a 472 motor & plenty of room in the trunk for jack,tires,tools & stuff. i had a good hitch installed, bought a good tow bar, had brackets welded to the frame rails & i was ready to go. i still remember those butterflies i'd get every time we'd get close to the track-- pre-race jitters i guess you'd say. it was similar to what i felt before a big basketball game but bigger,better, this was something really special --its something i'll never forget! at the track i jacked'er up, put the m&h tires on, warmed it up then headed for the staging lanes. they put me in d-stock. i thought "i'll probably have to run some bb chevelles, but thats allright, i've beat em before i can do it again." it only took 1 pass rowin through the gears & i knew this is what i was born to do ! gotta go for now

more of where i came from part 6
 

i live in the bayou country of north la 10 miles north of dugdemona bayou near beautiful caney lake -- former home of 14lb record bass my first season of racing was loads of fun. i learned a lot & got some good experience. our home track was running stock,ss & street modified. there was no such thing as bracket racing. that brings up a ? for some of you older guys. do you remember what year et bracket racing started in your area? i wonder if it might have started sooner in some parts of the country then took a while to filter down to little podunk tracks like ours. or was it something nhra came up with & it started all over the country at the same time? i ran d stock & won my class almost every week. they gave a trophy for class win & a bigger 1 for overall win. i soon had a room full of trophies. we finally had so many trophies we talked the track owners into giving us $5 instead of a trophy. later T.J. sold several to a neighbor so he could brag to his girlfriends. we ran off track records, so i set mine so low nobody else in my class could touch it. it was even lower than the c stock record held by a stage 1 455 buick. i ran some on an airport runway-- no lites, just a flagman. spots were given as so many feet head start. the short ones were marked off. they guessed at the long ones. a pinto won several races so they put a bounty on him. his spot was 410ft (estimated of course) on me. i beat him & we never saw him again. when an airplane wanted to land we stopped the race & when he was out of the way we'd fire'em back up.

T.J.'s gonna race?
 

1974 was purty much more of the same til late in the season when T.J. surprised me by saying " if i'm gonna be here anyway i mite a well race too". well that was fine with me. but she could'nt see over the dash or reach the pedals in the ole goat so we decided on a '68 bird. we found a clean body on a lot in a nearby town. it was a 350 2bl with problems. but the price was rite $350. aah those were the days! i pulled the motor out of the goat, bought a junkyard th400 for $100 & stuck it all in the bird. the rear was a 1 wheeler probably a 2.73 or 3.08. our local junkyard had 1 he said was a 4.11 posi $150. he was rite about the posi but it was 3.23. oh well there have been liars in all generations. that shows just how little i knew at that time. i had no idea how to tell a gear ratio & absolutely nobody to tell or teach me any thing -- i was on my own. the whole process was a learning experience. but i was eager to learn, i had already tasted the thrill of victory & wasn't about to quit now! the car was under geared & had a stock converter so it was over a second slower than the goat. but it got T.J. started & she got some of those beginner mistakes behind her. '75 would be a different year.

part 8 come out swingin
 

i got an nhra rule book & started asking ? this time i asked the rite people & got the rite answers. got a sheet from nhra with all the legal specs for our cars. found a machine shop that had built pontiac class racer motors. found out about stall converters( i'd never even heard of a stall converter) bought a 9" converter(vitar was a big name at that time) bought us a lunati cheater cam. then i made another dummy mistake. the rule said pontiac oem cast pistons only. but gm was out til they could run off another batch, so i just bought a set from napa. big mistake. i was told later that the only cast piston at the time nearly as good as gm was sterling brand. of course i'd never heard that name. anyway the machine shop got it together before the season started so i stuffed it in the bird & got it runnin. it was time to race so we just shot it with primer and loaded it up. They made headers legal that year and we found a used set of Hookers for it. They also made 9" slicks legal so we bought a new set. When we made it to the track we really didn't know what to expect. But the converter, cam, gears and slicks seemed to be the right combo. She won the first four races with no problem and the first two at another track. Then the problems started.

Part 9 A few bumps in the road
 

TJ won the 5th race in a row, but by now the non-Pontiac competitors (all of em) were tired of getting beat by a Pontiac and to add insult to injury, it was a female driver. Thru the years we saw em fume and cuss and sling wrenches and gravel while loading on the trailer after a whuupin' from TJ's early bird. (The hi-dollar Chevy boys were the worst) It finally got so bad we started staying away from our local track if there was a race anywhere else close. Anyhow, back to this 5th race, we were protested. My feeling was "Tear it down if you want to." I knew the only thing that wasn't legal was the napa pistons and I figured since the tech guys were all Chevy boys they'd have no idea what a Pont. piston looked like. I guess they knew that, so instead they just put it on the scales. I assumed it weighed what the book said it was supposed to, since it wasn't stripped down at all. You see how little I knew? If i'd had anybody to help me they'da said "Hey man, you better weigh it, you may have to add some weight." So they said it was a few lbs. lite and disqualified us. Well, all the guys seemed very happy about that. But they knew that she had beat them far enough that a few lbs. wouldn't have made any difference. Experience can be a good teacher, but no fun sometimes.

Pt. 10 - More Bumps
 

I put a spare tire in the trunk and and made sure the tank was a least half full so if they weighed us it woulnd't be lite. And just as I thought, it didn't slow down a bit. At the 6th race she was well on her way to another win. She was running a Mopar - a Demon or Duster, I think. She had run him several times that year, he wasn't even close. I watched her leave the line, looked good, and no red, so I started back to the trailer. Then I heard somebody say she lost. I was thinking "Something must have broke." But she made it back to the trailer and when she got out of the car she had a sad look on her face and holding her head down she said, "I'm sorry! I forgot to release the parking brake." To keep it from rolling backwards at the end of the staging lanes she would mash the parking brake then release it when it was her turn to race. But this time she forgot. She said "It was close though, I almost won anyway." We've had many a good laff about that thru the years. Sometimes after that I would think to ask her if she had released it, but she never did that again. Pontiac finally got another batch of pistons in so I took everything to the machine shop and soon had the old Goat back on the track. It was doing ok, but then the napa pistons gave up in the Bird.

Pt. 11 - Ups and Downs
 

I forgot one incident that was interesting. At the track where we'd won the first 2 races, the Bird started missing real bad, so we lost the round. We decided to just load it up and watch the rest of the race. Then we heard over the loud speaker that they had classed a car wrong and were going to run the whole thing over. And when they got the field lined up they'd call us up. Well, we went to work. I jerked the intake and valley pan off and there was the problem. A lifter had come apart. I didn't have a spare, but all the parts were still lying there so I just put it back together and stuck it back in the hole, adjusted the rocker arm and buttoned everything back up. And just in the nick of time, they were calling us to the staging lanes. So TJ jumped back in, backed it off the trailer and headed to the lanes. Well, I reckon that was the only problem. It ran great and chalked up another victory. We never had anything like that happen again. If you lose you load it up and go home. But it actually did happen once. That reminds me, in case you run hydraulic lifters, never run the kind with a flimsy wire clip retainer. This incident points this out. Make sure you use the lifters with real snap ring retainers. After this incident we always bought Rhodes. There are probably other good brands also.

Pt 12 - More Downs
 

Now, back to the napa pistons. The Bird started slowing down and smokin a little. It would still beat most of em but definitely up to par. So I pulled it out and put the Goat motor in it. I could have left the cam in it, but there was a little difference and I didn't know if they would ever tear it down to check it or not. So I swapped cams and now it was perfectly legal. Looking back on it now I really don't think they would have torn into it at our track. That stuff only took place at point meets and nat. events. That reminds me of another shocker in my continuing education: We had never taken a car to a points meet so I had no idea what to expect. We didn't even get to unload. One of the tech guys saw us and realized immediately that we didn't have a clue what was going on! He walked around the cars, opened the doors and looked in, then he turned to us and started naming all the obvious reasons why we could not pass tech: A piece of chrome trim missing, radio hole not covered with metal, clutch fan of Bird (that motor came with factory flex fan like Goat). He said "Fix all this and we'll look at it a little closer." All the air left our balloon. Thank God, bracket racing was coming to tracks near us soon! Our stocker days were about over. The thrill was gone.

Pt. 13 - More Lessons Learned
 

With our stocker days behind us we made new plans. The early Bird was still running good so TJ said she wouldn't mind driving that car on the street. So I pulled the tranny and put her a 4-spd in it, some Thrush Hedder Muffs and swapped the 4.56 posi for a 3.23 1-wheeler. It made a nice street car. I guess some folks didn't understand what all the racing decals were about and it was purty loud! But she only got 1 $25 ticket for loud pipes. It was fun for a couple of years, til it got hit. But most of the parts lived to race again. And TJ moved on to a '73 455 4-spd TA for a street ride. It seems that the desire to go faster comes to all who race. I was no exception. Our local track ran a class I think was called Street Modified. They used the stock specs for wt. limits, then you divide your wt. by your cubic inches to determine the class. Of course this favors the small-cube, hi rpm Chevy. I had no business in that class, but the brackets were still a year away, so I decided to give it a shot. I had a '68 ragtop Bird, which could be heavier than a hardtop, so I got to work on it. Found a good used roller from an SS racer and took my block and stuff to a new machine shop in a nearby city. Huge mistake! They had a top fuel car, so they HAD to know what they were doing - right? WRONG! The roller motor made it almost thru 3 passes and the 350 blew up just backing out of the shop. Listen very carefully! Never have machine work done by anyone who has little or no experience working on Pontiac stuff!

Pt. 14 - Thank God for bracket racing!
 

For us, '76 was a disaster! I spent more $ trying to go faster than on all our stocker stuff in '75 and we never even made it thru the time trials. But good news was on the way. Stock, SS and St. Mod were history. For '77 we'll run ET brackets. Our track called em Pro and Super Pro, and they had Street for the slower cars. Each track set their own bracket times. They ranged from 11.99 to 13.99 break between the top two classes. Their was no such thing as an Electronics Class. That brings up a ?: Who knows when they first started running the Electronics Class? Well, '68 Birds were cheap ( I probably bought at least 15 - $300 was the most I paid) So I picked one out and started putting it together for TJ. We still had the motor from her street Bird, so i stuck it in but without the 9" converter. She took to it right away. She had already learned how to cut a good light and with a tite converter it was very consistent. She went right back to her winning ways. But it was another year of learning for me. I was introduced to the torque-monster 455. It looked just like the 400s I was used to, so I was not ready for what was to come. In my ignorance i reasoned "Since a Goat is heavier than a Bird, this motor should even things out." But I soon found out the 455 was in complete control of things - not me.

Pt. 15 - Trying to tame the monster
 

A friend had a '70 Goat with a 455. He told me one day that it started missing real bad and that he had bought a 400 from a junkyard and wanted me to change em out for him. I did and as he was leaving, "You can have that old 455 if you want it." So after he left I pulled the intake and valley cover. I'd seen this before. The only thing wrong with it was a lifter had come apart. So I replaced it and had the motor to put my Goat back together. Boy, I was like the lamb to the slaughter. I was the student and that monster was the teacher. First I used the cleanest looking TH400 I had out of a '68 Bird and some slicks I had on hand - 9". I used the stock converter so I reasoned that 9" would be plenty. Now, fast forward to the track... I do a fair burnout and stage. When I hit the gas it was like a funny car when they put too much clutch in it. It blew the tires away and the rear end started around and out my windshield I was staring at the grandstands. It probably didn't look that bad from outside but it felt bad inside. I caught it and puttered on down the track. For the next pass I did a real hard burnout. It spun bad, but stayed straight, so I ran it on up to 5 and shifted to 2nd - NOTHING! That monster ate my tranny!

Good reading!carry on...

Pt. 16 - Still Trying
 

WEll, just from that first outing I had gained a lot of respect for the monster. So I did some more reasoning. This thang might eat that 10-bolt rear end. I knew the BB Chevelles had 12-bolts and they were plentiful at that time so I got one. It was a 1-wheeler so I got a mini-spool for it. That should take care of the rear end. What about tires? I found a set of either 10- or 11". Now, what about the tranny? I'd heard about this new co. called TCI. I looked at their catalog and found a full comp TH400 with a reverse pattern valve body. It was high, but I figured that it would solve the tranny problem so I ordered it. OK, we're back at the track and I'm feeling purty good about the setup now. Maybe this time I have tamed the monster. - WRONG! The slicks did a little better than the 9" but still had lots of spin. Oh well, at least I don't have to worry about the tranny anymore - right? WRONG! Wind to 5 in 1st, shift to 2nd...NOTHING! This can't be happening - that moster just ate my hi-$ full comp TCI tranny! Then I finally had an intelligent thought. OK, there are cars with more power than mine that are NOT breaking. So why don't I find out what they're using. I found out that a local guy was building their tranny's, so I went to see him. He said TCI probably put a stock int. sprag in it, I needed one made for a 500 Cadillac motor. Well, that solved the tranny problem forevermore. Thank God!

Pt. 17 - One more hurdle
 

OK, I got everything fixed now but the tires. What to do? Well, do what worked last time. Go ask somebody. Find out what the quick cars are running. OK, they've got big tubs with 14 x 32's. Wow, there's no way to make em fit the Goat. Now, do some measuring. If I roll the top of the wheelwell opening a little I can make a 30" tall tire work. Look in the cat. The widest 30" tall tire is 13" wide. OK, let's do it. Then I look around for possible suspension mods. The SS Goats are running ladder bars, but that requires more $ and fabrication skills than I have. So what are the stocker boys using? Airbags with a little more air in the right bag. I can do that. E-Z to install. Now, that looks good on paper, but will it work? YES - Thank God! I can now make a full pass without spinning or breaking a tranny. But now I've spent most of the season trying to tame this monster. Now, I said all that to say this: If somebody would have told me all this before I tackled the monster, I coulda been racing all year and having fun instead of fighting this thang. That's why I wanta try to help anyone I can - so they can avoid my mistakes. You may think this is all just too dramatic. But I'll tell you, to me, it WAS dramatic at the time. No fun at all. But - life goes on.

i've enjoyed reading your story.

kinda like playboy kinda interesting, but pictures do the trick.

Good story and good advise. Thankfully we have such good advanced parts to really be competitive.

story is very interesting.just waiting on the next installment

part 18 lost in space
 

i had to get permission from T.J. to share this one with you. we've laughed about it many times thru the years. thought some of you might enjoy it. lets go back now to 1976. we had just had an incompetent machine shop put a roller motor together for us(what a nitemare!) we took it to greenville miss for its first race. it was a 68 ragtop bird. it wasn't very quick but sounded awesome. when we fired it up in the shop it would rattle the walls, shake the ground & our little trailer house beside the shop. so we made it to the track & she headed to the staging lanes for a time trial. a couple of the boys with us held it straight as she did the most awesome burnout of her entire racing career. seconds too long. but it produced a beautiful white mushroom cloud maybe 30' in the air. then she pulled to the line & blasted off-- sounded good, looked good, but not very quick. i just stood there & watched the next pair run. it was now passed the time she should be back & headed to the pits. " she must be broke" i sent 1 of the boys for the truck to pull her back. i asked 1 of the boys if he could see where she was -- he couldn't. we both began to look harder & finaly spotted her. she was still moving but was about a hundred yards from the track & headed the wrong way. " what is she doing?" it was our 1st time there & she wasn't familar with their return road. the track was built on the site of an old military base of some sort, probably closed after ww2. all the buildings were gone but the airstrip made a good dragstrip. there were lots of concrete slabs where buildings had been & a network of concrete roads in every direction. the race cars were supposed to come back down the left side of the strip but T.J. didn't know that. she drove down a concrete road she thought was the return road but it just led to another road going in a different direction. it was like a corn maze & she was lost in space! i told 1 of the boys to drive on down & show her the way back, but about that time we noticed she had figured things out & was headed back. anything like this ever happen to you?

friendly fire?
 

i love to watch old ww2 stuff about how all those young men fought for this country againt hitler & japan. i especialy like it when they interview those old guys who were there & lived to tell about. some of those old films record how the large fleets of b-17 bombers would fly from england to bomb germany. they show puffs of black smoke all around. they call it flack. it was meant to disable or destroy the bombers. lately i have pictured myself as one of those b-17's. i'm on a mission to help or cause, but there's flack all around-- don't know if i'm gonna make it or not. then i look down & see that it's not the enemy thats firing at me, its its my own guys manning those flack guns. its friendly fire! but it ain't so friendly. an american football hero recently went to afghanistan & was killed by "friendly fire". when the flack started i first thought " hey. i don't need this. here i am trying to share a little of what i know that i think might help some young racer & all i get is flack." " who do you think you are trying to tell us how to race, we already know more than you, what have you ever done?" i started to pull out, but then i got a couple of positive words of encouragement(thanks for that guys!) so i decided to try & stick it out. the guys on the racing site strongly suggested that i take my nonsense to the street section, so here i am. i'm gonna try 1 more time to help. if nobody wants to hear it i'm outa here. all i ask is hear it, consider it' then make your own decision.

an old mans fabrication?
 

some seem to think i fabricated most of what i've shared about racing pontiacs. but i was raised by good, honest, hard working parents who taught me to work hard be honest, & treat people like you would want to be treated. what i say about my racing experiences won't alter the facts of what actually happened. i love the line of one of my favorite tv shows growing up. it was dragnet. the character was sargeant joe friday, homicide division, if i remember correctly. when he interviewed a woman to get her story & she would start ranting away, he would say " the facts ma'm, just the facts". what i have presented is actual facts. it really happened. but there are many doubters & naysayers. i"m not a bragger, but i feel now that it's necessary to show proof of what i've shared. i've looked thu our scapbooks at pictures & records & i'm going to share some of these memories with you, if you will allow it. it may take a few days as i am not up to speed as to how to transfer these old pictuures & stuff to this site. but i"ll ask around & hopefully somebody will help. (ps) while looking thru the scrapbook i ran across some pictures from the cajun nationals. 1 shows shirley muldowney suiting up beside a dodge pick-up. another shows big daddy himself gettin down & dirty under his tf dragster. i think thats where shirley ran her first 5 sec pass--not sure tho. anyway i do remember they were awesome!

Good reading and enjoying the stories!!!

part 19
 

well it took 5 years, but by 1978 we had finally arrived. we'd found out what worked & what didn't work--what to do & what not to do & i had finally learned how to harness the monster.(455) some of these learing experiences were fun--some were not. we took on a young man to help us, taught him about bracket racing & built him a '68 bird 455. he worked out real good. he was always there to turn wrenches, & always showed up on race day, ready to rumble. we let him drive the 2 car rig & me & T.J. rode in the other truck with her car on the back. by that time 455's were plentiful so i started buying up all the old grand villes, grand prixs, bonnevilles, wagons & everything else i could find with a 455 in it. it was a race against time. every country bumpkin with a pick-up & a lot of city slickers too, would haul old cars to the crusher to get drinkin money. the heavier the car the more they got fer 'em. those old pontiacs were prize finds for the scap haulers because they were so heavy. sometime it makes me sad to think of all the good pontiac parts that got flushed down the toilet of the crusher. anyway, as soon as i could, i put a 455 in T.J.'s car & we were all ready to do the "monster mash". the '78 season was like a dream come true. it reminds me of how an olympic athlete must feel after he's trained so long & hard & finaly there he is & he knows he's at the top of his game.

part 20
 

we were not arrogant, but we were confident. during our learning process we had made just about every mistake you can make. we learned how to do by doing it. now we knew what not to do. I told T.J. that nobody could cut a better lite than .500 or they'd redlight. & even if they cut a perfect lite, they could still be beat if they didn't run their dial-in. so we went to every race knowing that there would not be anybody there that we couldn't beat. thats 1 of the main things i like about bracket racing, the little guy without deep pockets can race & win. we figured if anybody else was gonna win they'd have to beat 3 pontiacs to do it. sometimes they did, but not that often. several times we were the only 2 left standing at the end of the fight. i noticed in the scrapbook that 1 nite we got winner, runner-up & semi-final. thats the best you can do with 3 cars in the same bracket. it ain't braggin if you can back it up. as far as we were concerned when we pulled in the gate we were the favorites to win, which we did many times. I"m listed at the top of the points sheet at a track where we didn't go to nearly all the races. that means almost every trip was a win. except for a few street cars here & there, we were usually the only pontiacs at every race we attended. talk about a hostile environment. most of our competition then were early camaros & novas with big tubs, ladder bars, 14x32's & most of the paint jobs cost more than our motors. some on the race site couldn't understand why i was against the chevys. well chevy, to us, was the enemy. & many (but not all) were hi-dollar with arrogent drivers that looked down their noses at our old pontiacs. they made me the way i am. to us there was nothing better than puttin 1 of these guys on the trailer & watching him fume. hey don't tune me out now. this is just gettin good!

part 21 T.J. the terror
 

let me remind you again that the reason i'm dumpin all this on ya'll is because the bad boys in the race section wanted to know what i'd ever done. i'm not a bragger, this is "just the facts ma'm". i don't have the coins for an 8 sec heads-up ride & at my age i would'nt want 1. but we did o.k. at bracket racing so here's more about it. from the very beginning of her 1st full season T.J. was a winner. she learned how to cut a good lite & the car was very consistant. & as the wins piled up the fangs began to come out on some of her competitors. they began to clamor "ilegal, tare it down, ain't no legal pontiac that quick". but it was probably closer to legal than most of them. not only were they furious when the pontiac beat 'em, when they saw T.J. get out of that pontiac, it was fuel on the fire. this is what caused some of the cussin, wrench throwin, rock slingin incidents i mentioned in an earilier post. back then i don't suppose anybody had ever heard of the butlers, or the kaufmans, or any of the other big boys out there now. all i remember back then was nunzi & h-o racing specialties. they were pontiac guys & sold all kinds of good parts. h-o also published a monthly newsletter with how-to articles, feature car stories & other pontiac news. T.J. was the featured car story in the july '75 issue. i'll dig 1 out & post it when i learn how. some people like to look at pictures of the old pontiac racers. i do too. that reminds me, i came across a picture of a white ss wagon that we saw at a race back in the '70's. the guys name was jack mullins. i don't know where he was from, but the race was in greenville miss. i remember jack pullin the wheels & snacthin the the gears. i was told that he set several national records & was responsible for many hp refactors by nhra for the 389 motor. any of you old timers out there remember jack. if ya do let me know.

part 22 more T.J.
 

i,ve already covered our disaster year of '76 so i'll move on to '77. while i was trying to harness the monster(455) T.J. went right back to winning. our local track became such a hostile environment we started looking for other places to race. Back then there were still lots of tracks. Tyler and Hallsville, TX; Prescott, ARK; Haynesville, Monroe and Forest HIll, La.; Greenville and Jackson, MS. We went to all of them. Bracket racing saved many local tracks for several years. Got to where only deep pockets could afford a stocker or SS, but anybody with a car and the entry fee money could bracket race. We noticed one thing in common at all the tracks. Anything quicker than a .500 light was red, and if you could cut a good light and run your dial, you could win - TJ did. So we began discussing where to race. She had proved we could win anywhere. So we decided to try and find the least hostile track to race regularly. We'd given up on finding any serious Pont. racers to visit with at the tracks, so we set out to find the least hostile Chevy guys. These were Tyler and Hallsville, TX; Prescott, AR and Haynesville, LA. TJ just reminded me that almost everywhere we went, we had a cheering section among the spectators - It was the "black" section. Back then Black people loved Pontiacs. I remember seein em jumpin and hollerin and clappin when we'd win. I guess that's another reason why some of the arrogant Chevy boys didn't like us.
So if there's any Black Pontiac dudes tuned in, God Bless all you Black Pontiac Brothers! Also see TJ in Nov. '77 Hot Rod Mag. I'll post it when I learn how.

part 23 fans & spectators
 

i'm now posting this on the pontiac stories forum as instructed. i've mentioned this briefly, but our largest crowd of loyal fans by far was at the haynesville track. i.m not sure exactly why. the west side of this old airstrip was sorta cut out'a the side of a hill. so there was sort of a bluff overlooking the track. fans could drive right up to the edge. so right after the time trials started the vehicles would start drivin up on the bluff to get a good view of the race. some would back their pick-ups as close as possible to the edge & soon each truck was full of folks of all ages. it was a family affair. some trucks had mammas holdin babies, grammar school kids, teenagers & grown-ups of all ages. it was almost like an after church picnic. they were laughin & talkin, eatin & drinkin & just havin a great get together. it was such a contrast to the other track we went to where there were seldom any spectators at all. bracket racing is just not a spectator sport. i guess thats why tracks today are trying to cook up all sorts of heads-up classes. anyway when the races started the folks really got into it. it was like a high school football or b-ball game. if there car won they'd jump & hollar & carry on & some would even bet on the races. i don't know why, but from the 1st time i took the ole goat up there, these fans loved it. & when T.J. started racing they loved her too. i don't know why they loved pontiacs so much, but it was really refreshing to finaly feel wanted, loved & and accepted instead of the cold & even hostile reception we got a most tracks. because of this, we went to this track many times when there was a bigger race somewhere else, just to "put on a show for the spectators".

part 24 great in '78
 

as i,ve said '78 was our best year yet. i saw today in our scrapbook that T.J. had figured it up at the end of the season & we had won $ at 69% of all races attended. thats not a record, but at the time we thought it was great. we usualy went to 2 races a week, so we had to pay for truck gas, gas for 3 cars, eats & motel. we won enuff to cover all these expenses with a little left over. the cars were already built so the only expenses not covered were truck notes & insurance. & thats what the day job was for. i? was living my dream! there was never a thought of what are we going to do this weekend. we knew that when saturday came, "we are outa here", usually headed to tyler, texas for the sat. nite race, then on to either hallsville,texas or haynesville, La on sunday. sometimes it would rain on our parade. i hate rainouts. some weekends it rained sat. & sunday. i remember what a sad, hollow feeling it was driving back home in the rain knowing we had just blown a whole weekend & did'nt even get to back off the trailer. it just made the whole week gloomy. but, hey, there's always next week. it was,nt always fun & excitement but the good times more than outweighed the bad. lets crunch some numbers. we went to 49 races but 4 were rained out. we had 15 wins--that means we won exactly 1/3 of all races completed. we also won money with 7 runner-ups, 6 semi-finals & 4 qtr. finals. & that doesn't include all the semis & qtrs at track where they didn't pay that far down. we won races at 5 different tracks. anybody know how much gas was in '78? here,s 1 fill-up 19.7 gals for $11.40--aprox. 60 cents. entry fee at 2 tracks was $7, 1 was $10, & usually either 15 or $20 for a big race. inflation has taken its toll. & we could have done better but we had to take a whole month of to get a new trailer house set up & get married. but i guess it was probably worth it. as i look back on it now, all in all i'd have to say it was definitely 1 of the best years of my life. against all odds, including all the chevy naysayers & pricks, we had proven beyound any shadow of a doubt that our trusty pontiacs were up to the task & there was not a hi-dollar chevy any where out there that we couldn't beat! more evidence of this is captured in the results of the ihra points meet held that year at tyler & printed in the ihra paper "the drag review". if it'll scan alright, i'll post it. (ps) T.J. is investigating how to get all these pics & stuff processed so we can share it with you. please bear with us, we're new at this & still "dummies" on the subject. hey we don't even have a cell phone. can you believe that? T.J. bought 1 a few years back, but we live so far back in the sticks it would'nt work out here, so she took it back.

part 25 '79 another good year
 

well in '79 we picked up right where we'd left off. there were no changes needed on the cars. they were set up as good as i knew how to do it. so they still worked just like last year. but things felt different now. we knew we were at the top of our game. we had nothing left to prove. so we could just go to the races & have fun. that driving sense of ergency to keep improving, & win every race was gone. it was different, but still a great feeling with such a relaxed atmospher now. even when we lost there was not that big let down like there used to be. we just loaded up & happily headed towards home with discussions of where we wanted to stop & eat. sometimes it was pizza (I LOVE PIZZA- DO YOU HEAR ME?), sometimes it was seafood & there were some great all-you-can-eat buffets in shreveport on our way home. & then there was grandma's, a little place just east of the tex-la border, in waskom. they made the best homade rolls you have ever tasted. we always bought a bagfull to take home with us. sometimes i'd eat 6 or more going home. T.J. just came thru & read the last post & told me i might need to clear something up. i said we had to get married. no, she was not pregnant. i just meant we had to take time out from racing to get set up so we would have a place to live after we got married. she also said i ough'ta tell ya'll that we dated for 11 years. we did'nt rush into this thing. we knew we were "2 peas in a pod" & i'm happy to report that some 30+ years later, here we are! but something strange happened. she still looks 30 something & I'm old & ugly (I HATE MIRRORS!) we'd fenced off part of my dads cow pasture to set up the trailer. he farmed cows, i farmed goats & birds!

part 26 more '79
 

we won some races that year, including another winner, runner-up finish & in july i won the biggest race of the year at tyler. & on the way beat 1 of the best racers there, who at the time was just a teenager. his name was edmund richardson, we called him "little eddie" he & his dad, who was known as "fast eddie" raced together & they were good. i've recently heard of a business called " the edmund richardson school of drag racing" i assume it's the same folks, probably is, they were some good dedicated racers. well after that there was just nothing left to prove. so we decided to just stay at home for a while by the "speed barn", chill out, & take a well deserved & long overdue break. T.J. could still drive her street bird to work & reflect on the great times we'd had in those old pontiacs. her street rides included her first '68 bird racer turned streeter, a brewster green '73 455 ta, a black 76 455 ta, and a smokey & the bandit style '77 or '78 t-top ta , all 4-speeds. yah, we were pontiac freaks. then the strangest thing happened. i warn you what i'm about tell you may be offensive to some, so you may want to turn me off here. as far as i know i have never hear the audible voice of God. but in 1979, on the inside of me i heard these words: take your ole goat & your bible, load'em up & take 'em to "wild bill"(a pontiac racer friend), and when you get there, tell him "God told me to give you my goat & my bible & that this is just a token of how much he loves you". so we did. we unloaded the goat, handed the bible to a speechless bill & then drove off leaving him standing in the driveway. in a few days he came over to find out why i would give away my prized posession like that. so i told him the whole story about it, & then shared the bibles plan of salvation with him. we had the honor of leading him to receive Jesus as his savior. 30+ years later we now call him "mild bill" instead of "wild bill" & he recently preached his 1st sermon! PTL! to me there is absolutely no greater feeling in this life than knowing you have helped someone shape their eternal destiny in a positive way.

part 27 ripple effect
 

we had another pontiac racer friend named eugene(but we call him oogene, after the puppet character on the gospel bill tv show) i had sold him a decent '68 bird & 2 parts cars & he'd built his own bracket racer. he lived about 30 min away & one day showed up on our doorstep. he said, "i heard about what you did for wild bill, & i gotta know more about it ". so we shared the whole story with him & were again honored to lead another pontiac racer to the lord. he recently called me & said " i know where my old race car is if your interested. i work with a mans son who says his dad has it in his back yard with a chevy motor in it, but he's gonna put the motor in a chevy body & sell the bird." so i went & checked it out. well, it was in purty sad shape, but most of the parts were still there: roll bar, shifter, 12-bolt with 4.56 gears & glass hood with a snorkel scoop. at $1000 i thought it was a great deal. when i told T.J. she said " i think thats great, & i'll even buy it for you". so a friend picked it up & brought it to me. it needs a lot of work but the base is there- & no, its not for sale. if our local track ever gets straightened out i'll start puttin it back together. right now i,ve got 2 racingjunk.com cars with no place to race. they were closed all last season. some new people bought it this year. but mud racin is big around here & there's a mud track right beside the drag strip. they finally opened the strip after mud season & ran a few races, but i'd allready give up on 'em & sold my 2-car rig, & started dirt racin at a track only 20 min from home. i.ve got some more stories about "wild bill" & dirt racin i'll share if i don't get kicked off the site. this is a great country, 1 of its foundation principles is the freedom of religion. you can freely practice any religion you choose, or none if you choose. you can be an athiest,agnostic-- you can even worship the devil himself if you choose. many thousands(if not millions) of brave men & women have fought & died to help protect this freedom. so if you know a vet who has been there & lived to talk about it, let 'em know that you appreciate what they did!

Totally enjoy reading this..PICS please!!LOL if ya write a book put me down for one:)

It's the internet, ya gotta have thick skin!

Great history!

part 28 goose
 

back about '77 or so there was this kid, who we thought to be very immature, named kenny. he sorta started hangin around all the time. he seemed very excited about being around all our "hot rod" stuff at the shop( by now known as the Speed Barn). he was a senior in high school as i recall. his ride was a little white chevette 4cyl stick, probably his moms car. one sunday he found out we were racing at haynesville so he came on up in the chevette. any street cars who wished could pay their $5 entry fee & make all the time trials there was time for. it was run what you brung. there was every kind of pitiful street car you could name. well, they called the street cars up for tt & there was a mad dash to the staging lanes. it reminds me of the recent mad dash to get a pair of rereleased air jordans. we were busy cooling down & gettin ready for our next tt. the street cars were lined up nose to tail. i don't remember who spotted it 1st, but 1 of us pointed to the staging lanes & said somthing like "check it out". there about halfway back in the lanes was this narrow white column of smoke going straight up into the air maybe 30' high. we looked closer & saw that the smoke was coming from the right rear of kenny's chevette. you couldn't even here the engine noise, but somehow he had figured out how to do a 1 wheel burnout without moving the car foreward. wouldn't his mom be proud? we had already coined the phrase, so we applied it here. look, kenny,s " putin on a show for the spectators". we could see he loved it & was doing all he could to be part of it. he finished school that may, so 1 day when he showed up, i said " you obviously love racin, so why don't you come on out here & help me do some wrenchin & this winter we'll rig you up a car. i'll learn 'ya everything i know about it & next year you can go with us & do some real racin ". well as expected he thought that was a good idea, so the gig was on!

I agree with the positive comments. I thoroughly enjoy reading this. Keep it up!!!

part 29 more goose
 

by now all around the shop it was a bird sanctuary. a real bone yard of 1st & 2nd gen birds. when asked what kind of car he'd like to race, kenny said he wanted 1 like T.J. drove. well, that was fine with me, so we looked over the yard & selected the cleanest '68 body we could find & pulled it into the shop. by now i was an old hand at this so i told kenny where to start stripin out all the unnessesary stuff & he went to work. i pulled the 455 out of the goat & bolted it up to a th400(which the former owner assured me had a hd intermediate sprag, but as we soon found out, he lied) & we used a stock 13" converter. this is the same 455 i got when i pulled it & put a 400 in a friends '70 goat. it was still stone stock & by the end of 3 years of racing we figured it had been to well over 100 races & approaching 1000 passes. and at its last race it was still running 12.50's as smooth as a sewing machine. anyhow we got it together & i showed kenny how to handle the 2 car rig. then i bought a new '78 1 ton & put ramps on the back, built another 455 for the goat & we were soon ready for a 3-car team race season. & what a season it was. it turned out to be our best season ever. during the '78-'79 seasons we went to nearly 100 races in 4 different states. kenny drove our 2-car rig thousands of miles. he later drove log trucks & i've often wondered if, while he was pullin a load of logs, he ever thought back on those good ole days when he pulled 2 pontiacs to the races every weekend.

part 30 the goose takes flight
 

our b-ball coach in high school had a habit of giving everybody a nickname. he gave me mine when i first went out for the team. he looked at me & said " boy you're big around as a tub" & to this day some who knew me then still call me "tub". & by the way, he didn't leave me in that shape, he ran me 'til as a senior i was a lean mean fightin machine.(if you'll forgive me i'll post a picture to prove it) it was the thrill of competition & the desire to excell i learned during those b-ball days that would later inspire me in racing. i guess i picked up the habit from "coach". ever sense, when i hang around somebody long enuff, something about them will inspire me to hang a nickname on 'em. sometimes kenny would get that far away look on his face & i would say "boy, you look like a goose in a fog, where are you?" well it stuck, from then on, we called him "goose". in the south there,s a "bubba" on every corner. i would say to goose "hey bubba hand me that hammer" so he started callin me "bubba". he'd call & say "hey bubba, what time you want me to be at the shop?" "til this day, his greeting to me is always "hey bubba" well goose learned quick & soon started winning rounds & gettin in the $. our records show that he was winner & i was runner-up at 1 race. & 1 special race he won when me & T.J. were already out. on the next to the last time trial he slowed down, so when he came back he told me there was no 2nd gear. well, i'd already been here, the guy lied--stock spag--not hd. but he said it would still go into hi. so i told him to run it up a little higher, then hit the shifter twice real quick & maybe it would go straight from 1st to 3rd-- it worked & only ran a couple of tenths slower. so we dialed accordingly & he marched right on thru the field for the win. after the last race in '79 i sold him the truck & gave him the bird, thinking he would keep on racing. but i guess he was young & hearing the call of the wild. i later found out that he sold it to the owner of a chopper shop who wanted a street racer. i was told he was a tatooed, hard core biker type they called "squirrel" don't know if he ever raced it or not. but if he did his oponent would have to beat a 12.50, which it ran every pass like a sewing machine.

part 31 tiger tales
 

the '60's & '70's were a special time in this country. there was the viet nam war that nobody understood. all the post ww2 babies were coming of age & they were "wild in the streets". there was the hippie movement, nudist colonies, biker gangs, on the coast there was the surfing crowd, every sort of sexual activity you can think of & they all danced to the sounds of the latest rock & roll. there was pot, lsd & and any thing else they could find that would give'm a buzz or send'em on a trip. it was "tune in & turn on man" & some of them even lived to tell about it(sadly, some didn't). but for the gearheads it was all about musclecars. by 1970 there was about anything you could possibly want, from a 6cyl mustang to a 426 hemi or a shelby cobra & every thing in between. & we thought it would go on forever, but it didn't. federal regulations & the insurance companies sealed the doom for our beloved musclecars. soon those that were left were just old wore out cars that nobody wanted anymore.(but as we now know that would later change). most had been rode hard & put up wet as the cowboys say. by the mid '70's most were in purty sad shape. but at the time i thought it was great. i could buy a goat or a bird with the original 400 motor & trans & usually with a decent body for $300 or less. so i started round'in 'em up & draggin 'em in. i recall 1 such vechicle, a '70 goat ragtop,400,4sp. the windshield was busted, the top was ragged & it needed paint, but hey, it would still run & drive & for $300, what was to think about? when i got it home & T.J. saw that it would run, she said "lets go for a ride". so we dropped the top & took off up the road. it was neat. as i can remember its the only ride i ever had in a ragtop. i used the motor parts, sold the 4spd & it set for years while we were busy racin & just rusted down. thats sad but thats just how it was back then, they were just old wore out cars nobody wanted. i didn't keep count,but i'd say i probably bought maybe 50 birds including 1st & 2nd gen & at least 25 goats. i also bought tons of big cars to get 455's & th400's. when workin on a race car it was great to just go outside & get what you needed. if i could have somehow looked into the future i would now be a wealthy man-- but who knew?

part 32 ra4 goat
 

in the '70's, if you had a friend working in parts at a gm dealer, you could buy a ra4 head for about $100. i,d heard so much about em, i decided to try a set. there was a young man who showed interest in racing in '77, so i put a 455 together with ra4 heads on it. he liked my '69 goat so we just went to the bone yard & picked out the best prospect. it was a clean '69 except for a little rot on the lr qtr. we soon had it ready to race, but this boy didn't like the looks of my ole stickered up cars, he wanted a nice paint job. he said that he had helped some other guys do some paint & body work & he knew how to do it. so i said "knock ya'self out". i had only dabbled a little with paint & body work & discovered that i hated it, so i was not about to sand on it, if it never raced. well, he worked 100's of hours & finaly got it lookin purty good, with gray primer, almost ready to paint. he decided to go ahead & start racin & finish the paint later. i figured it would run a little better with the ra4 heads, & it did. the 1st pass was a shocker. with only 3.73 gears & a stock 13" converter, it was a "wheel toter". i was used to a little air under the left front, but this goat jerked the front wheels what looked to me like a foot (it was probably only about 5-6") & carried 'em maybe 20' or more. i was shocked! i later put the battery back up front & made some other ajustments & got it calmned down some. fast foreward now to a later race at tyler , tx. we're between time trials & all 3 cars are parked side by side in the pits. all of a sudden we heard a loud crash & when we looked around there was dust flying everywhere & the 2 goats were bouncing around. when we went to investigate, here's what we found. a guy with a mopar (challenger i think) was running hot, so he came flying through the pits, & turned the key off so he could coast back to his pit. he forgot that the steering wheel locked when the key was off. he was going so fast he didn't have time to turn the key back on, so he just locked up the brakes, thats what caused most of the dust we saw. well, he hit the lr of the gray goat, right where all the bondo was & knocked it into my goat, bangin up the lr qtr quite a bit. after all the body work he had done on that qtr, makin it look good, he had told folks that the body was perfect, no bondo at all. but there it was, exposed for all the world to see. i guess he just could't face people after that. as far as i know he never raced again.

part 33 wild in the streets
 

i had a friend & schoolmate who had to go to viet nam right out'a high school. like most guys he didn't like to talk about it much when he got back, but sometimes he would. he told me about goin out on patrols. they would assign a different guy to walk point every time they went out, 'cause the point man was more likely to get shot at 1st or to hit a booby trap of some sort. he told of how some of the guys would be so scared they'd cry & beg not to have to walk point. he said that after he'd been there for a few months he sorta resigned himself to the fact that he probably would'nt make it out. so he would listen to these poor guys beggin & cryin & he would volunteer to walk their point. he got by with it for a few months, then he got shot in the foot & got to come home. it took many months of treatment, but they were finaly able to save his foot. after he was able to go back to work, he bought a halloween orange 440 6-pack cuda or challenger (i forget which), it was quick. he got tanked up 1 nite & got into a street race. he won the race, & there was plenty of shut down room before the curve, but he stayed in it & could'nt make the curve. the car was totaled, but he survived. i thought at the time how sad it would have been, after all he had been thru serving his country, if he'd died in that street race. there were 2 reasons i never did much street racin, the danger & trouble with the law. but i must confess, i did participate in 1 street race. i was minding my on business, goin to see T.J. & just enjoyin the ride in my ole '69 ra3 4speed goat. as i started thru this little town, i saw somebody in the road, flaggin me down. i thought maybe they needed some help or something. but they had seen me coming. they had heard about my ole goat & flagged me down to challenge me to a race. i did'nt know the boys, but i had heared about the car. it was a 428 cobrajet 4sp torino. it had a reputation as the badest thing for miles around this little town. i sized him up & figured as heavy as that body looked, i could probably take him & i knew that there was a nice wide stretch of road just around the corner. by then i'd had plenty of practice snatchin on my 4sp, so i knew just what to do. when the boy ridin shotgun got out & dropped the flag, i went to work. it wasn't really even close. the tiger jumped all over that ford & mauled it. i just eased on back to 55mph & cruised on over to see T.J. don't ever remember seeing that ford again. but 1 thing i know, they never flagged me down again!

part 34 trailer trash
 

i always spent most of our money on drag racin, so we never had enuff for a decent house. we just set up a cheap single wide trailer house by the shop. & that was just fine with me. all i needed was a place to eat & sleep. i had a day job, then worked on pontiacs at nite. i guess that was another reason some of the uppity chevy boys didn't like us. they figured we were just poor trailer trash tryin to race our raggedy old pontiacs. anyhow, when you have a cheap trailer house, its e-z for mice to get in. i remember sittin on the couch, watchin t.v. & we'd sometimes catch a glimpse of a gray blur streakin across the floor behind the t.v.. we didn't have a cat so all we could do was set out traps & we'd catch 1 occasionaly. but there were always permanent residents with us. in the spare north bedroom there was a perfectly formed mouse hole--just like on tom & jerry. later, we got a slightly better trailer that the mice had a harder time getting into, & we got 2 cats. that purty much cured our in house mouse problem' but they would still nest up in the insulation under the house. one day we watched as a long(maybe 6-7') chickin or rat snake crawled slowly up the tie-down strap & up into the insulation to lie in wait for a mouse. i had to tell ya'll that to prepare ya for the pontiac story. another young man from the neighborhood showed an interest in racin, so we put together a 2nd gen for him--'76 if i remember correctly. 1 day we were gettin ready to load up, when we heard this young man(who for now will remain nameless) holler & jump back from the trunk he had just opened. i said " what's the matter?" he said " there's a snake in there!" i went & looked in the trunk & sure enuff, there was our rat snake coiled up in the trunk, waitin on lunch. although quite harmeless, a 6-7' snake surprize can be quite alarming. we all got a big laugh out of it, & of course from then on we called our newest racer "snake". by the way snake went on to help wrench on & race several 9 & 10 sec pontiacs with another pontiac racer friend. he still tinkers with 'em from time to time.

part 35 rain on our parade
 

one year we decided to build a float for the monroe christmas parade using a drag racing theme. we went to a local cotton gin & borrowed a cotton trailer. a local racer had a nice alchohol dragster & he offered to let us use it & his shop space to build the float. so we went to work. T.J. had all the skill, the rest of us just did the grunt work. she did all the lettering by hand & even painted a large depiction of a starting line christmas tree that i believe was made of 2 sheets of plywood. i reckon that would make it 8' square. it looked real nice. then the car owner helped us get the dragster onto the trailer & secured. now all that was left was to make lots of fake flowers out of kleenex to trim the sides of the trailer with. sounds e-z but it was hard work. i think we worked on it about 3 weeks. but it turned out real nice. we made the deadline & were ready to rock, but it rained on our parade. we decided it wouldn't be nice to take the mans dragster out in the rain, so we just started strippin it back down, took the trailer back & never tried that again. it did look good & its the only drag racin float i've ever seen. but i've led a sheltered life, so some of you may have seen lots of 'em. we'll post some pictures in case some might wanna see it.

part 36 no home field advantage
 

i've described the cold & sometimes hostile reception we got from a lot of tracks. it was like always invading the other guys home turf & never having the home field(except at haynesville) advantage. it was many times very unpleasant. it was a new experience for us. we were both friendly & outgoing & willing to help others. we both came from very friendly, well liked families in our little town. i guess, to us, this was like culture shock, something quite different than we were used to. we met a few nice folks, but very few. T.J. said " surely all these people can't be this bad." she set out on a quest to try & find more more folks to befriend & maybe visit with at the tracks. then she thought of a group called the "fellowship of Christian athletes" she said "i bet there's some nice folks in that group, i wonder if there's an organization like that for drag racers. if there is, maybe we could locate some of its members & make some new friends at the tracks." so she wrote to nhra, inquiring of them if they knew of any such group or org. here's an excerpt from the letter she got back. " in reply to your recent letter inquiring as to the existance of an org. of Christian racers, i know of no formal group in drag racing. i think it would be super & will be most happy to help in our area in any way i can." & here's what ihra said, " we know of no organization of Christian racers in existence, however should you be interested in starting such an organization, we would like to be made aware of it... well, thats all she needed to hear. that was her "word from God"-- start it yourself!-- so she did. she found out all the leagal stuff that was nesessary & got the ball rolling. the rest as they say is history & thru this we finaly did get to meet lots of nice people & made a few friends along the way. it was extremely refreshing! T.J. worked at an advertising design studio, so she had all the contacts she needed to take care of all nesessary printing. so she started getting the word out & recriuting new members. she designed the logo & had decals printed so members could display them on their race cars & tow trucks. we'll post a copy when we learn how. later a similar org. was formed who could cover national events & point meets. when they got large enuff, T.J. handed the ball off to them, closed out fcr, & joined their group, racers for christ (RFC). if you look closly at the cars when the races are on tv, you'll see some wearing RFC decals. you may wanna sign up. you can meet some nice racers this way.

Hey ponyakr I bought my 1969 GTO convertible out of Sulphur back in 1985 and got another one out of Many a couple of years later. I was in Leesville- nothing but dirt tracks around there. Did you ever see the guys yard out behind England Air Force base in Alexandria, right off hiway 1? He must have had 30 GTO's but not in a junkyard. I hadn't thought of that place in years until you described your yard but I know you are way up north.

Later