At Weeks End
The slingshot dragster, a long rail job with wide slicks on the back and bicycle wheels on the front, stood out like a golf ball in a pile of red plums.
Naturally inquisitive, I eased over outside a McDonalds in Paola and was closely examining the engine, topped by a four-barrel Holley, when the owner slipped up beside me.
Dont see carburetors much anymore, I observed. No, its all injectors and nitro now in drag racing, he moaned.
Several stickers, recalling drag race emporiums the car had visited, included one from Mo-Kan Dragway, a venue just over the state line near Asbury, Mo. I mentioned Id been there a few times back in the 60s, when the strip was young.
The old fellow, who turned out to be five years my junior, smiled, You ought to go again.
Naw, I said. Loud noise and the strong smell of high-octane fuel dont sit well with me these days.
Looking over the old warhorse from goodness knows how many times waiting at the head of a quarter-mile strip of asphalt for a few seconds of glory, did bring visions of when I raced, albeit on dirt tracks.
As it is with most things, racing in the mid-1960s was much different from today, although there is one common denominator: Money invested in building and maintaining a racer then seldom turned a profit and I doubt if thats changed much. The big boys, those who race regional and national circuits, surely do better. Mostly, though, then and now, racing is like golf or fishing, a hobby.
For me, it started in college with a guy named Bob Radford, who had had some experience on dirt tracks.
We found an old heap, welded in roll bars and took out for Fort Scotts track one evening, towing the racer behind my car. We barely could afford tires and gas for the jalopy; a trailer was out of the question.
Once there Bob donned his helmet, squeezed his 6-foot-8 frame through the drivers side window, strapped himself in and pulled onto the track. We finished last in the heat, and got another chance in the consolation feature.
Back in Pittsburg the next day friends asked how we did: Third in the B feature, I bragged, but neglected to say just three cars finished and the payout was $5.
When I came to Iola and the Register, I still had the racing bug.
With the help of John Chard, an old Humboldt welder who spent years lacing together pipelines in oil-rich Saudi Arabia, and Iolan Al Weiland, a master mechanic if there ever was one, I built the Flying Red One, a late-40s Ford Sedan. With Als guidance I prepped a flathead Ford engine, bored and stroked to 296 cubic inches, that screamed like a sheet being torn as it zipped down straightaways.
Bill Hillbrant drove and we had success at several tracks, though not much financially.
When I quit, it was cold-turkey, in part because Beverly and I were married and soon added Brenda and Bob to the household.
