My first great day at the track! 1973 Minnesota KDWB drag festival, bracket 2. Got there very early, and it was a zoo. I told the tech guy pass my car, and I am out of your hair. He was looking really frustrated, and did just that! I had a 69 Charger RT 440 auto, running mid twelves. I got two time trials before anybody else was in line, and some guys never got a time trial. Bracket two, very large field, seven rounds at least. My father in law said before I went "you will never win anything". I brought home first place money in bracket 2, and he didn't have much to say.
Second most memorable event;
Eddyville Iowa, 2000. A local hot shoe was looking for a duck, and picked me. I knew this guy, and he thought I would be easy pickings. That peed me off, so I rolled another .005 out of the box and staged. My .020 light to his .019, he went .005 under, I went .001 under for the win. The best part of that race was that win for me broke a twenty five round win streak for him. A lesson I never forgot; NEVER offend an opponent, it sharpens them up!

You guys have some hardcore stories.

Not really the old days but in September 2010 I had a freeze plug shoot out of my motor in 2nd gear at the Norwalk Chrysler Classic race in my '69 Dart, almost crashed the car as it made an immediate left turn for the wall.
I was slightly traumatized by that but 340Rick and BondoBob stuck a new freeze plug in there for me and the next day I went to the final round in the 10.00 Shootout! The final was ran at 5:15am Sunday so I slept badly on the light.

Back in the '70s spent many long nights on a Vette drag car instead of sleeping, towed it a few hours to its debut race, and when it kicked a rod my 2nd thought was that I finally could get some sleep. Rebuilt a sprint car ground-up in a motel parking lot one night. Had to drop the 180 header setup & change the clutch in a TransAm Javelin in between sessions. Another T/A car, we went 3 days & nights straight wrapping it up before a 4-hour tow pre-dawn; we were literally holding tools and asking where they were, but the car qualified well and ran well until the driver brain-faded & did some off-roading...and he was the only one getting some sleep.
And I'd probably do it again, so I guess I must like a battle.

I remember when I was 18 or so we used to meet up in parking lots on some of the coldest nights of the year and get together to talk cars or race while warming our hands on some long tubes. This lead to a lot of wrenching outdoors in some bitter weather.

I remember one time myself and 540Challenger did an entire suspension overhaul front and rear on my Impala SS at night in a blizzard. We kept having to shovel the snow out from under the car while working and the we couldn't even fit some of the bolts back through the holes without heating the metal up with a torch.

We ended up finishing it up, but I think it took 5 years off the life of my joints LOL

Until that day, I never really had a problem with working on my cars in driveways, in the dark, in poor weather etc... After that, it suddenly became a lot more important to me to not take on projects in conditions that wouldn't* make me hate the hobby. Yet here I am about to drop my engine in my E body in a tent rolling deeper into December.

Brings back a memory in 1967 of helping put a driveline into a 56 Belair body with my budry Fred in the snow. It was below zero true temp back in ND at the time. That car provided a warm place for dates with his girl friend. They had to get married in May!😂😂😂😂😂

SGcuda we had them at the one school I went to.My old man was born in 1920 and he went to the same school I did and I was born 30 years later.Rocky

In 69 the AHRA Midwest division 5 finals were held in Kansas city Ka. We left the Chicago area Friday morning and got as far as Pontiac Illinois before the clutch went out on our tow vehicle ( 1960 Chevy Nomad wagon - 348 with 3 on the tree ). We disconnected it from the trailer along side the road and limped it in to town to find a parts store. First place we hit had a clutch and pressure plate in stock ( if you could believe that!). Jacked up the wagon, pulled the trans, and changed the clutch on the side of the road. We were back on the road in about a couple of hours. UGH!!!!