I'm about done I think. Been seriously contemplating selling the race car. I just don't seem to have the drive to compete or even put up with all the BS anymore. I'm enjoying tinkering with my 1st gen CTD for now and leaving the car sit. I just don't know at this point what I'm going to do.

Late '13 after I quit smoking, my Dad passed and I left the Mopar Performance contract job, I lost a whole bunch of focus and patience for quite awhile. Seemed life was turned upside down....Kind of threw most of the borderline race aspects of the hobby in the corner to rot.....I seem to have got the focus and patience back since switching back to my first love (music/guitar) for a few years.

Along the way there have been baby steps back to the car hobby....got my hoist installed and have been picking away at it again by slowly getting my C body back on the road. Lots of daily driver maintenance....seemingly endless exhaust swaps on my 5.7 LX. I'm hoping to be more active in both music and car-related fun stuff by middle of next year and get back to it more.

Summary-trying to make a comeback without giving up anything else.

What a great thread to read! Thanks Moparbilly for starting it! I always enjoyed drag racing on Wide World of Sports on tv when I was a kid. It was fun to watch when you could catch it on the tube. Around 1972 my dad used to race snowmobiles and then dirt bikes. Mom and dad were divorced so us 6 kids used to go racing with dad on the weekends he had us. I liked riding the bikes and sleds but never did any competition with them. We had lots of cool cars in high school. Mom let me buy a 1970 Challenger R/T with a 440 and an automatic. The car was Plum Crazy with a white interior and a white bumblebee stripe. To this day I have never seen one quite like it. The car was bone stock but it plain just flew! In my neck of the woods I was only beat by a 69 427 Chevelle. One of the cars I beat with the Challenger was a 71 Hemi-Cuda. One Sunday afternoon me and a friend was bored so we went to Cedar Falls Raceway. Back then it was known as N.E.I.T.A. Raceway. Northeast Iowa Timing Association. The very first time out I won a trophy with that car. I was pumped! I still have that trophy. The only picture I had of that car I gave to a very well put together chick!(Yes it was worth it!) Never did go back to the track but enjoyed the streets. Got married in 1975 and that car hauled my wife and my new daughter home from the hospital in 1976. Got rid of the car a couple years later but bought a 1969 Roadrunner with a 383 four speed. In 1979 I started playing bass guitar and never gave fast cars a thought until around 1999. I had enough of the band scene and it was hell doing that while having a full time job and a family. Not to mention almost getting divorced! In 99 I bought a 71 Demon sight unseen. It was set up for the track but I got screwed bad on it. Kept the motor which was a mild 446" and the 727. In 2000 I bought my 64 from a good friend who is a member on the board here. We got the car running and it was doing 12.50s. Pretty happy I was! Kept sticking a few things into it and ended up with 11.50s! Yes!! In 2006 I won the localtracks footbrake championship with that car. The engine was getting tired so I had Jimmy Rickman do the engine. He found lots of things bad so we went with a Muscle Motors RB kit that gave me a 512. With the MP aluminum 383-440 heads we were going 10.50s, Along the way it got a tranny brake and a Chassis Engineering back half by Jimmy.Life was good!! That is until the summer of 2013. I woke up one morning with a nasty headache,felt like I was punched in the head by a prize fighter. Went to the doc and was treated foe the flu. Kept getting worse so I went to the emergency room. There they told me I was bleeding in the brain and needed to go to Mayo or University of Iowa Hospital asap. Ended up going to Iowa City on life support. I had an Arterial Vascular Malformation on the brain that had burst. It was one of the largest they have ever seen. They went up thru an artery in my leg because they could not cut into my skull due to its location. I would have lost the use of my left side. 3 years ago I had the second procedure to shrink it. They couldn't get it all so I had a radiation treatment in March of 2014. That really sucks let me tell ya! I did beat the odds because when they first worked on me there was a 60% chance I wasn't gonna make it! I go back for another check up this coming spring and want into my 64 really bad. I just can't bring myself to get rid of it. That car is part of my soul. And I ain't going down without a fight! One other thing...I started playing bass guitar again!! Merry Christmas guys!!

Great story Ted. I hope they can get you all fixed up so we can see pictures of you and the car at the track in 2017. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I forgot an early chapter...came back to me after reading tboomers post...Zoom back to December 1984...I was 20 and had just bought a brand new 85 Shelby Charger (Black/Silver Turbo 2.2 with a 5 speed). March rolls around and the first w/e of Mason Dixon opening three of us went down to watch...I had a full tank of gas when I left and $20....That was enough to get in and enough gas to get back home...After getting there the one guy says "Are you going to run yours through?" Never really thought about it before but made three passes early in the day...15.38 at 92 mph.... All three passes the same et-mph shifting at 6200-6400 and 6600. I parked it and the guy I went with said "Your nuts! You need to run eliminations!
I had never ran eliminations before so I did...
Made it through the first 3 rounds on a 15.38 dial running 15.38 on each pass. Ran the final round against an old green Barracuda (67 maybe 11.XX something dial) I had what felt like a half track on him and as I got to the stripe I slightly lifted...and shouldn't have...He flew by me and tripped the win light...I ran a 15.40...
It was a good day as I won $75.00 and got a decent trophy that I've kept till this day...
Also learned what not to do...should have ran my own race...

Near the end. BTW Merry Christmas

Wow, some real good stories here guys. I hate to hear so many are "near the end" although there are times when I feel like I'm ready to throw the towel in.
It all started for me as a kid. My dad was sales manager at a Dodge dealer in Northern Illinois.
He drove all of these cars new as daily demonstrators every day.
He was always into Drag Racing starting with his first car, a '56 Chevy!?!
In '63 he had a light weight Max Wedge Dodge and also had a '64 Hemi Dodge aluminum front end car.
He even had an A990 '65 on order but my brother came along......then he had a '68 SS/A Hemi Dart on order, that's when I came along- family came first, so those were canceled and his racing career was over.
My dad became friends with Ronnie Householder and went to just about every form of Motorsport event there was - at least whatever Dodge was participating in.
I was fortunate enough to tag along when I got old enough and immediately fell in love with all of these cars.
In '83 I turned 15 we found a '72 Demon 340 and bought it for $1800 and got my first taste of drag racing with the car running low 14's.
I started learning the ropes of bracket racing right away and by '87 had the car running 12:20's and earned track champ in Heavy division (12:00 - 13:99) qualifying us for the bracket nationals at IRP.
We ran it darn near every weekend with some decent success, and realize now how much those years running the Demon really meant to my dad.
As the usual story goes, I went back to playing hockey, my dad retired to North Carolina, I got married, had a son, got divorced, my son played hockey through High School - all the while the 'ole Demon was getting dragged around from garage to storage space, to friends house, wherever I went, it did too.
I am so fortunate to have been able to have kept it all of these years and am finally in the process of restoring one more time before I die....I hope???
Sometimes it seems like too much, as I get close to 1/2 century, but damnit I'm not gonna give up.
I now have a very understanding wife that is very supportive of the car.
My son is done with competitive hockey so that saves alotta $$, our older kids are self sufficient so....on with it.
I've had the car over 30 years, I feel like I owe it to my dad - rest his soul, he's been gone for 13 years now, I'm going to do it in his honor.
None of the kids are into cars so that does make it a little more difficult - the older we get, the harder this work is.
I'll keep coming here for inspiration, so keep up with the stories boys.
Thanks for listening to my boring old rant!

Wally.

No long story just a simple response.I am still trying to hot rod more than one car at a time and not making progress.lol

Having two young kids makes it harder financially but my boys like the cars so if nothing else we have fun.