That's a great question, Billy. Jay and I went to the same high school, but he was a couple grades ahead of me. So I may have met him then, but didn't know him yet. About a year after I graduated, I went over to his place and saw his stuff because of a mutual friend. I got to know him a bit then, that was about '79 to 82, but then I never saw him again until Drag Week 06. Hot Rod had set up a "F.A.S.T on Slicks" shootout between a Buick, Dave Dudeks Road Runner and Wayne Nelson's Vette, and the place they chose to do it was at Cordova during Drag Week. I went there to video the shootout, and Jay was there racing. https://youtu.be/TMuzPHxIpAA
I heard his name over the p.a., and wondered if that was the Jay Brown I had known. I found him in the pits, we talked about old times, he explained Drag Week to me, I told him what I had been up to in FAST racing. We exchanged numbers and hung out together a bit. He lives about 20 miles away from me. Then the drag week trunk monkey thing started in 07.
Jeff and I met thru Moparts. I never new him before, but we figured out we lived about 5 miles from each other. We arainged a meeting at Rock Falls raceway when I was there with my green 67 gtx. That was about 2002, and we've been friends ever since.