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Quarter-Mile Confidential
By Scott Kalitta

As I was looking around the pro pits in Gainesville, it occurred to me how good we have it these days. There are set-ups in the millions of dollars. You look around and see technology centers and hospitality areas that have more square feet than some people's houses. Drivers have lounges with TV's, built-in stereos, DVD players and so on. Crews have state-of-the art trailers with more tools than a hardware store. It reminded me of the not-so good ole days when not everything was so luxurious, for lack of a better word, when the drag racing life was "dirtier" and just getting to and from the tracks could be a challenge with goose necks and duallies.

I remember one time in the early 70's at Indy. We were with Shirley (Muldowney) then. The only crew guys were me, my dad Connie, John Muldowney, Shirley's son and Ron Souter. Back then, they had 32-car Top Fuel fields. There were no designated qualifying sessions. The only way you would be assured of at least two qualifying runs was to be at the head of the line in the staging lanes. I don't think they would even run out the whole lane of cars. In other words, they would run maybe 10-12 pairs of dragsters and then switch to another class. So, we would get there at 6 a.m., jump the fence before the gate was opened, unload the car, push it into the lanes and wait for the truck to get in the gates. I did this one time in 1978. It was just me and dad and one other guy working on the car. Naturally, Connie did not jump the fence. He came to the track later. Terry Howland and I would push the car into the lanes and one of us would stay with the car while the other would go back out and get the truck parked up the road when the gates opened.

In the mid-80's, Tim Ferrell and George Henderson worked for us, and we had another guy, Kevin Schmidt, back at the shop who worked on the Funny Car when we ran it. Back then, we ran the Top Fuel car in NHRA and the Funny Car in IHRA on opposite weekends. Tim and George left with the rig to go to Baton Rouge. Dad and I were to fly in the next day. Well, we got a call Thursday afternoon. The dually had dropped a valve. Okay, no big deal. We used to carry spare heads, push rods, rods and pistons, valve springs, clutches, starters, etc. for the trucks. In my infinite wisdom, before that trip, I took the spare head out to make more room for race car parts. You can imagine the names Connie called me, but I got lucky because it messed up the cylinder wall as well. So, we called Jasper Engine Service in Indiana to get a short block. We flew there to get it and then to Brookhaven, Mississippi, with the short block and a spare head.

It was just getting dark when we got there. George and Tim were getting the engine out and made some friends with some "colorful" locals who had loaned them an "A" frame to pull the motor. The locals had also picked us up at the airport. They were in a 1967 Chevy short-bed pick-up. It had so many beer cans in the bed that it was full to the top! We had to clean it out to make room for the parts. We got the stuff in the truck finally. Kevin and I rode in the back with the parts and what was left of the beer cans. When we got to the dually, the guys had it ready to assemble. It was just getting dark. Finally, we get everything back on the road and it was still dark, about 3 a.m. We hauled ass to Baton Rouge and got there as the sun was coming up. We went to the motel to lie down for a couple of hours. We got up, showered and headed to the track. We got there and there were no parking spots left. We had to park on the side of a gravel road going into the doorslammer pits. What a mess! Well, we made our first run and kicked the rods out. So, in less than 24 hours, we had put a motor in the dually and now had to put a new motor in the race car. Back then, Baton Rouge was miserable. It was always 100 degrees with 100% humidity.

These are just a couple of examples of how life used to be in drag racing. Sometimes I hear some drivers whining about this, that and the other, and I kind of laugh to myself, thinking "you have no idea."

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