For the next four weeks, CompetitionPlus.com will conduct its third annual War Stories Showdown. The veterans of yarn spinning are paired for what promises to be a series destined to produce the finest behind-the-scenes stories.

Here are the rules –

The field was seeded by reader vote. The participants are paired on the standard NHRA professional eliminations ladder. Each story represents an elimination run for the participant. The readers will judge each war story on the merits of (A) believability and (B) entertainment value. Please do not vote based on popularity. You are the judge and jury, so vote accordingly. Multiple votes from the same computer IP address will not be counted.

Voting lasts for three days per elimination match. Once a driver advances to the next round, they must submit a new war story.

This is an event based on fun and entertainment value, and the rules are simple. The stories cannot describe any felonious acts (unprosecuted, that is) and you can't use a story about your opponent, against them. There is a one event win rule.

This is drag racing with no red-lights, disqualifications and plenty of oil downs minus the clean-ups. Please enjoy as each of our competitors tell their own stories.

Let the competition begin -

EVENT HOMEPAGE

No. 4 Roy Hill vs. No. 13 Steve Earwood

RACE COMPLETED: WINNER: STEVE EARWOOD (75.49) DEF. ROY HILL (24.51)

NO. 4 QUALIFIER – ROY "THE HILLBILLY" HILL
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – Once Fueled Richard Petty With Nitromethane

THE STORY OF: HEY MUSI, BRING ME BACK MY CREW GUY

For some reason, and I can’t imagine why, when we won a race we had a few people who were skeptical. Now I believe it was in the mid-1970s when we ran pounds-per-cubic inch in the IHRA, before the mountain motors came in there, we won the Rockingham race with the old Duster.

Somebody protested me and the IHRA did a P&G on my engine. And as always, that Pat Musi, was right in the middle of it. It was him and his people. His dad was raising hell.

I was using those Chrysler engines that the Petty family had built for me. It was the configuration that had dual spark plugs.

I had won the race and the race official came over with that spark plug to run down into the head, the one with the rubber tube on it. We had to put one of the spark plugs down into the hole and it just so happened that I had one there.

They had me to blow on it to see if it was leaking. I blew on it and it wasn’t leaking.

As always, they pumped the car and it came up right. Musi’s dad was raising hell saying it was leaking.

I had already taken the spark plug with the tube out and handed it back to the official.

So we were the winners, and just to show that there was no hard feelings – I invited them over to the restaurant across from the Holiday Inn in Southern Pines to eat.

I had a boy that worked for me named Tommy.

You know, I have to tell you there was just a little alcohol involved.

We got to drinking, just a little bit, and they, Musi’s gang, got close to Tommy. Tommy got to missing later in the night.

They kidnapped him.

They put him in the trunk of Papa Musi’s car and proceeded to start driving all the way to New Jersey. They were gonna find out my secret.

Of course, I had to call on the Sheriff’s department. I had to call in a few of my buddies.

About two hours later, we caught up with them … somewhere close to Virginia.

Tommy knew he was headed to Jersey. We got him released and everybody was happy. He had made the commitment to go to New Jersey, but he didn’t know that he was being kidnapped and put in the trunk.

He was really thankful that we had him chased down, and come to think of it, they were already in Virginia.

He was awfully upset by the time we sprung him.

From that point on, we all had an understanding. We didn’t mess with them and they didn’t mess with us. And if one of us was in trouble, we made the call and the other was there. That’s a rule that still remains to this day.

But ‘ole Tommy, he’s still with us. And even though they scared that boy pretty awful, he never rolled over on us.

Now you’re asking what we were doing, what was our secret?

I haven’t let that out, yet.

NO. 13 QUALIFIER – STEVE "NEVER BETTER" EARWOOD
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – Was Once Chest-Poked By Wally Parks

THE STORY OF: RENTAL CARS AND RAIN OUTS

Back in the day, when professional drag racing was fun, stories of rental car incidents were legendary.  Used to be you could drop your rental car off at the front of the airport and just leave it – banged in fenders, blown head-gaskets, worn-out tires and all.  You could always dispute any damage and, in those days, rental car companies didn’t really pursue any reimbursement for repairs. There was a rental car “banned list,” however, and more than one of our professionals and NHRA employees made that list.

Rain outs were, and remain, one of the worst catastrophes that can happen to a track owner or a sanctioning body.  Read on and you’ll see how these two topics were closely tied to one of my more memorable ventures with my NHRA media partner, Dave Densmore.

From the mid-1970s into the mid-80s, Densmore and I had the responsibility of creating press and publicity for the NHRA, mainly under the auspices of Marketing Director Brian Tracy. “BT”, as he is still known, put a deal together for the 1981 season with a rental car company that shall remain nameless. This was one of the first deals “BT” put together and we were all warned to treat these free rental cars as if they were our personal vehicles.

The first event with the free cars was the Springnationals in Columbus. What a dismal event. Our main responsibility was to wine and dine the media, and let me tell you, the Columbus media become accustomed to some very fine dining and even finer “wining.”  

We were probably a little “over-served” while tending to our duties on Saturday before Sunday’s final eliminations so I was rather startled when my phone at the Columbus Hilton rang at 4:30 Sunday morning.  It was National Trail Dragway owner Ben Rader, who growled at me, “Earwood, get Odd Job, which is what he called Densy, and yourself over here – the event’s been cancelled.”  Somewhat groggy, I asked, “who the hay-ell is this”?  I think Benji was a bit put out that I didn’t recognize his voice, especially since he was facing a six-figure loss for the weekend.

So, Densy and I get to the track early and the joint is flooded, I mean underwater.  We contacted all the local media and wire services with the announcement that Vice President of Competition Steve Gibbs had postponed the event until the following weekend.

It’s pouring down rain and Wally Parks rushes into the press room totally soaked, carrying an umbrella that had blown inside-out. Always the professional, the president of the NHRA had stopped by just to check on us and to find out how we were planning to re-promote the event the following week. He was reflecting on how tough rain outs were on the racers, the sponsors, NHRA employees, the track owner, etc.  I turned to him and, in what I thought was a very spiritual manner, said, “Wally, everything happens for a reason”. He got real stiff, somehow grew taller than his normal 6-4, pointed his long index finger in my chest and said, “I had a preacher tell me that the day we buried my mother when I was 13 years old, leaving me to raise my younger brother and sister. I didn’t believe that then and I don’t believe it now”. With that, he stormed out with his broken umbrella into the pouring rain. We didn’t discuss religion very much after that.

Anyway, here it is 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday and our duties are complete.  We headed back to the Hilton and ran into sponsor director Carl Olson who had a suite full of adult beverages he normally would have distributed to attending contingency sponsors. He invited us up for a cold one since his inventory otherwise probably would have gone to waste with the postponement of the race. As it turned out, it was probably not the best decision he made in his career.

To say the least, the impromptu social hour got a little out of hand later in day. As Olson later would characterize it, “copious amounts” of alcohol were consumed as a few racers drifted in and out. Richard Tharp, a past Top Fuel World Champ, got to breaking up some of the furniture – it’s a Texas thing – and Densy and I decided maybe we should move on and get something to eat even though it now was 11 o’clock at night and we hadn’t had a bite all day.

We struck out in one the free rental cars searching for a restaurant in east Columbus but there is nothing open. Meanwhile, I was so over-served that Densy was driving, which was rare. Anyway, we are heading out across a shopping center parking lot at about 60 mph headed to a Burger King that Densy thinks may be open. I sight a two-foot tall curb directly in front of us and as I am mouthing the words, “Densy, I thing we’re about to hit that.....,” kabam!  The rental car kinda launches over the curb, leaving the front bumper,  A-arms, the oil-pan and the exhaust-system in its wake. Both front hubcaps were slowly rolling in opposite directions.

Both tires are blown but Densy is still truckin’, looking for that Burger King.  I turn to him and say, “Dens, I think we got a flat.”  He stops. We both get out and Densy says, 'gee, look at that oil down behind us; has to be a 10 bagger (bags of oil dry).'  It was a nice wide band of oil from the point of impact to the where we were at the time.

We decide that maybe we should stagger away from this scene just in case the authorities arrive. We’re walking back to the Hilton and come across a discount motel where the aforementioned Steve Gibbs is staying.
 
Now you may think something is wrong here, two PR flacks staying at the Hilton and Gibbs, the guy the racers called Mr. Traction, the top rules maker in professional drag racing, staying in a motel that probably was $18-a-night. That’s just the way it was.
 
So Densy has an  idea. “Let’s get Big Hook (another of Gibbs’ nicknames)  to drive us back to the Hilton,” he said. So we wake Gibbs out of a sound sleep after he had to postpone a race for a whole week. He answered the door, we told him our story and asked him for a ride back to our hotel and also asked if he wanted to see the damaged car. “No, ‘ he answered in the coldest voice I’ve ever heard. In fact, he really hasn’t warmed back up to us to this very day.

After every storm, of course, there are clear skies. The next day we had local Super Stock racer and towing professional Bob Marshall retreive the car and asked him to make repairs since we realized that BT’s marketing program, and our careers, probably were hanging in the balance. Marshall wasn’t too optimistic about covering and repairing all the damage, but he would do the best he could. Heck, we had a whole week before we had to return the car.

Bob found a used oil pan, beat out the A-arms, and installed the hubcaps we subsequently had “acquired.”
 
We finished the race the next weekend and then we had to return the somewhat repaired rental car to the main office near the airport.  We rehearsed how to park the car away from the front door, kind of out-of-sight, how to gently lay the keys on the desk, sign the return form and sneak away before the car was really inspected.
 
I followed Densy and the car is smoking, rattling and kind of “dog tracks” down the interstate. We pulled out of sight into the rental lot, as we rehearsed, walked into the office and confronted a nice, uniformed rent-a-car fellow behind the counter who asked how we enjoyed the car as he prepared our paperwork. Then, he asked if the tank was full, which was part of the agreement. Densy mumbles something about the tank maybe being empty and I think “busted!”  My career flashed before my eyes.
 
The nice fellow in the nice uniform rings a bell and this hippy-looking kid comes out from the back room. “Take this gentleman’s car and fill it up and bring me the ticket,” says the uniformed guy. So the kid walks past us and the fragrance of marijuana is staggering.  He jumps in the car, both front wheels wobbling like hoola-hoops, and pulls around to the pumps.  He fills ‘er up, brings in the ticket and doesn’t mention a thing about the car. I don’t think he even noticed.

So, we slowly back away from the desk, thank the uniformed man for the use of the car and disappear. We never heard another word – nor did we get another free car.

Of course, that wasn’t our first problem with a free car. There was the “oak tree incident” in Englishtown, N.J., that followed another rain out.  But that’s another story.

WHO HAD THE BETTER STORY?

Voting Completed

 

No. 5 Rickie Smith vs. No. 12 Steve Reyes

RACE COMPLETED: WINNER: RICKIE SMITH (63.77) DEF. STEVE REYES (36.23)

NO. 5 QUALIFIER – “TRICKIE” RICKIE SMITH
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – GOT HIS FIVE SECONDS OF FAME IN ROCKINGHAM

THE STORY OF: A Tricky Gamble

I came into the Pro Stock game back in 1979 and even though it was in the IHRA, there were two pretty big dogs guarding the junkyard. Those two were Warren Johnson and Ronnie Sox.

I had come up through the sportsman ranks and while I was pretty successful at the sportsman stuff, I guess you could say I was kind of wet behind the ears as a professional racer. And, when you’re that way, some of the veterans have a way of working you over on the starting line. That’s because you just don’t know any better.

But, if you want to survive, you had better learn or they will chew you up and spit you out.

It took me about three years to catch onto them and their games.

I’m not sure about the year, but I think it was around 1982 or so and we were racing Warren Johnson.

Now ‘ole Warren, he was the toughest racer out there at the time. He’d won the championship in 1979 and would go on and win one in 1980.

Jon Kaase was doing my engines at the time and Kaase was famous for his work with Dyno Don Nicholson. Because of where I qualified, it put Warren and me on track to race each other in the second round.

I already knew what to expect, so I went up to the starter before the race and asked a simple question. Back then the starter started the tree and there was none of this auto-start stuff.

I asked, “I just want to clarify this, when the other guy starts how much time does the other guy have to stage?”

“You’ve got five or six seconds to get in,” he said.

I looked at him and said, “I’m not saying anything, but you make sure you give me my five seconds. Don’t red-light me in two. Give me my fair time. I’m not asking for any special favors. That’s all I am asking for is my five seconds.”

He looked at me funny and said, “Aight.”

We got ready to run the first round and had some problems getting the car to crank. It wouldn’t crank. Back then, the IHRA rules allowed you one push start to get the car started.

The engine had a bad solenoid. My crew pushed the car off and we got it started and with everyone in a panic, I won the first round. That put us against Warren in the second round.

I went up to Kaase in the pits and told him, “I ain’t gonna burn this motor up running Warren and I know he’s gonna play games with me. I’m gonna pre-stage and turn the motor off if he sets there for a while.”

Kaase begged me not to do it, reminding me what happened the previous round. Even though I let him know we had fixed the problem, he wasn’t comfortable and begged me not to do it.

I was bound and determined that I was gonna beat Warren at his game.

Kaase told me on that day that I had bigger balls than anyone he’s ever seen.

“It’s either gonna crank and we are gonna win the round, or it won’t,” I told him.

So we go up there for the race and sure enough, Warren does his deal. I sat there for about ten seconds and saw he wasn’t moving, so I reached up and turned off the car.

I left all the other switches running, fan and everything.

That way, when he went in, all I had to do was hit the ignition, fire it and go.

Well we set there for about a minute and then he finally starts rapping his motor. There I am sitting there in dead silence.

I heard him starting to come up and go against the clutch, and I wasn’t even watching him when I fired the car and went right in. I never cleared the motor and get in within two seconds of him and left on him by about .07. I just beat him to the finish line.

Down at the finish line Warren was his usual self and wouldn’t talk to me. Well when we got back to the pits, Joe Lepone went over to Warren and said, “I can’t believe that man turned the engine off and still left on you.”

That was enough to get Warren fired up.

You never heard so much cane raised and a whole group of them went to Ted Jones to complain about me. They went to the starter and went to anyone who would listen to get that run thrown out.

Ted Jones told them that he didn’t hear what happened because he was in the tower. He told them it didn’t look like I had turned the motor off because I went right in there with him.

The starter told them, “He had five seconds to get in there and he didn’t even use two.”

He tried to get the run thrown out and it stood, but I tell you, I have never heard so much cane-raising over one run. That did it.

I followed the rules … made me look good and Warren looked bad.

It was a gamble but I had to do it. I can remember Jon Kaase looking in, right before I staged one last time and said, “Please don’t cut that car off.”

I smiled because I knew what I was doing.

NO. 12 QUALIFIER – STEVE “ON TOUR” REYES

WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – Been There Photographed That …

THE STORY OF: Phallic Symbols and Angry Wives

Drag racing is all about the person who believes they have the biggest male part of the anatomy, at least with the men it has always been that way.

And when it came to the legendary starter Buster Couch, he always let you know he’s was the king ding-a-ling of the starting line. You were just honored to be able to visit his starting line.

Being positioned to shoot on the starting line, you had the chance to witness some of those power struggles.

The best one I ever watched was at the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca, back in 1967.

Remember the name R.L. Payton because he was one of the few that challenged Buster.

Payton drove a dragster known as “The Big Bamboo”.

R.L. Payton fires his car and rolls down the fire up road. It’s the first round of qualifying and everyone has their cameras focused on the car. Payton rolls up to the starting line, inching the hand-brake to the line.

Buster is policing the starting line as thoroughly as he can, and glances over at Payton’s car. Then he does a double take and loses it.

Buster can’t believe what he’s looking at because instead of the standard hand brake handle, Payton has a huge carved … eh, part of the male anatomy. It's sticking up out of the ... no pun intended ... cockpit of his dragster.

Buster shuts him off.

Payton is sitting there in his car and looks at Buster, “What’s your problem?”

Buster leans down into the car and screams, “I don’t want to see that thing again.”

Payton leaves but returns for second round. Here’s old R.L. coming down the fire up road and makes the turn to the track. He inches up to the starting line – and Buster looks over and instead of Pyaton taking off the “offensive” brake handle, he’s covered it with a condom.

Apparently that wasn’t acceptable either because Buster shut him off again.

In fact, I think they threw him out for the weekend.

A year later, Buster had to deal with another racer.

Val LaPorte was driving the All American Top Fuel dragster owned by Billy Herndon.

LaPorte pulls up there to run. They didn’t do burnouts, just wiped off the slicks … it’s just him and his wife, she’s the only crew person. The freeze plug comes out of the engine and this car is just pouring water under one of the wheels.

Buster walks over and points at the car and points at her.

He signals for them to shut the car off.

LaPorte shakes his head no.

This is the last qualifying session. Buster gets a little more animated and tries to show LaPorte’s wife.

He frantically gives them the shut off signal.

LaPorte refuses.

LaPorte’s wife walks up to the car and motions for him to stage, ignoring Buster’s orders. Then the next thing I know, she turns around and starts punching Buster. She’s just wailing on him. Buster never started the tree, so LaPorte just floors it and leaves.

LaPorte makes almost one of these most fantastic left to right turns in Top Fuel history. One tire just goes up into being real narrow at the hit of the throttle and the other is hooked up. It made for a real interesting photo.

I was busy snapping photos and I have this one picture of the car completely sideways and pointing at the grandstands. I’m surprised he didn’t flip the thing over.

I believe that was the last NHRA event he ever raced at.

And after those two incidents, I never wondered again why Buster was so tough on his starting line. I also never laughed so hard in my life before, either.

Well there was that time with the cherry bomb and the rental car …

 

Voting Completed

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