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.

First round oting lasts for two 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 stories.

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NO. 7 QUALIFIER – CHIP WOODALL
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – COULD RETURN AN INSULT WITH AN OVERWHELMING RESPONSE

FIRST RD - DEF. PAUL CANDIES

TELLING THE STORY OF: WILL THE REAL HIJACKER PLEASE STAND UP?

The story I am about to tell goes back to the days when flying was a lot easier. It also goes back to a time before 9/11 when airline travel was a lot simpler.

The story goes back to the 1970s following the NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. The exact year escapes me but the story of what happened remains crystal clear in my mind.

The race was over and as you know Indy, in any year, is always a marathon. This particular year we had made our way to the airport for the flight back to Dallas when we learned our trip would be delayed due to an attempted hijacking at the Indianapolis airport. What exactly does one do during an attempted hijacking?

If you ran with us, this meant the perfect opportunity to visit the bar.

Knowing us, you’ll quickly draw the conclusion the attempted hijacking was the most conservative part of the story.

Drag racing fans are passionate. They were just as passionate, if not more, back in the day.

None were, however, as passionate as this man we met in the bar from Odessa, Texas. We’ll just call him Mr. Odessa for the sake of the story since no one bothered to get his name.

Mr. Odessa was a rich man, as we understood, having acquired his fortunes in the oil and gas industry.

Mr. Odessa had never been to the drags and Indy was his first race ever. He recognized us as having been at the track and when he found out we were drivers, it only elevated our status with the esteemed one from Texas.

Mr. Odessa walks up to the bar and tells the bartender, “Give these guys 100 beers.”

Now 100 beers might sound like a whole heck of a lot of beer but when you consider our group was made up of seasoned beer connoisseurs such as myself, Raymond Beadle, Dave Settles, Frank Cook and essentially the entire Texas drag racing connection, you’ll understand this was just a warm-up.

While waiting for the hijacking episode to be resolved, we quickly consumed the 100 beers, which was filled on tap.

“Give them another 100 beers,” Mr. Odessa exclaimed.

Needless to say, we were pretty lit up when we got on the plane.

Mr. Odessa, you would have thought, would have had his own plane. He didn’t hijack our plane but he let the flight attendants know this was “his” plane.

No sooner than we got on the plane than Mr. Odessa began raising cane and wanting a drink.

He called the attendant over and asked for a drink and when she tried to explain to him they couldn’t give out drinks until the plane took off, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of $100 bills.

“Sweetie, how about I just BUY the cart,” he said, handing her the wad of cash. She took the money, agitated with the man, and just walked away … motioning the cart was his.

Mr. Odessa proceeded to then commandeer the cart provided booze to anyone who wanted a drink.

The plane was made up of about 90-percent of racing people so it was as if we had our own private plane.

So Mr. Odessa is walking down the line as the plane taxis and I guess the flight attendants and pilots had split the cash because no one gave advance warning we were taking off. But we did, with people standing around and everything.

This was only half of the story, when the drinks ran out, a pillow fight ensued. The ten percent who were not racers were older folks who had a sense of humor. They were probably the most rambunctious.

I can tell you the movie Airplane had nothing on us.

I can tell you this one little old lady, who they say never stepped out of line, got nailed with a pillow and when she retaliated, she nailed quite a few of us.

The plane eventually landed and we were all standing up and falling all over one another.

We got off the plane expecting the cops to be waiting for us. Much to our surprise there wasn’t.

Now, talk about a twist of fate, when we took the same flight the next year we had the same flight attendant.

Mr. Odessa never made it back.

Without Mr. Odessa watching our back, once we got our boarding passes we were greeted by the flight attendant who promptly let us know, “One peep out of you or so much as a smile, and a Federal Air marshal will be waiting on you when you deplane.”

I didn’t dare test her; it was the most boring flight I ever had.

But, when you think about it, the real hijacking happened on that flight back to Dallas. I promise you what I saw on the tarmac before I got “drunked-up” didn’t compare to what we had on that flight home.

 

NO. 3 QUALIFIER – JIM "SUPERMAN" NICOLL
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – YOU DON'T THINK I GOT THIS NAME FOR MY SURVIVAL INSTINCTS DO YOU?
(Graphic courtesy of Phil Burgess)

FIRST RD - DEF. SID WATERMAN

TELLING THE STORY OF: IN HONOR OF THE MAD BOMBER

We never did learn the consequences of playing with M-80s or explosive devices back in the 1970s. We were drag racers by trade, and blowing up stuff on the race cars was not acceptable. Outside of the car, we wanted to blow up as much stuff as we could find. The more creative we could get with the explosions, the better.

I loved blowing up stuff. It fit my hillbilly redneck persona.

My partner in this lifestyle was Bob Creitz.

Creitz, who lived in Tulsa, always made our visits entertaining. I’m telling this story in memory of Creitz, who passed away. He always made sure those who he befriended never forgot him for one reason or another.

Creitz taught us the value of being a good M-80 thrower. As you will recall in my last story, it was myself, John “Zookeeper”Mulligan and Leroy Goldstein who blew the tire off of Don “Mad Dog” Cook’s trailer with a carefully tossed M-80. Later on John would swear off M-80s when he threw one and it bounced off the target and returned back in the car. The M-80 went off in his hand seriously wounding it as he was trying to throw it a second time.

The rest of us … there was no way we were giving up the M-80s.

Visiting Creitz’s place was always a blast … no pun intended. Creitz’s shop in Tulsa was to the southwest. Creitz’s shop always attracted the best of the best.

Having a shop with colorful drag racers and an abundance of idle time was always a recipe for disaster.  The tour headed to Tulsa for an AHRA event promoted by Jim Tice and for a few days we had plenty of spare time. It was me and Mad Dog who had time to spare and we headed to Creitz’s shop.  
 
Our favorite pastime was looking through the paper in search of used 1957 or 1958 Chryslers for sale. On one particular weekday, a major ego-filled one upmanship competition would spin out of control and eventually get someone in a lot of trouble.

The lure of these cars was the 392 engines, and the cars … well we could have cared less. On this particular day, we came across a 1958 Chrysler New Yorker and called the seller. He was all too happy to bring the car over to the shop.

Now this man had an affection for this car which made me wonder why he wanted to sell it in the first place. He brought the car over to Creitz’s shop and spent most of the time telling us about how he bought the car brand new and loved it so much. If he was selling his baby he wanted to know it was going to a good home. The car was like his child and wanted to make sure the new owners would baby it as he did.

I ended up making the deal with the gentleman for the new car and as he cleaned it out, you could tell he was happy with the deal he’d just made for this car which was in excellent shape.

The man had no sooner said his tearful goodbye and gotten in his new car than a major explosion transpired blowing out the windshield and the dash. The old man leapt from his car with a look of shock on his face.

What had happened?

When it became apparent this was the work of Mad Dog, who had strung together several M-80s, lit and stuck them in the glove compartment, the old man became so enraged he cussed me out for quite a while. When I say a while, he hung around for hours cussing me out.

If you remember the last story, you will not be surprised why Mad Dog couldn’t wait just a few more minutes to let the man get down the road.

The old man wasn’t the only one pissed. Someone had gotten the best of Creitz in blowing something up. Creitz took very serious his explosive reputation.

To top this one, Creitz knew he had to do this at night. His explosion had to be spectacular.

Creitz disappeared and off in a secluded section of his property, concocted a plan which included lots of blow-up stuff, a balloon and the darkness of the somewhat rural Tulsa nighttime.

Let me tell you a bit about Creitz. If he wasn’t working on his car to make it go faster and not blow up, he was looking for something to blow up … not to hurt anyone, of course.

The man just loved blowing crap up.

Anyway, Creitz emerged about 9 pm with his latest creation … an acetylene bomb attached to a balloon with the intention of lighting up the sky.

“Let’s send this baby up!” Creitz proclaimed.

And he did, with the fuse lit.

Shortly after Creitz lit the fuse he realized there was something really wrong with his plan. There was nothing wrong with the bomb, as it worked like it was supposed to. It flew high into the air with the lengthy fuse trailing it.

Creitz failed to look over his shoulder where there was a Tulsa cop making notes of his escapades. The look on his face when their eyes met was priceless.

Of course, we could only sit there in awe as the bomb went off and lit up the entire Tulsa sky.

Creitz went to jail that night. We finally bailed him out about 3 am. Several hours later, the newspaper hit the stands with the headline, “LOCAL DRAG RACER FOUND TO BE MAD BOMBER”.

As it turned out, the Mad Bomber title was given to a then unknown prankster who was sneaking into one particular bar’s parking lot – drilling a hole in the tailpipe, taping an M-80 inside and as the unsuspecting drunken driver was about to pull away, “The Mad Bomber” would light the fuse. The drunker the driver was, the more entertaining it was.

Oh yeah, about the drag race. Creitz was supposed to do some pre-race TV interview for the event but he was told he’d already gotten enough publicity.

For the rest of his life, Creitz always blamed me for getting him sent to jail. All I did was buy used ’58 Chevy, go figure.

One thing is for certain, hanging out with Creitz was a blast, literally.

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