In the days leading up to the seventh annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories we will re-publish some of the finest moments from last three years' competition. You'll hear some of the finest stories laid down in competition. The program works like this: 8 figures within the drag racing community are voted on by the readers of CompetitionPlus.com to determine who they feel could tell the best story. From that voting, an NHRA professional elimination ladder pairs the contestants and they battle it out until one is left.

Today's story comes from Larry Sutton, the 2011 champion.

In the days leading up to the seventh annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories we will re-publish some of the finest moments from last three years' competition. You'll hear some of the finest stories laid down in competition. The program works like this: 8 figures within the drag racing community are voted on by the readers of CompetitionPlus.com to determine who they feel could tell the best story. From that voting, an NHRA professional elimination ladder pairs the contestants and they battle it out until one is left.

Today's story comes from Larry Sutton, the 2011 champion.

 
TELLING THE STORY OF: WHEN WHEELSTAND CONTESTS GO WRONG …

This is the day Chuck Poole chucked his Wagon.

Lions Dragway was putting on a wheel standing distance contest with Bill “Maverick” Golden and Chuck Poole - two of the best wheelstanders around at the time. These two did not like each other. I mean really didn't like each other.

There was a two out of three contest that evening and I was the judge to judge the distance and I would be down track with a walkie talkie to call the tower with the distance winner of each round.

First round Maverick was the first truck down and he went just past the finish line and Chuck Poole was pretty close to Bill at the time.

Second round Chuck Poole was first. Both trucks went about halfway down the shut off area. Now they were tied at one each – Chuck Poole one win and Maverick one win.

Final round, Bill came down to me and asked me for a favor. I had known Bill for years and he was running a Super Stock Dodge. He gave me a handful of road flares and asked me if I would stand in the middle of the track at the end of the track just before the dirt run off. So I went down there and there I was … standing at the end of the track, holding the flare in my left hand and doing my impression of the Statue of Liberty. When I saw Bill coming down the track the truck looked small at the start but as it got closer to me it looked like an 18-wheeler.

Like a good trooper I stood my ground but I was thinking about which way to run. I could hear Bill using the brake to slow down the truck as it was getting closer. Here I am by myself in the dark, in the fog, a few seconds from being a Golden road kill. Just then Bill shut the truck drive and spun it sideways 20 feet from me and the end of the track.

I called and announced the distance and then went to light another flare.

Bill said, “No, don't. Those are my flares.”

I asked how is Poole going to see the end of track. Bill said it was (Poole's) problem and took the those flares and went back down the return road.

This time I stood off to the side at the end of the track and here came Poole. Poole passed me going about 100 miles per hour plus off the end of the track, straight up and down into the run off area. The truck took a right hook when it entered the dirt at the same time a security guy was leaving the track on the side road with the night's receipts.

Poole hit the guard's truck causing him to flip end over end 20 feet in the air going over the chain link fence off the side of the track. I went running into the fog and the cloud of dust to find Poole. I knew this was not going to be good.

Everything was black down there and quiet, but I could hear a small motor running in the dark. It was a water pump. I went to the sound and saw the truck upside down and facing me. Just then Pool climbed out of the truck where the front window was.

Poole stood up and said to me, “Let that SOB beat that.”

My comment to the tower was, “Winner.”