In the week leading up to the second annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories we will re-publish some of the finest moments from last year's contest. You'll hear some of the finest stories laid down in competition. The program works like this: 16 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 Scotty Cannon, the iconic Pro Modified driver and winner of the inaugural War Stories Showdown. This story advanced the champion to the final round.

In the week leading up to the second annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories we will re-publish some of the finest moments from last year's contest. You'll hear some of the finest stories laid down in competition. The program works like this: 16 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 Scotty Cannon, the iconic Pro Modified driver and winner of the inaugural War Stories Showdown. This story advanced the champion to the final round.

 

SCOTTY CANNON - 2007 WAR STORIES CHAMPION

IT’S ME AGAIN, MARGARET

This tale dates back to the last race I ever ran during my Pro Modified championship years.

You’re always going to have your critics but this time a crew member on another team took it just a step too far. I’m not going to call any names because they've been embarrassed enough. They know who they are and so do a few other people.

In this world, critics aren’t always kind. Sometimes they hit down to the bone. Sometimes they become annoying. On one particular occasion this one pushed it too far.

I’ll give you an idea. After the team he worked on beat me out for the championship, he’d crank call me on a regular basis. It was like clockwork that you could count on him calling.

I’d answer the phone and it was this person on the other end of the phone saying they were going to kick my ass and all of that stuff. They played it smart. They made sure the caller ID was blocked so I couldn’t find out who it was.

Some of the things he said, I can’t even repeat here. To give you an idea of how relentless it was, this went on for about three years – off and on. Sometimes he’d take a three-month break and then the dumb-ass would get back at it again.

I started telling my buddies about it and how this person has their number blocked. It got so bad for a while that I seriously considered getting the phone company involved.

He had an art to him, he could say the right things and it would piss me off. If anyone had ever beaten me on the track, he knew just the right words to say to me.

The long and short of it is that I had just finished a divorce and he knew all of the details. You would have thought he was a politician with all the mud he knew how to sling.

Then he messed up. The pecker head called when I was sitting around, having a whiskey or two, maybe three – talking junk at about midnight one night. This time his phone number was on my caller ID. I didn’t recognize the number – but I let him talk. He went through his normal spiel and the longer he went, the more I started laughing. I knew I had him.

Instead of flying off the handle mad and being the pecker head I knew I could be, I just took it all in. I let him hang himself.

He hung up and I hit redial. This time a lady picked up.

“Who’s number is this?” I asked.

“Who is this?” she asked.

She told me the name and then said, you must want to talk to my brother. I asked her who he was and she told me who he was and who he worked for.

He’s the one that revved me up. I’m not a hot head and I’m from the old school – an old redneck from the south – and I’ve always felt that you don’t disrespect someone or call them out unless you are ready to go out back and settle it like men.

Well I got her to put him on the phone I simply said, “I’m gonna get you. There are two things in life that I never do. I try not to make a promise I can’t keep and I’ve never threatened to whip someone unless one of us got whipped in the end. You’re getting both of them.”

That was back in 1996.

I’d see him at the races and he’d give me glances and antagonize the situation – he’d flip me off, laugh at me and it was all because he knew my hands were tied because if I fought, I was looking at a one-year suspension.

He just took advantage of the situation and antagonized me.

What he and everyone else didn’t know when we got to the Shreveport event in 1998 is that I wasn’t coming back because I was going nitro racing in 1999 with Oakley and Jim Jannard.

I had qualified number one and already clinched the title. I had just left a friend’s trailer after doing a bit of gambling. It was well past midnight and I was on my golf cart headed back to my pits. Guess who I passed? It was Mr. Antagonist himself. He had a few other people on the cart with him.

I turned around and started chasing him. I pulled up beside him and grazed his eye as we were driving. As it turned out, I pulled him off the cart and I jumped off as well.

We ended up going through a hospitality tent, and you talk about running over some chairs, man we went through them. I got a few licks in and managed to swell his head up pretty good.

Well I went back to my motor home and figured it was done and over with. Then I heard a knock. I looked out the window and there were a lot of blue lights flashing.

That’s when I said, “Oh Goodness.’ I knew I was headed to jail.

The way I explained it is that we fell off of the golf cart all though I never admitted I hit him. I told the police that it looked like he fell off and got hurt.

Long story short – he served a warrant and had me locked up.

Well I got out in the morning and got back to the track just in time for another meeting. This time it was Bill Bader, myself and Mr. Raccoon with the blackened eyes. We didn’t deny a confrontation, but we did stretch the truth a good bit.

It was suggested that I should have to forfeit all of my points and I only had one question, “Why should I have to forfeit my points because a man gets his ass whipped?”

If this was January, then I could understand is what I told them.

Then it came up, “I think he deserves a one-year suspension.”

I said, “You know what? I think that would be a good idea. You should have suspended me at the start of the season so you boys could win a championship.”

I never heard anything about the suspension from that point I walked away. When I fired up that nitro car at Pomona in 1999, I began serving it.