Eliminations are underway for the second annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories Showdown, a competition which places sixteen of drag racing's personalities head-to-head in storytelling competition. Over the next four days, you will be presented with the first round strories of each respective contestants. They are paired on an NHRA eliminations ladder seeded by reader vote last week.

Today's competition features the #3 qualifier "Big Daddy" Don Garlits versus #14 Jim Rockstad as well as #6 Kenny Nowling versus #11 Steve Reyes. Voting concludes on December 29th at 5 PM.

For the next four weeks, CompetitionPlus.com will conduct its second 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.

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. That happened last year and wasn't pretty at all. 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.

#3 –  “Big Daddy” Don Garlits

WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – I Didn’t Do It - T.C. or Swingle Did It

TC AND THE DEAD ELEPHANT

Drag racing was quite a bit different back in the day. There weren’t all these big rigs and dozens of crewmen like the teams have today.

Back in the day a Top Fuel team usually only consisted of the driver, owner, tuner and a crewman. Those jobs were filled by T.C. Lemons and me.

It wasn’t odd for us to run a race on one side of the country at the beginning of the week and the other side at the end. Sometimes we went out of the country to match race.

On one particular week we did a match race in Cecil County, Md., on a Wednesday night and the next Friday night we had to do a car show display in Edmonton, Alb., promoting the Sunday match race.

The schedules were tight, so that meant any time you had major breakage, you could get yourself in a bind.

We blew an engine during the match race at Cecil County in the Swamp Rat.

That meant I had to drive back home and get parts while I sent T.C. on his way. We had diagnosed the problem as an oil pressure issue and our long rides gave us time to think about solutions.

For T.C., it also gave him time to think of new and innovative ways to interact with the border agents. Keep in mind that T.C. drove non-stop from Maryland to the Canadian border.

T.C. reached a small and obscure border crossing in an area known as Wild Horse Mountain.

Drag racers have their own unique language whether it’s referring to ways they have lost a race or the unique nicknames of their cars.

Back then, the 426 Hemis we ran were referred to as elephant motors.

Not everyone spoke the same language.

The Canadian Border Patrol agent asked T.C. what was in the trailer to which T.C. responded that it was a dead elephant. He did so with a straight face.

The border agent took the bait – hook, line and sinker.

“When did the poor beast die?” The border agent asked.

"Wednesday evening,” T.C. responded.

He reached the crossing on Friday and after a moment the border agent looked at him and asked, "There must be quite a stench back there by now."

T.C. added fuel to the fire, "I don't know, I have not been back there as I haven't stopped driving since Wednesday evening!”

The border agent smelled something but it wasn’t a dead elephant, it was the story T.C. was telling. The border agent had to see the dead animal.

It took a lot of smooth talking to get T.C. out of that one and as smoothly as he talked himself into it, he talked his way out of it.

Keep this in mind if you ever kill an elephant at the race track; just let the agent know you’ve blown up an engine.

T.C. got to the show on time but insisted on taking the car apart during the car show to prepare for my arrival with the new parts. I arrived at the show and the event was incredible.

Well, almost … we blew up the engine again on the last run.

We drove away with another dead elephant in the trailer.

#14 – Jim “Rock of Ages” Rockstad

WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – The Only Guy Ed McCulloch Didn’t Beat Up in the Seventies

ACE: “HEY BERNIE, ARE YOU IN THERE?”

Early in his lengthy racing career, Ed “Ace” McCulloch toured the country match racing with his Revellution Funny Car. In the early 1970’s it took 3-4 race dates a week to “stay alive” in the sport and often times meant extremely long hauls between races. Ace lived in Forest Grove, Oregon forcing him to crisscross back and forth across the United States as he followed his passion.

I knew Ace very well back in the day.

Ace and mechanic Bernie Wadekamper had just completed an event in Rockford, Illinois, and then were heading back to the west coast. The duo left the track, just outside of Chicago, with Ace at the wheel until late that evening. Bernie took over the controls until the early hours pulling into a gas station as it was his turn for some shuteye.

In these years, it was a dually and a box trailer to haul the race car in. Bernie’s choice of sleeping quarters was underneath the race car in the trailer. Not exactly the most comfortable place but sleep was a rare commodity on these long hauls before the cushy semi-trucks became the norm.

Ace filled up the truck and trailer and headed down the road. A few miles later Ace approached the turnpike, stopping to get a ticket and then continuing on. A short ways down the turnpike Ace noticed that smoke was coming off one of the trailer tires and pulled off to the side to see what the problem was.

As Ace walked back to analyze the problem he banged on the side of the trailer to wake Bernie. After several bangs on the trailer there was no answer. Ace opened the trailer and then stepped inside to get Bernie’s help with the tire problem -- No Bernie! Ace recalls,

“It was really weird looking for Bernie and he wasn’t there! Oh no, I must have left him back at the gas station”.

Ace rapidly fixed the tire on the trailer and turned around right on the turnpike (not exactly a legal move) and in a panic headed back towards the gas station. As he pulled off the exit ramp, there standing by the toll booth was an upset Bernie. No shoes, dirty tee shirt and scruffy jeans and not a lot of smiling going on.

What had happened was when Ace stopped earlier at the toll booth Bernie could hear the tire rubbing on the side of the trailer and so he got out to look at it. Ace, unaware of Bernie leaving the confines of the trailer, drove off.

Sometime later, once the hostility had worn off, Ace asked Bernie what his plan was standing by the toll booth. Bernie said that if Ace was not back shortly he was going to go buy a pair of shoes and a shirt and head to the airport.

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#6 – Kenny “Let Me Sell You A Free Ticket” Nowling

WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – Once Won A Burnout Contest In A Rental Truck


AND THE ROCKET’S RED GLARE

It's been said that a journey worth taking often begins with a rocky start. That definitely was the case with the birth of the ADRL.

When we rolled into Carolina Dragway in Jackson, SC for the Inaugural ADRL Dragstock in October 2004, there were so many things that I didn't know about staging a drag racing event, that when I look back now, I can hardly believe that we actually pulled it off. I can't tell you how many times I turned to my good buddy AJ Ashe, who was working with me at the time, and said, "Can you believe that just happened?"

There were so many extraordinary things that took place that weekend that I could literally write a book.

But Saturday night was just out of control.

In my mind, we had everything covered. Then, just as we were preparing for pre-race ceremonies, things got a little interesting to say the least.

The national anthem singer was a beautiful African American girl from one of the local churches. She told us that she had performed the anthem before, but somehow I had the feeling that she hadn't done it in front of such a large crowd. Keep in mind, although it was our first event and we were selling our admission tickets back then, there was a pretty good crowd in the grandstands, a much larger crowd than this girl had ever sung in front of was my guess.

She had a request for warm water and honey which seemed strange, but what did I know. One thing was for certain, the longer she sat there, the worse she looked. She appeared so confident earlier in the day, but as we approached go time, she had this air of panic about her.

Now picture this. While this mild mannered, church girl was at the front of the RV in a state of anxiety, at the rear of the vehicle were the three girls who were taking part in the bikini contest getting ready. Of course, my buddy AJ had taken a real interest in their preparations and since he was overseeing the contest he went back to make sure that all was well.

When he re-appeared from the back he had this puzzled look on his face "Do you know that they glue those damn things on?" he exclaimed with amazement, a comment he would repeat several times throughout the evening.

Meanwhile, about ten feet away, our anthem singer was turning an awful shade of green and since we're the American Drag Racing League and not the Irish Drag Racing League, the color was definitely all wrong.

At this point, we can hear the crowd getting restless and she's absolutely as nervous as a person can be. Every time she tried to stand up, she had to sit back down. Had I known what I know now, I would have gone to the track and asked for a recording of the anthem and just told her not to worry about it.

But, it was the first time I had run an event. Believe me, I learned a lot from this first experience.

"I need a few more minutes," she asked.

"Kenny – we gotta go," pleaded AJ.

As we started to exit the RV we turned to ask her if she was OK and that's when it happened. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she dropped like a sack of sand to the floor.

AJ cocked his head sideways, squinted his eyes and cried, "You gotta be $%#@^&%' me!"

Could this possibly get any worse? I could literally feel the blood just draining from my enormous head. What do we do now? This is the worst-case scenario. My first reaction was to make sure that she had a pulse and that she was breathing. She did and she was, but now I was the one who felt light headed and for those of you who know me, that is a pretty difficult thing for me to do.

Now, keep in mind, although the track didn’t sell alcohol, it was evident that several of our fans had either snuck some in or consumed plenty before arriving. Either way, you mix a little alcohol with the kind of crowd we had and things get pretty uneasy when you're not running cars. It was getting a little loud outside and here AJ and I are standing over this girl passed out in the RV. Not a real pretty picture.

I'm thinking - Do we call the paramedics? If we do that, the race gets delayed even more.

After all, she is breathing, she does have a pulse and with an eight car field there are only four pairs of cars to run in the first round. Let's run the first round and then get the paramedics. Not one of my best decisions to be sure, but at the time somehow it seemed OK. Meanwhile, AJ and I head out and we are sprinting through the crowd asking everyone "Can you sing, can you sing?"

Then, I spotted what looked like another church group. I walked up to them and asked if any of them sang the national anthem.

Much to my amazement one of the young ladies said that she had sung the anthem many times and that she would be willing to do it.

OK, so now everything is under control – or so I thought.

As she starts the anthem, things are fine. However, when she got to the "rockets red glare" all hell broke loose! She was awful! So awful in fact that it was as if she was doing it on purpose. By the time she got to "the home of the brave," I realized that this was without a doubt one of the worst moments of my life. The crowd was stunned! To this day I have never seen so many blank looks and dropped jaws in my life.

Could this possibly get any worse?

The first round went smoothly and then it was time for the bikini contest.

As the three contestants approached the starting line one of them turns to AJ and says, "Do you know that there's a girl passed out in your RV?"

Holy $%^#! Once the action had started and the crowd got going, we got so caught up in the moment that we had completely forgotten about her.

It had been an hour or more at least. Here we were, high-fiving each other thinking everything is just great.

We do a beeline to the RV. We open the door and she's still lying there. My heart is pounding out of my chest. This can’t be happening. We call one of the paramedics and he gets her to wake up almost immediately.

Thankfully, she was OK, but with a pretty good knot on her head and quite embarrassed to say the least.

Looking back it’s easy to laugh now and as they say, “all’s well that ends well”.

And can you believe they glue those damn bikinis on?


#11 –Steve “Been There Shot That” Reyes

WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – TOOK MANY PICTURES AND MOST OF THE SUBJECTS HAD CLOTHES ON …

HE JUST COULDN’T GET IT UP


When you’ve been in drag racing as long as I have, you see the exhibition and novelty acts. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all – whether it’s a guy blowing himself up or someone leaping over a speeding car or a wheel-stander act.

I can remember the day a guy named Chuck Poole just couldn’t get it up, the front wheels of his car that is.

Chuck was a former Top Fuel racer who had crashed his front-engine dragster when the rail did an endo. Now he had another challenge, he was determined to be the king of the wheelstanders. The previous experience and the subsequent broken arm did little to portray such an image.

On one particular day in Sacramento, he did very little to exemplify that he was headed in such a glorified position.

Before you can do that, you must be able to get the wheels in the air.

I watched for one day as he tried, and he tried and tried some more.

This went on for the whole day. You’d have this big crescendo of excitement. Here comes Chuck and he’s going to get the wheels up. After about a half-dozen attempts, it became painfully evident that it just wasn’t happening.

Chuck wasn’t very pleased. On a grand stage, he just couldn’t perform.

He loaded the supposed wheelstander onto the trailer to head back home for some adjustments.

Chuck got home, fired it up and backed it off of the trailer.

He then pulled the uncooperative wheelstander into the garage below his bedroom.

Back in the day, racers would traditionally wing the motor up just to clean the engine out. Chuck was just acting out of tradition in doing this.

Unfortunately, his vehicle wasn’t feeling sentimental.

In the garage of his home, Chuck finally got it up involuntary.

The wheelstander slipped into gear and you guessed it, pulled the largest wheelstand of the day and right upstairs and into his bedroom.

The only thing that got hurt that day was Chuck’s wallet.

But, hey after that day he figured out his problems.

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