There are multiple types of stories in drag racing. Those you can tell, and those you shouldn’t. Then there are those you tell to win a trophy.

For almost a decade, some of drag racing’s greatest storytellers came together for a good old-fashioned yarn-spinning competition where the first liar almost always took the prize. The scary part about it was that the stories were accurate with some embellishments.

Over the next couple of weeks, we plan to bring you the best of these stories, some in word and some in video. - Editor

READ AND WATCH PART 1
READ AND WATCH PART 2
READ AND WATCH: PART 3

BILL DONER: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PORKY THE PIRATE AND JUNGLE JIM END UP IN THE SAME STORY - Fremont Raceway in Northern California was never my favorite. I could never seem to wrap my arms around the place, but there was one race every year that was very successful.

On New Year’s Day we ran the Nitro Bowl at Fremont and always packed the place. The radio ads went: “Are you tired of the “This” bowl and the “That” bowl...well get off the couch and get out to Fremont Raceway for the NITRO BOWL.”

Of course the event featured an all star cast of funny cars, usually the top eight we could book in along with a couple of wheel-standers and jet cars.

A little known fact was that Jungle Jim Liberman was originally from Fremont although he lived most of his adult life in the East. Jungle begged me for years to come run the Nitro Bowl. Well, this one year I signed him up and we used him big time in the ads. Naturally, he didn't show up.

I got several calls and a half dozen or so people came to the tower and demanded their money back because of no Jungle.

I was, to put it mildly, pissed.

Wouldn’t you know the following years Jungle whined and whimpered saying he would make it up to me if I gave him another chance. And so, God knows why, I decided to book him again along with Don Prudhomme, Tom McEwen, Ed McCulloch, The Blue Max, Gordie Bonin and an all star cast.

Several days before the race Roland Leong called and wanted to know why I wasn’t using his Hawaiian car. ”There’s a lotta Hawaiian boys in the Fremont area, Donah,” explained Leong, “and besides, you know Jungle won’t even show up.”

New Year’s happened to be on a Sunday and the day before I went out to the track to make sure everything was ready. Leaving I stopped at the gas station next door...the attendant came by and asked if I had something to do with the track.  When he found out I was the main guy he asked, “Will the Hawaiian be running tomorrow?”

“Sorry, pal, not this year,” I answered.

“That’s a mistake,” he blurted, “there’s a lot of Hawaiian boys around here.”

Obviously a Roland plant, but it got me worried especially since it was 50-50, maybe not even that good of odds, Jungle would even show up.

New Year’s Day arrived bright and clear with a long line at the front gate. And who’s at head of the line at the pit gate? Surprise of surprises, Jungle Jim, in person.

“Hey man,” said Jungle, “told you I’d be here. We came out around midnight, smoked a couple of beers and slept right here.”

With a huge crowd certain, you’d think not much could go wrong at this point.

Wrong.

Here comes Jungle to the head of the staging lanes at 10 a.m. and demands to make a test run. I argue to no avail and of course he blows up in the lights.

“Sorry man,” Jungle whines, “I blowed up my fuel tank and it can’t be fixed.”

McEwen is standing in the back of the tower and whispers to me-“Tell Jungle you won’t pay him a single cent and see what happens.” And I did.

“You can’t do that, man,” cries Jungle. “I tried.”

“No deal, Jungle,” I said. “No run, no money. First round is at noon. Be there or be square.”

Not even 10 minutes later, Jungle comes to the tower and asks to have Porky the Pirate paged and have him report immediately to Jungle’s car.

Now let me tell you about Porky. He’s a grubby looking guy with only one leg who wears a World War One, chrome German helmet with a spike on the top. He has a hollow aluminum leg which he fills with a gallon of rum and runs a plastic line directly up to his mouth.

If you catch Porky early enough, he’s a helluva welder. Later in the day all bets are off. Wally Parks nearly went into convulsions  when Porky snuck into the U.S. Nationals one year and he went up to the starting line and started waving a flag on the end of a long pole directly in Don Garlits’ face as he staged.

At 11:55 exactly, I played the National Anthem and on the final notes fired up the first pair of funny cars. Guess who? Jungle himself, against the legendary US Army Plymouth Arrow and the Snake.

With the crowd going crazy, Jungle somehow whips the Snake and from there on the day seems uneventful.

After the storm, the racers get paid, the fans leave, and I sit down to have a cold one and relax.

Just then a nice-looking man in the blue blazer and slacks along with his young son, asks, “Are you Mr. Doner?”

“I’ve got a big problem,” he says.

“Tell me,” I answer.

“It’s not something I can tell,” he explains. “It’s something you got to see for yourself.”

A couple of security guards, off-duty Fremont cops, are standing by and I decide to take them along for this adventure.

It’s dark and I mean REALLY dark. We’re using one security guard’s flashlight to guide us through the pits, up to where the man is leading us.

Finally we arrive at his car and half the side has been torched off.

“That’s just the half of it,” he says. “Look at this.”

The front of his car has somehow been welded to Porky’s truck.  

When the security guard looks around with his flashlight, there’s Porky complete with his helmet in place, passed out, right in the dirt.

“Don’t touch a thing,” says the security guard, “I’ll be back in 10 minutes.”

“You’re not going to arrest him, are you?” I ask.

“Hell no,” says the guard, “I going to get my brother. He’s a professional photographer. I need a picture of this. Nobody will believe me otherwise.”

If this was ever made into a movie, the credits would now roll with the following information. The nice gentleman in the blue blazer had a door and fender replaced on his car and received a complete new paint job.  Further he received two lifetime passes to all seven International Raceway Park facilities.

Porky the Pirate was placed on Double Secret Probation.

Jungle Jim smoked a couple more beers and went down the road playing his harmonica and describing the incident as, “Far Out!”

Bill Doner received an 8x10 glossy photograph which he still has somewhere.

 

 

 

RICKIE SMITH: IT'S DARK UP AT THE DUCK - To fully appreciate this story, you have to understand what kind of drag strip Summerduck Dragway was back in the day. I think it was back in 1982, but Roy Hill and I had a match race there one day. I was running that Mustang and I think Roy had one of his Mercury cars.

The description I am about to give you of this track is no exaggeration. And after reading my story, you can go to YouTube and pull up Summerduck and you’ll see videos of what I am talking about.

Summerduck is a very narrow track. It’s one of the narrowest tracks I’ve ever raced on and in my day, I’ve raced on some … challenging … that’s the best word to say … tracks. It’s narrow and bumpy, and hasn’t changed any over the years. It’s got Armco guardrails.

If you do a burnout, you had better stay right in your groove and DO NOT open up your door while backing up if you want to keep them, because they will hit the guardrail if you get the least bit out of the groove.

Once you learn how to adjust to the narrow track, then you have to pay attention to the shutdown area. When you go through the finish line, I’d guess you have to make a minimum of 30-degree turn left within 100 feet. Did I mention that it was downhill?

In all my racing years, this is one track that you had better get the chutes out early.

I’ve heard all of these people talk about that ADRL track up in Virginia being short, but I have news for you, this track is SHORT and DOWNHILL. It’s about 150 – 200 feet lower than where you go through the finish line.

So Roy and I were booked in to do this match race. On this particular day, the two of us had been arguing all day long. We were booked in to do the match race and on top of the match race fee, the promoter offered $500 to the winner of the best two-out-of-three.

I beat him the first run and he beat me the second, making us tied for the bonus money run. Most of the time back then, I had .05 - .08 on him.

Don't forget my earlier description of what the place looks like, because back on that day, the bleach box was right in front of a creek and to get the water, you reached the bucket down into the creek and dipped your water. And, there were no lights at the track. You raced in the day or you didn’t race.

The race went and Roy and I argued all day long. There were some delays and it started getting dark real fast.

They didn’t have any bleachers on the left hand side of the track. On that side of the track they had a bank that ran to half track and dropped off in a hollow.

By the time everything was ready for Roy and I to run our final matchup it was dark … really dark.

The promoter decided that he was going to put two cars up on that bank and shine their headlights down on the track. He figured it would help to shine some light on the track, at least to the eighth-mile.

The only reason we considered running that last race was that the photo cells at the finish line were those old big light beams that shone across the track and threw off some pretty good light.

Roy and I knew that we could aim the cars at the beams. This was earlier, but this carried on until about 11 that night and it had gotten plum pitch dark.

I went over to Roy and asked if he wanted to just call this thing off and let out the clutch and take it to the house. Back then I made my living with racing and Roy had a few dollars. He wasn’t hurting for money.

He wouldn’t listen to it.

I went up to him one last time in the staging lanes and asked again. You know how Roy was, “H*** no, by god. H*** no, I’m racing you. I’m gonna beat you’re a**. I’m gonna wear you out by god.”

He kept on and got me about half pissed. I told him to get in his d*** car and let’s go race.

We suited up and I ain’t thinking about the finish line, I’m all amped up to beat him and I wasn’t thinking about anything … not even about the fact there wasn’t any lights in the shutdown area.

We did the burnouts, had another little staging battle … he was jacking with me. I got the green, let the clutch out and I was going down there. So I saw my lane, saw the lights going across. I knew I had to go between those lights. I aimed at the beams and I let the parachute out.

Lucky for me, there was a pretty good moon out that night.

I knew when I drove into that pitch black that I needed to let the car start turning to the left. All I was doing was looking at the skies and the trees to the side of me as my guide.

I was turning left, watching the trees and driving in the pitch dark.

I bet I was running about 140 miles per hour. I had gotten slowed but I was still moving fast.

Well at the end of the track is a gate … and yes, this is the same gate you drive in when come to the track. I did see that gate getting closer, closer and man, it got up on me before I knew it.

I didn’t panic but I did react. I knew if I didn’t get stopped, I was out that gate and on the highway.

I just locked it up. I started spinning the car out. It turned to the left and kept on coming around. The car did about a 180, but I finally got stopped. I didn’t run over anyone, but when I got stopped there were a lot of people running to me.

They screamed, “You alright? You alright?”

I was sitting in that car, frozen with fear. Back in those days, it took something pretty big to shake me up and I felt at times I was invincible.

They opened the door and in life, there are a few things you remember and for me … it was my leg. It was just shaking and jumping up and down on the brake pedal. I ain’t exaggerating, I had to put my hand on my leg and it was jumping two inches at a time.

I just knew I had totally lost my car and lost everything I had.

As it turned out, the only thing I did to the car was get it dusty.

And that f****** Roy Hill, come to find out, all he did was let the clutch out and coast down the track. He never planned to run the race. All he did was to screw with me.

I got back to the pits and there he was laughing … told me he never had any plans to race that race.

He just wanted to see if I would red-light.

I cussed him out and went about my business.

I was so mad that I had forced myself to make that run with no plan of what I was going to do at the finish line to stop. I will tell you, that is the most scared I have ever been in racing.

I had wrecked a car before and that didn’t bother me. I knew what was going on then. This time was different. It was pitch-black and I was waiting for something to smack me in the face.

I can think of the times I got scared in life, but that was truly the first time I had ever been scared s******.

That $500 was worth it at the time, but when I was sitting there with my leg jumping, it sure wasn’t then.

 

 

​

BILLY GLIDDEN: WHEN GLIDDEN TOUGH MET BOBBY KNIGHT - Growing up in the Glidden household was not for the weak. You had to be tough, and I mean “Glidden” tough and you better make winning your absolute priority.

For those of you who think I am too serious all of the time I would like to share a “war story” of life in the Glidden household as a kid. I s*** you not, what I am about to tell you is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

You may wonder why when people mess with me at the track or the starting line and when pressure bears down on me, it doesn’t seem to bother me. And, it really truly doesn’t.

Things go wrong in the cockpit and it becomes just another thing.

People pee on my trailer, it’s just another thing.

People write graffiti, just another thing.

I learned at an early age how to block things out.

When you reflect on just how competitive my dad Bob Glidden was just remember that I had a mom, in Etta, who was just as competitive. She held as high standards as dad did and put as much emphasis on winning.

So when other kids might have heard, “Wait until your dad gets home.”

We never did. The punishment was handed out on the spot.

You didn’t even have time to duck, much less take evasive action.

Just like drag racing, reaction times meant everything.

There were times when Rusty and I argued, and when wherever we went, you’d see the end result of our punishment. We were told to knock it off and if we didn’t, you’d see us with the gray duct tape wrapped around our mouth, and I’m talking all the way around the head.

Yep, if Mom had to go shopping, she’d take us with her even if we had duct tape wrapped around our head. They’d prove to us who was boss and a little self-humiliation went a long way. If we were going to a race, there we would be with our faces pressed against the window for the other motorists to see. I can only imagine what they thought.

I know there were times when Rusty would slam a phone down or was angry and slammed the refrigerator door that he would have to walk over and apologize to the offended item with someone present.

I’m not kidding, “I’m sorry Mr. Telephone.”

If you didn’t make bed check or messed up, there was a chance you’d have to clean someone else’s trailer to learn a lesson. That’s so people knew you were being punished.

Whatever we did, we did to win.

When I was growing up and as I entered the seventh grade I had a lot of talent as a basketball player except I had one fault. I had a weakness in dribbling the ball with my left hand when compared to the right and dad knew it.

He’s always pushed me in Little League and I can remember the time I scored over 70 points in a game. I did that because dad told me that if anyone got past me on the court that he’d whip my butt and I was deathly afraid of my father.

Because of that, I quickly became as efficient in dribbling with the left as I was with the right. One day at the shop, he took a roll of duct tape and taped my right arm to my body and set up some barrier in the driveway and sent me out there to dribble the ball with the instruction, “If I hear that ball stop dribbling, I’m going to whip you’re a**.”

He forgot about me because I stayed out there every bit of ten hours dribbling that ball. As it turned out that year, I almost got cut from the team because the coaches felt I had an identity problem determining whether I was a left or righthanded player.

Fast forward to 1989. We were given the opportunity to visit Indiana University and meet basketball coach Bobby Knight. The early part of this war story was to establish the foundation for what happened on this trip.

The whole family went, including Mom and Dad. The whole family. Rusty brought his son Brandon, who I think was about 2 years old at the time. They took all sorts of pictures of our visit with the race car.

We’ve always been big IU fans and anyone who has lived in the United States for the last thirty years has heard of how temperamental Bobby Knight can be.

We were escorted to Bobby Knight’s office and there we noticed this huge log with a chain on it and the thing is covered with mud and dirt. While we are there, little Brandon starts messing with this thing. Rusty and Gina are trying to be discreet in getting him away from it.

About that same time, Bob Knight walks in.

His first words are, “Leave f***** son of a b**** with me for a week and he won’t do that again.”

Those were his first words, I kid you not.

Then Knight gives us his speech and he’s a confident fella. At the end of it, he asks if we have any questions. Dad pops up and asks if he recruited any good big men.

Knight tells a whole list of players.

Then I piped up and asked him, “Are they going to play like a bunch of 6’4” white guys that can’t jump?”

He looked straight at me and asked, “What the f^&% are you talking about?”

I told him that everybody he had played like they were six foot four.

He goes off in a tirade talking about what all they had won. I looked at him and said, “So?”

“They still play like little bitty white guys.” I added.

He got quiet and you could see him getting as red as the sweater he was wearing.

Then he looked at dad and said, “Mr. Glidden if you ever want to come to a game and be where the action is, you call my secretary and tell her who you are and I’ll put you on the bench or right behind me.”

Then he looked over at me and said, “And you can leave that mouthy mother%$#@^# at home!”

“I’ll straighten your s^%$ out in a hurry,” he added.

I sat there for a moment and calmly looked at him and said something that left him puzzled.

“I grew up with him as my dad,” I said, pointing at my father.

“You don’t bother me at all.”

 

 

 

 IT’S MY CAR, I SHOULD BE THE ONE TO EFF IT UP - When Scott Kalitta started racing Funny Cars back in 1985, Connie bought a used chassis from Billy Meyer for him to drive. Scott was still running that same chassis in 1988 when I joined the team and desperately wanted a new one. Now while the bodies were always new and most likely because we blew the bodies off the car a lot back then. Connie wasn’t into spending money on building new chassis’ for either Scott’s Funny Car or his own dragster. Connie use to say that “tubing is stupid ... ask it a question and see if it answers you.”

“It won’t answer you cause it’s stupid,” essentially meaning no new pipe for Scott.

Towards the end of the 1988 season Scott pleaded Connie to let him order a new Funny Car chassis from Murf McKinney, and of course Connie would always say no. Over the winter of 1988 Connie finally agreed to let him buy a new chassis, but under one condition. He had to sell all of the old junk we had laying around the shop to pay for it. Scott was wide open and for a while the shop looked like Sanford and Son. Scott was selling everything in sight so he could buy this new chassis.

After a while Scott had enough money and called up Murf and ordered a brand new chassis. Since we were on an Oldsmobile deal back then, a brand new Olds Cutlass Funny Car body was also delivered to Murf to be mounted on the new chassis making Scott real happy.

I think it was either late May or early June of 1989 when we went to Murf’s shop and picked up Scott's new ride. Scott was so excited and was just like Ralphie from the movie a Christmas Story when he got the Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.

After we had picked up Scott’s new ride, we headed back to the shop and started putting it together. Everything that could be polished was polished. Everything that could be anodized was anodized. It didn’t matter what it cost Scott wanted this thing to look nicer than anything out there and win Best Appearing Car.

Back in those days since I grew up in my dad’s paint and body shop I always painted the Kalitta Cars. For this reason, I had the privilege of spraying some candy apple red on the brand new Olds Cutlass. I made sure that I did everything I could to make this thing look like glass. After I was done with the paint job, John Pugh, who was and still is a very talented artist, flew to Ypsilanti to do the lettering and airbrushing on Scott’s new ride. Man this thing looked good; really almost too good to race.

Once Pugh was done with the lettering and the chassis was all put together, we set the body on top of the new chassis and Scott just sat there and stared at his new ride and smiled. He was so proud and so happy. All he kept saying was how bitchin' his new ride looked.

Once Scott was done drooling over his new car he went home to pack because we had to get to our next race in Denver. The only thing left to do was load this gem of a Funny Car into the trailer.

After Scott left, Randy Green and myself began to load the most beautiful Funny Car in drag racing history into the mildly possessed Kalitta trailer. Now I say this thing was possessed because something stupid was always happening with this thing. In fact, just a few weeks before, we threw the rods out of the tractor while on the Pennsylvania Turnpike heading to Englishtown. That is a whole other story!

Now you kind of needed an engineering degree to load the race cars into this trailer. There were moving floors, hydraulic pumps, winches, buttons, ramps, cables and other gadgets!

Basically, the planets needed to line up correctly for these cars to be loaded right.

So Randy was behind the car and I was in front running the button on the winch, and the winch cable was connected to the front of the chassis. As the car made its way into the trailer there was a point where you lowered the hydraulic floor and disconnected the winch cable from the chassis and then pushed the car in by hand from there. So we get to that point and I let go of the button to the winch, but the winch kept running!

I was like “holy s** RG! The winch won’t shut off!”

Randy was like “What the f*** are you doing up there!” I said “This piece of s*** winch won’t shut off!” RG and I were now in full blown panic mode!

As the winch kept running and pulling Scott’s new ride closer to the front of the trailer…it then began to lift the front of the car like it was doing a wheelie, moving it closer and closer to the ceiling of the lower level of the trailer! Now I’m really shi**** bricks at this point!

At that point I began to start pulling wires out of the winch, turning power off, basically doing everything I could to shut this winch off but it wasn’t working!

I then began to hear the crunching of fiberglass as the Cutlass began smashing itself into the ceiling! Holy s***, we are f***** and Scott is gonna be pissed!

The winch kept running and the fiberglass crunching kept getting louder and louder. The crunching of the fiberglass and the grunting of the winch made me want to puke at this point.

Finally the winch quit and RG and I sat there and looked at Scott’s new ride wedged up against the ceiling of the trailer, wondering how we were gonna explain this to Scott, and if he didn’t fire us … how were we gonna get this thing down!

After a few minutes of wishing we were anywhere but Ypsilanti, Scott pulls up in his car and gets out and asks me and RG how it’s going. I said to Scott “We have a problem!”

With a look of concern on his face Scott asked, “What kind of problem?”

I said, “Take a look inside the trailer!”

Scott walked over and looked in the trailer and was shocked to say the least at what he saw.

Scott started stuttering and talking to himself and then asked me what happened.

I told him what happened, and told him that I was sorry, but there was no consoling Scott at this point. He had a look on him like someone shot his dog. He was almost in tears.

After a few minutes, Scott hopped back in his car and drove off. At that point RG and I figured out how to unhook the car and unwedge it from the ceiling of the trailer.

After about 30 minutes…Scott came back as RG and I unloaded the now smashed up beauty. Scott sat in his car with the door opened and a 12 pack of Coors Light next to him and a lit joint in his hand and just stared at his now screwed up ride.

Scott kept asking me why I f***** up his new ride, and of course I kept telling him, "I didn’t do it on purpose Scott!"

It didn’t matter what I said at that point, but at least he didn’t fire me.

As Scott sat there sulking like a little kid drinking his beer and taking some hits off of his joint, I had the new body upside down getting ready to do some fiberglass repair. This was about the time Connie pulled up in his Cadillac and looked over at the upside down Olds Cutlass and said, “Jim O …what do you have going on here?”

So I told Connie what happened and he looked over at Scott and said, “Well … she ain’t no virgin piece anymore.” He started laughing and drove off. Scott was so pissed at his dad and started saying some choice words to his dad as he drove off. Of course Connie didn’t hear a thing, thank God!

After that I walked up to Scott and put my arm around him and told him that eventually we would either screw this body up with an engine explosion or he would hit a cone on the track and screw it up, so it’s good that we got this out of the way. I then asked him for a beer and Scott just looked at me and said, “F*** you Jim O!” Scott got in his car and drove off.

Come to think of it, we never did win Best Appearing Car with that thing!

 

 

 

STEVE EARWOOD: MOOSE AND THE MOTORCYCLE JUMPER - Of all the promoters and track operators I have met and have worked with in my 35-year career , Norman “Moose” Pearah of Louisiana would by far be remembered as the most enterprising, if not entertaining.

Of his numerous attempts to pull off that one big promotion we all dream of that will fill our racetracks and our pockets, the motorcycle jumper he promoted in the early seventies would be the most amusing. How ironic with the recent death of Evel Knievel that this particular show comes to mind. In order to protect the innocent and to keep the libel lawyers at bay, I’ll refrain from using the young man’s name who is the subject of this tale.

This fellow shows up at Moose’s State Capitol Dragway near Baton Rouge wearing a metal flake leisure suit and tells Moose, “I’m gonna break Knievel’s record for jumping cars.” 

Moose inquires, “What makes you think you can jump over 23 cars?” 

Leisure suit says, “We done an analysis by computer on the thing.”

Seeing an opportunity to make headlines and to draw a crowd, Moose booked the young man and influenced a local Ford dealer to provide 25 Mercury EXP sub-compact cars, a very narrow car made by Ford Motor Company that saw few sales.

The jump was scheduled at 8 p.m. and by 9 p.m. the packed house, made up of mainly over- served Cajuns enjoying Moose’s $1.00 a can Schlitz beer, began to get a bit rowdy and were demanding to see "The Jump". The star of the show was holed-up in a little pull along camper trailer getting “psyched up” for the jump.  As the crowd became more demanding and intoxicated, Moose rather loudly beat on the camper door and yelled, “Son, this crowd’s gonna kill you, and worse, want their money back if you don’t come out and jump!”

The door finally opens and out of a heavy cloud of marijuana smoke staggers our hero and he mumbles, “Moose, I’m gonna do it”.

He jumps on his first pass up the ramp, and if you had bet on car number four you would have been a winner as he hit numbers 4, 5, 6, 7 and finally slid off number 8.

He got out of the hospital about nine months later and briefly considered Moose’s proposal to come back on a three-wheeled bike to attempt another record.  He considered it, but finally called one day and  said, “Moose, listen, I talked to the Lord and the Lord says ‘Don’t do it’.

A good piece of advice I always thought.

Shame he didn’t try an encore, as I am sure another performance would have outdrawn Moose’s “All The Crawdad Heads You Can Suck” contest, but that’s another story.

 

 

OF SHIRLEY, MISPLACING A KID, WINNING YOUR FIRST RACE AND DRUNKEN CANADIAN MEN IN THONGS -  Shirley was one of the legends I never got to race. When all the guys were trying to beat up on her, she showed the right stuff to become a champion.

I didn’t know at first I had to race Shirley in the second round.

I was sitting with my girls on Christmas day when the call came in from my PR people that I had won the first round and was to move on in competition.

I was getting myself psyched up to win the next round, just like I did against Cruz after the 1992 season.

Then they told me I had to race Shirley and that took the wind right out of my sails.

I tried to explain to Ashley and the girls that my desire to live the dream was fueled by watching my heroes. They were encouraging me to go forward because no one could tell a story like me.

I tried to tell them if we take away our legends and heroes in life, we would be lost.

I’d never beaten Prudhomme, Bernstein or Beadle for a title.

Then you add in people like Garlits and Shirley, once you beat them then you lose that drive. I’m not taking away from any of the others that I’ve beaten before, but when you get someone like Shirley, she’s special.

Racing was never about the money or fame, it was about the journey, so hero or no, its time to take the journey.

That’s when I explained to Ashley about the week leading into my first national event win – 1987 in Montreal, Canada and that’s where my story begins.

I was just a bridesmaid. Nine final rounds and I just couldn’t win a race.

I got up the morning we were to leave for Montreal with the feeling, I’m gonna lose.

I knew a great individual named Robert Goodwin and he told me my problem. He said I didn’t have the eye of the tiger. He told me I didn’t know how to win because I was too busy passing out resumes on the burnout.

He let me know that I could sell sponsorships and make everyone happy, but that didn’t make me a winner.

I was mad at Goodwin because he had no idea how hard I worked on a daily basis. He didn’t know what it was like not to be able to pay your bills. He didn’t know what it was like to have someone to come and repo your race trailer.

It was a pretty hard time for me. Laurie had a job at the time bringing in money to try and keep this family stable.

Ashley was three years old at the time.

A typical week for me at the time was trying to survive. On this day, I had a big challenge. I had a rig full of crewmen and we didn’t even have enough diesel fuel to make it to the Montreal event.

We had to spend what money we had to get t-shirts which paid for the fuel to begin with. I was between a rock and a hard place.

On this day, I was going to run around town looking for money to go racing on.

In the middle of the story my girls stop me and ask, “What does this have to do with Shirley?”

I just kept on, the first thing I had to do was go down to the dealership and I carried Ashley with me.

I had her in the back seat and she was so cute. She was bug eyed and happy to spend the day with dad. Life was good.

The team was sitting there waiting to go and the rule of thumb is that you don’t tell the team you don’t have the money. You just do what you have to do.

I went to everyone I could think of to loan me money. All day long she rode around in the back seat.

Later on in that evening, long before the days of cell phones, I had rushed home because I knew Laurie was coming home. I was waiting to get a check she was going to give me to make the trip.

I got home, and I gotta be honest, I was driving a 1977 Cadillac Coupe Deville at the time. I jumped out of the car and ran in the house hoping that Laurie had left some money for me so we could make this trip. I had gathered everything I could.

Fred Stringer had loaned us some money to make the trip, in addition to what Laurie gave me. I’m on overload, stressed out and just not thinking.

I ran back outside to get in the car and the car was gone. I thought, “What the hell? How did I get here?”

I looked around and there was no car. I figured one of the guys on the team had borrowed the car and I was in a typical John Force meltdown. I headed down the street to the truck because I could use the chase vehicle to drive around town.

I got halfway down the street and a lightning bolt hit me right in the chest.

I had to have been driving my car because Ashley was in the back seat.

That’s when I went into heart attack mode.

I went running up the street because there’s no car and no baby Ashley. Let me tell you, you can’t imagine that feeling.

I’m standing in the street yelling, running in the house and jumping on the phone. I’m screaming. I’ve called the police. The crew guys are running up the street. They grab me and we ride up and down the street looking.

I just knew someone had stolen my kid.

That was as close as I had ever come to a heart attack.

The police was there, I am being asked how in the world could I forget my kid. I tried to explain that I was on meltdown. I was trying to race and win. I wasn’t thinking.

At that point, I didn’t even want to race because I had lost what was important to me – my kid.

Laurie comes home, and tears are streaming down her face.

That’s when my Uncle Gene Beaver, the smartest man I ever met, comes into the picture.

Uncle Gene looks at me and says, “You have to go back to the basics.”

He told me to start over and go back to where I started.

I told him I had parked the car in the driveway and watched Uncle Gene walk to the end.

There was a 40-foot cliff at the end of the driveway. He called me over and I could see the front ornament of that car.

We ran down to the car and there she was sitting in the backseat with her arms waving in the air and she was just a smiling. We got her out of there and pulled the car out of the ditch.

When I saw her, I realized quickly that she was indestructible.

She had ridden in that car so many times all over town. It didn’t bother her one bit. Her thoughts were, “I was with dad and he just let me roll down a cliff, no problem.”

That was about as close as Laurie and had come to a divorce. She was hating me that day.

I got the crew together and we all headed to Montreal and all I could think about was that I had lost Ashley and I found her, whatever happened in the race would pale in comparison.

I broke into tears because I had been a moron.

I realized the reason I couldn’t win a race was pressure. I drove for two days no problem and I was telling this to the girls and Ashley looked at me and asked, “Dad, what does this have to do with Shirley and how you looked up to Shirley?”

I told her, let me continue.

I went to the finals at Montreal and I ended up against two of my heroes in the finals -- Ed McCulloch and Bernie Fedderly.

You never forget Montreal because they have a different way of dressing in the heat.

The girls are sexy and they were in those thongs. The men wore them too. Yeah I had to go there.

They stuff everything they could in there. Not a pretty sight.

I go up to race that final round and I’m thinking about the pressure that always beat me all the other times. I remember Austin Coil asking me what happened to me in the final rounds. I’d forget how to pedal and everything else.

I did the burnout. I thought to myself losing Ashley was probably the most pressure I’d face in my life. I had already had so many black eyes, what would another one be.

We both smoked the tires and I ended up pedaling better.

I just drove and never looked back. And I won. I finally won one and I got to the finish line and waited for Steve Evans to come over to interview me.

There’s no Steve Evans, no TNN and no television. In fact, I look over and all that waiting for me are two of those Canadians in those thongs holding a fire extinguisher.

I went back to Coil and started singing that song, “Is that all there is?”

I think what I had was post partum depression. It’s that thing where a woman wakes up and is depressed the day after having a baby and she doesn’t know why.

I didn’t know what to do. I had it all. I had the win, the Wally and this big old check the bank wouldn’t even cash. Even the bank didn’t trust me back in the day.

I had borrowed money from Coil. I called home and told Laurie we won, I told Ashley we won and she had no clue what I was talking about.

Later on that night, we are all crammed in the room sleeping and I’m thinking.

You know what it’s like to lay in bed at night and you have that trophy in the bed with you? You’re singing, “I beat Ed McCulloch, I beat Ed McCulloch.”

Coil yells out, “Will you shut up so we can sleep.”

But then I remembered an hour or so earlier we went to dinner, we were sitting there sharing hamburgers. You know broke when you have to share a burger. We had pooled our cash together.

We’re at this restaurant and the waiter brings over a bottle of champagne.

I looked at him and said, “I didn’t order that and I can’t pay for it.”

It cost about $15 or $20.

He pointed to a table and said, “The lady at that table sent it to you.”

I looked across the restaurant and it was none other than Shirley Muldowney.

Imagine this. You’ve heard war stories of Shirley and I witnessed one in Salt Lake City when she went toe to toe with Garlits and this was a lady who was a fighter.

She was a world champion and took the time to acknowledge a total nobody like me.

I tried to explain to Ashley, “You know why I love racing so much?”

So now you see why I love these legends and never want to go up against them. They are what my dreams are all about.

At that time, that tough lady who would fight and say things to Garlits that you can’t print, showed me a soft side. A compassionate person sent over a bottle of champagne to a “nobody” like me.

Why did she do it? She remembered that moment of her first win.

She gave me that as a means of saying, you’re poor, you’re broke and you’re pathetic but here’s a bottle of champagne to drink because today you’re a winner.

There are legends and there are heroes, she is both to me.