TOLIVER JUST WANTS TO DRINK IT, PROMOTE IT, WIN WITH IT ON SIDE OF HIS FUNNY CAR

 

 

It would take some imagination, but try to picture it  . . .

Dale Armstrong, drag racing's legendary driver/tuner/innovator, stepped back to admire one of his classic hot rod restorations that have kept him busy in his Temecula, California, garage since he retired several years ago. Then he suddenly, spontaneously, head twitching zealously to some alien beat, broke into a frenzied chorus of Nickelback's hit song, "Rockstar."

'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars

Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar

I'm gonna trade this life
For fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair
And change my name

Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar

Oh, it was a sight. Those quiet ones, though, they always fool you. Dale Armstrong getting his post-grunge groove on . . . What were the neighbors to think?

Well, one of Dale Armstrong's neighbors is Jerry Toliver, the hopelessly addicted Funny Car driver. He collars goofy-magazine honchos, razor manufacturers, film producers, big rasslin' bruisers from the WWF (we didn't say "fake" -- honest!) -- anybody who'll listen! -- and mercilessly preaches the virtues of drag racing to them.

They're hooked. They're sponsors. They're wanting to smell nitro so they can cough and gag and cry and still be cool, just like at the starting line, subjecting their eardrums to detonation. They're giddy with Toliver when he stands there in that winner’s circle and stabs the air with that Wally statue. They want to be rockstars, too.

And who doesn't?

OK, Dale Armstrong.

He doesn't.

Well, he didn't, anyway.

He didn't miss drag racing at all. But Jerry Toliver worked on him, worked his magic. That twinkle in his eyes, that untamed enthusiasm, that booming voice that's some curious cross between a timpani crescendo and a trumpet call to action.

Oh, who knows why it rocked Armstrong from his comfort zone? But it did.

And goodness, no -- Dale Armstrong didn't wail in his garage like some kind of lunatic. Are you kidding? But Toliver did persuade him to jump into the mix when he secured a three-year Funny Car sponsorship agreement with Rockstar Energy Drink.

And Toliver seemed almost as pleased that he would be working with Armstrong as he was to be back in a Funny Car -- a Toyota Funny Car again.

So they took Toliver's Solara to Las Vegas in March to test it. And on the way back to Temecula -- according to Toliver -- the normally quiet Armstrong behaved as if he had guzzled four or five Rockstar Energy drinks.

"Dale was wound up! He talked all the way home!" Toliver said, obviously delighted that he had nudged the "retiree" from his home garage, where he has spent much of the past five or six years tinkering with project cars.

They couldn't help but remember their previous association. Now they would reprise the roles they had enjoyed so much in 2000, when they had Funny Car icon John Force distressed with their swashbuckling WWF act -- well, Toliver's, at least. That season they also had three victories and the points lead through the first seven races. And they had it and for a four-event stretch in the summer before Force put the smackdown on Toliver and fellow contender Ron Capps for another championship.

And there they were, on the track together again -- until blowing sand and finally rain drove them from The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and their first test session with their new toy . . . uh, make that Toyota.

Eventually, Toliver renewed his Funny Car license, took his Rockstar Energy Drink-sponsored car to Houston to fulfill sponsor obligations, then finally debuted the Toyota Solara at Las Vegas. He had a DNQ there and at Atlanta but qualified 14th at St. Louis, where he was a first-round victim to Ashley Force.

Toliver wasn't worried. He certainly was in good company with his failures to qualify.  At Las Vegas, he shared the distinction with John Force and strong independent owner/driver Tim Wilkerson. Joining him on the Atlanta Dragway sidelines were Cruz Pedregon, Tommy Johnson Jr., and Bob Gilbertson.

At Madison, Illinois (near St. Louis), Toliver didn't win. His most recent victory still was at the 2004 Winternationals. But Toliver, who said at Houston that he's "trying to play it low-key and get this thing on the track," remains undaunted.

In fact, he said he's "blessed" to have Armstrong on his team again. Armstrong, too, sounded content.

"Jerry Toliver's a good friend of mine. He pursues those sponsorships. He got Rockstar interested and managed to talk me into helping him get started again," Armstrong said. "He would have been the only one I would have come out here with."

As for whether he's on board to give Toliver a push-start or for the remainder of the season, Armstrong said, "The only way I can answer that, really, truthfully, is I don't know."

Toliver said he knows how long he'll keep Armstrong at the races: "Dale's with us until Dale doesn't want to be with us. We're hoping that's a long time."

With a history of non-traditional sponsors (including Mad Magazine, Schick, WWF/WWE, movie distributors, and even Triumph The Insult Dog from "Late Night With Conan O'Brien"), Toliver seems to be drag racing's master of outside-the-box marketing. So how does he do it?

"We're getting more mainstream people coming in here," he said. "I go out and try to find something that works for everybody.

"You have to have a business reason for them to be here," Toliver said. "You don't just paint somebody's name on the side of the car and that's the end of the day. You have to be able to work and interact with their people and get their message out to the fans and make it work in a business fashion."

Jerry Toliver and Dale Armstrong are all business as they head into the O'Reilly Summer Nationals the first weekend in June. Or as Toliver likes to put it -- and he was talking about Rockstar, but it applies to the racing itself -- "I'm going to tell you something: That stuff works! It gets me wound up!"

Maybe enough to sing:

I'll need a credit card that's got no limit
And a big black jet with a bedroom in it

I want a new tour bus full of old guitars
My own star on Hollywood Boulevard
Somewhere between Cher and
James Dean is fine for me.

It might be a perfect place, somewhere there in the rebel section.

I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

What? And ruin a haircut that has stood the test of time, like his dream of driving a Funny Car? And the name . . . no, no, keep it. Like Dale Armstrong might have discovered, it's him. It's all part of the package, all part of what makes the National Hot Rod Association the unpredictable soap opera of speed that it is.

And the cast includes Jerry Toliver again, this time with a Rockstar kind of edge.