Patty Foster was a man’s man – but not in the sense of what used to be called a male chauvinist pig.  Pat was the kind of guy who’d strap on a welder’s mask at night, and a firesuit the next morning.  As a race car driver he competed in an era when some car owners regularly said to their drivers, “No matter what, don’t lift.”  I saw Foster live – and come close to dying – following this credo.  When I asked him, after he’d climbed out of another inferno in Barry Setzer’s Vega at the Springnationals in Columbus, why he continued to drive like that, he just winked, smiled and said “He tells me to drive it to the lights, but it’s my decision whether I go all the way.  Gotta fix this.  We’re running at Englishtown Tuesday night!”  Foster always went all the way, in every aspect of his life.

Pat’s boys are terrific, but in all truth Patty himself was not lucky in matters of the heart.  It was if the gods had said, “You’ll be a master craftsman, a renowned racer, an envied constructor and have a wealth of friends, but in this one area, my friend, things will not always go your way.” Patty Foster was a man’s man – but not in the sense of what used to be called a male chauvinist pig.  Pat was the kind of guy who’d strap on a welder’s mask at night, and a firesuit the next morning.  As a race car driver he competed in an era when some car owners regularly said to their drivers, “No matter what, don’t lift.”  I saw Foster live – and come close to dying – following this credo.  When I asked him, after he’d climbed out of another inferno in Barry Setzer’s Vega at the Springnationals in Columbus, why he continued to drive like that, he just winked, smiled and said “He tells me to drive it to the lights, but it’s my decision whether I go all the way.  Gotta fix this.  We’re running at Englishtown Tuesday night!”  Foster always went all the way, in every aspect of his life.

Pat’s boys are terrific, but in all truth Patty himself was not lucky in matters of the heart.  It was if the gods had said, “You’ll be a master craftsman, a renowned racer, an envied constructor and have a wealth of friends, but in this one area, my friend, things will not always go your way.”

Like everyone who was lucky enough to know Foster – and he was one of those last-name-only guys – I have stories that somehow help define the man.

When Carol and I were living in then-considered-remote Kagel Canyon in Southern California there were numerous evenings when we’d hear the approach of a rumbling Harley.  We’d smile, waiting to see if the motorcycle would turn down our dead end street. We knew if it did it would be one of three people – Foster, Peter Bassin, or Dale Pulde.  It didn’t matter which one it was, we had the door open and smiles on our faces before the late arrival had even switched off the engine and kicked down the stand.

Foster always regaled us with stories, but behind his smile there was a razor-sharp mind able to dissect the inner workings of the NHRA decades before other drivers could see beyond the finish line.  Long before there were chassis specs written in rulebooks Foster – who worked with almost all of the sports legendary builders -- and partner Jim Hume were building cars that were closer to works of art than they were to everyone else’s cookie-cutter designs.

In our younger years all of us did things that were questionable, if not downright illegal.  It was, after all the late 60s and early 70s, and while there will be those who are in denial, the reality of our little world was that we drank too many beers and smoked too many hand-rolled cigarettes or inhaled through small, custom-made metal pipes behind closed doors.

At one point Foster had a “farm” hidden behind the 8-foot walls of his San Fernando Valley home, a crop he successfully took to market after convincing his then junior high school son that if he and his friends left it alone there’d be plenty for everyone.  Believe me, there was.

Should I have skipped that little vignette?  Are anyone’s sensibilities offended?  Patty’s wouldn’t have been.  Every time he talked about that crop he’d help laugh so hard tears would come to his eyes.  Okay, so Patty wasn’t a saint, but let’s admit it:  None of us are.  Only our mothers thought we deserved sainthood, but as we got older they probably figured we’d be going to hell despite their best efforts.

My fondest memory of Foster is the night we sat three feet from the largest stereo speakers I’d ever seen in his rental house somewhere in the Carolinas, listening repeatedly to the Stones’ “Can’t Ya Hear Me Knockin’.”  I wondered what the neighbors might have been thinking until, as Foster re-placed the needle in the proper groove, I could hear their sound system moving the walls of their house next door.

Not too many years ago I got a call from a guy named Don Trassin.  He told me he’d bought the last Jade Grenade front-motored dragster, and wanted to know everything I could possibly tell him about it.  Sadly for me, that was one car before I became a partner, but one thing I did know, and that was the one guy I’d trust to restore that gem -- Pat Foster.  I put them in touch with one another, with the result of Foster’s efforts being the best looking front-motored Top Fuel car I’ve ever seen.  You can’t miss its gorgeous green colors during its Cacklefest appearances, or as it sits beneath the spotlights of the Wally Parks Museum of Drag Racing in Pomona.

As the years go by I find myself saying good-bye to far too many good people, and it seems to me that more of the best of them take that final step into the great void far too early, leaving us to wonder at their lives, and cherish their memories.  I won’t shed a public tear for Patty.  He’d’ve kicked my ass if he thought I’d do something like that, but I, along with countless others, will miss his smiling face, his insightful comments and his “When’s-the-next-round” personality.

It doesn’t matter what your ingrained religious beliefs are.  What counts is what you believe inside your heart and soul.  I’d like to believe that somewhere there’s something that some might consider a heaven.  But I can’t envision that with floating clouds and angels with wings.  For me it’s an extension of this life, and I know there’s a drag strip there, one that probably looks like one of those tracks that have been plowed under.  Maybe it’s like Irwindale, or maybe even like U.S. 30, but the surface is glass-smooth and the traction’s always great even if there are oildowns.  There are a bunch of racers getting ready to run right now, and there, pulling an aluminized mask over his beard is the newest arrival, the guy they’ve all been waiting for, Pat Foster.