DrRocket
Nitro Member
Are you kidding me? This has been one of the better threads during the down time.
Don't be sorry.
Cheating... and I don't mean on your spouse (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter barry
- Start date
Are you kidding me? This has been one of the better threads during the down time.
Don't be sorry.
Marc - You didn't derail anything.. perhaps a little side tracked, but hell, what topic doesn't that happen to. If only our politicians stayed on topic as well as the people do on this site. Besides, no one that I know has the credibility and expertise in the sport of drag racing than you have. You and others here have "been there-done that".. I'm not sure if you guys have the T shirt..you probably do.
And to be completely honest, I really don't care if anyone is cheating. Even if they were, it wouldn't have any effect on my limited operation. I wouldn't do it because I would never want to do anything to tarnish Marie's reputation. Plus all the fuel additives NASA has wouldn't help get my old worn out parts to be competitive with the lead dogs. It is however, kind of amusing how lots of folks seem to think that everyone is honest. Maybe they're just good people that see the good in their fellow man. Fortunately for them they don't follow NASCAR, where it seems that every week someone or some team (I'm sure all good honest people) are getting caught trying to get away with something, mainly because NASCAR has the means to check and enforce their rules.
And to be completely honest, I really don't care if anyone is cheating. Even if they were, it wouldn't have any effect on my limited operation. I wouldn't do it because I would never want to do anything to tarnish Marie's reputation. Plus all the fuel additives NASA has wouldn't help get my old worn out parts to be competitive with the lead dogs. It is however, kind of amusing how lots of folks seem to think that everyone is honest. Maybe they're just good people that see the good in their fellow man. Fortunately for them they don't follow NASCAR, where it seems that every week someone or some team (I'm sure all good honest people) are getting caught trying to get away with something, mainly because NASCAR has the means to check and enforce their rules.
Justin@NRE
Nitro Member
NASCAR also charges $4300 entry fees per team per race at their highest level, which is only a little over 12 times what Alky entries pay for national events. NASCAR collects more entry fees on a 50 cars to qualify field than NHRA does at a 400 car national event. At $350/entry, NHRA would need about 620 entries to get what NASCAR gets from tech-ing 50 Sprint Cup cars. The teams pay out the nose for the tech services. Over a 39 event season, they rake in about $8.3 million just in tech/entry fees. That's 80 people @ $100,000/year and $300,000 left for special tools/templates. If NHRA pulls 400 cars at all 24 Nationals, they are $5 million behind NASCAR's tech fund. And as far as thinking everyone is honest, I know for a fact it isn't the case. But the vast majority do it right for the exact reason you mentioned. Nobody wants the tarnished reputation that goes with cheating and that is probably the single biggest deterrent drag racing has against cheating. Drag racing, especially at the 6 second and quicker level is so difficult to get all of it on a given lap that even the people I know cheated still didn't run at a level they thought they would. And what I've seen wasn't additives or electronics, had more to do with the pulling one over at the scales or not so obvious ways of getting maybe 1 more psi out of your blower.
stitcherbob
Nitro Member
"NASCAR also charges $4300 entry fees per team per race at their highest level, which is only a little over 12 times what Alky entries pay for national events"
Shhhh! Don't give the NHRA any ideas!
Shhhh! Don't give the NHRA any ideas!
reo bad
Nitro Member
Wow it was neat to see this talk. Yes I remember that day at Pomona very clear. I still remember sitting there with Rick Stewart telling me to shut it off and I was thinking no way just let me roll forward and stage then I will shut it off. I had forgot about your guys issue just being a gauge problem. It is great to hear all of these memorable stories. I don't get on too often so if I don't respond it is nothing personal. Merry Christmas too all and good luck in your racing en devours.
Randy
Nitro Member
What some of you probably already know is the third dimension in racing. The intimidating guy who would crawl into the heads of his competition. I'm going to tell a Bucky story.
After I quit driving Pete Swayne took over driving for us in 1998. Pete was a fan of the sport well before coming on board with me and was a crew member 2 years before he drove our TA/FC. Having watched these guys, Pete was intimidated by the likes of Frank, Pat, Bucky, etc. And since Pete took over, Bucky had been playing Pete like a fiddle every time we raced him.
For example, here's a picture from the semi finals in Sonoma in 1998 where Pete red lighted against Bucky. A win would have put us in the final. Pete stayed on it and ran low et of the round. Pete was outrunning Bucky all weekend, but Bucky crawled in his head. Look at the 'tree.
At the 1999 Winternationals we had our act together and Pete was outrunning everyone during eliminations by about 1/2 tenth. First round he beat a tire shaking Frank Manzo. Second round he outran Pat Austin, third round he beat Dennis Taylor with low et of eliminations. Then came the final, except it started raining. NHRA pulls the plug and now we are to run the finals on Monday. I showed up Monday at Pomona after a morning work appointment I had and the guys had just finished warming up our car. Big Mike tells me we have a problem. Bucky came over and talked to Pete. Bucky told him the track was cold and he was detuning his car because it may not make it. I asked Pete if this was true and he said yes. Then Pete wanted to know how much I was planning on detuning ours. "I'm not detuning anything!" I told him Bucky came over there to mess with him. We go to the line, Pete is sound asleep on the lights, short shifts it into high gear, slows to his worst run in eliminations and Bucky wins the Winternationals. Grrrrrrrr.....
From Drag Race Central:
POMONA, Calif. - Summary of eliminations in Federal-Mogul Funny Car at the 39th annual NHRA AutoZone Winternationals:
Round 1 :
Pete Swayne, Orange CA, 97 Firebird, Left lane, (0.525) 5.728 250.27, def. Frank Manzo, Morganville NJ, 98 Avenger, (0.445) 12.001 77.43
Russ Parker, Salem OR, 97 Firebird, Right lane, (0.461) 5.797 246.30, def. Bob Gallio, Fullerton CA, 95 Thunderbird, (0.657) 6.079 237.71
Steve Sommer, Nampa ID, 98 Firebird, Left lane, (0.478) 5.884 249.39, def. Bret Williamson, Campbell CA, 92 Trans Am, (0.509) 6.155 239.31
Pat Austin, Tacoma WA, 99 Firebird, Right lane, (0.451) 5.758 249.72, def. John Hyland, Springfield OR, 98 Mustang, (0.430) 5.875 246.03
Steve Gasparrelli, West Covina CA, 99 Firebird, Right lane, (0.530) 5.938 244.34, def. Larry Miner, Woodbridge CA, 98 Avenger, (0.471) 6.038 238.30
Dennis Taylor, Anaheim CA, 99 Avenger, Left lane, (0.426) 6.026 232.07, def. Mike Andreotti, Colusa CA, 92 Daytona, (0.457) 9.089 86.11
Rod Alexander, Santa Clarita CA, 97 Cutlass, Left lane, (0.492) 5.959 238.68, def. Jay Payne, Upland CA, 99 Camaro, (0.563) 6.011 237.05
Bucky Austin, Fife WA, 97 Firebird, Right lane, (0.468) 5.770 250.04, def. Mert Littlefield, Garden Grove CA, 95 Achieva, (0.463) 5.814 243.24
Round 2 :
P Swayne, Left lane, (0.472) 5.747 246.53, def. P Austin, (0.469) 5.844 246.30
R Parker, Right lane, (0.438) 5.769 243.72, def. S Gasparrelli, (0.454) (Broke)
B Austin, Left lane, (0.494) 5.766 245.54, def. S Sommer, (0.461) 5.889 247.34
D Taylor, Right lane, (0.628) 11.373 71.26, def. R Alexander, (Broke)
Round 3 :
B Austin, Right lane, (0.466) 5.768 247.61, def. R Parker, (0.428) 6.947 139.30
P Swayne, Left lane, (0.560) 5.725 248.48, def. D Taylor, (0.437) 6.007 232.67
Round 4 :
B Austin, Right lane, (0.464) 5.752 248.75, def. P Swayne, (0.615) 5.798 247.02
Fast forward to the 1999 Division race in Mission, BC, Canada. After Bucky played Pete like a fiddle at Pomona I decided that in order for Pete to stop being intimidated by Bucky I needed to lighten things up a bit. I went to our vinyl lettering guy and asked him to make me a set of "Northwest Hitter" stickers complete with boxing gloves like Bucky had on his car, except I had him add a red circle with a line through it like the no u-turn signs you see. I carried them in the trailer and finally got to use them in the semi final in Mission. With the 8 car divisional field we raced Russ Parker first round and won, then we were set to race Bucky second round. We were outrunning Bucky by about half a tenth again at this race, but this time I didn't want my driver to have another melt down. So I stuck the stickers on the side of the body after first round and off to the staging lanes we go. Pete had no clue I did it until I showed them to him in the staging lanes. Pete came unglued..."What did you do that for?" Then he laughed and said "You did it because of me, didn't you!" Yep.
I walked over to Bucky and I said, "Hey Bucky, I just need to show you something the guys made me do." He took one look and was p#ssed! Pete was watching all this and got a little scared. I told Pete we're just messing with him. He'll be fine. When they said to suit up Bucky stomped over with his helmet under his arm, stood there and faced the sticker on my car, never took his eyes off it, hoisted his helmet, slammed it on his head, strapped it on, stomped back over and climbed in his race car.
Pete looked at me and said something like "Bucky is going to kill you when this is over." I said "Naw, Bucky and I are pals and he knows why I did this. But you better be on your game because he's p#ssed!"
Pete stayed cool, and Bucky red lighted. Bucky ran it through with what he had been running all weekend, a 5.72. Pete ran it down anyway with a 5.64 for the win. After that not too many people intimidated Pete. He went on to win the event and the NHRA Pacific Division Championship actually wrapping it up early at the Noble, Oklahoma, division race.
Here's a video shot by Larry Pfister posted on youtube of the runs we made at the 1999 Mission division race. The first run is actually our race against Pat Austin in the final where we won. Both of us blew up toward the finish line and slowed, but Pat Austin did his impersonation of Jack Beckman by shredding the body into a hundred pieces off the car. The run against Bucky is at 4:30 into the video.
After I quit driving Pete Swayne took over driving for us in 1998. Pete was a fan of the sport well before coming on board with me and was a crew member 2 years before he drove our TA/FC. Having watched these guys, Pete was intimidated by the likes of Frank, Pat, Bucky, etc. And since Pete took over, Bucky had been playing Pete like a fiddle every time we raced him.
For example, here's a picture from the semi finals in Sonoma in 1998 where Pete red lighted against Bucky. A win would have put us in the final. Pete stayed on it and ran low et of the round. Pete was outrunning Bucky all weekend, but Bucky crawled in his head. Look at the 'tree.
At the 1999 Winternationals we had our act together and Pete was outrunning everyone during eliminations by about 1/2 tenth. First round he beat a tire shaking Frank Manzo. Second round he outran Pat Austin, third round he beat Dennis Taylor with low et of eliminations. Then came the final, except it started raining. NHRA pulls the plug and now we are to run the finals on Monday. I showed up Monday at Pomona after a morning work appointment I had and the guys had just finished warming up our car. Big Mike tells me we have a problem. Bucky came over and talked to Pete. Bucky told him the track was cold and he was detuning his car because it may not make it. I asked Pete if this was true and he said yes. Then Pete wanted to know how much I was planning on detuning ours. "I'm not detuning anything!" I told him Bucky came over there to mess with him. We go to the line, Pete is sound asleep on the lights, short shifts it into high gear, slows to his worst run in eliminations and Bucky wins the Winternationals. Grrrrrrrr.....
From Drag Race Central:
POMONA, Calif. - Summary of eliminations in Federal-Mogul Funny Car at the 39th annual NHRA AutoZone Winternationals:
Round 1 :
Pete Swayne, Orange CA, 97 Firebird, Left lane, (0.525) 5.728 250.27, def. Frank Manzo, Morganville NJ, 98 Avenger, (0.445) 12.001 77.43
Russ Parker, Salem OR, 97 Firebird, Right lane, (0.461) 5.797 246.30, def. Bob Gallio, Fullerton CA, 95 Thunderbird, (0.657) 6.079 237.71
Steve Sommer, Nampa ID, 98 Firebird, Left lane, (0.478) 5.884 249.39, def. Bret Williamson, Campbell CA, 92 Trans Am, (0.509) 6.155 239.31
Pat Austin, Tacoma WA, 99 Firebird, Right lane, (0.451) 5.758 249.72, def. John Hyland, Springfield OR, 98 Mustang, (0.430) 5.875 246.03
Steve Gasparrelli, West Covina CA, 99 Firebird, Right lane, (0.530) 5.938 244.34, def. Larry Miner, Woodbridge CA, 98 Avenger, (0.471) 6.038 238.30
Dennis Taylor, Anaheim CA, 99 Avenger, Left lane, (0.426) 6.026 232.07, def. Mike Andreotti, Colusa CA, 92 Daytona, (0.457) 9.089 86.11
Rod Alexander, Santa Clarita CA, 97 Cutlass, Left lane, (0.492) 5.959 238.68, def. Jay Payne, Upland CA, 99 Camaro, (0.563) 6.011 237.05
Bucky Austin, Fife WA, 97 Firebird, Right lane, (0.468) 5.770 250.04, def. Mert Littlefield, Garden Grove CA, 95 Achieva, (0.463) 5.814 243.24
Round 2 :
P Swayne, Left lane, (0.472) 5.747 246.53, def. P Austin, (0.469) 5.844 246.30
R Parker, Right lane, (0.438) 5.769 243.72, def. S Gasparrelli, (0.454) (Broke)
B Austin, Left lane, (0.494) 5.766 245.54, def. S Sommer, (0.461) 5.889 247.34
D Taylor, Right lane, (0.628) 11.373 71.26, def. R Alexander, (Broke)
Round 3 :
B Austin, Right lane, (0.466) 5.768 247.61, def. R Parker, (0.428) 6.947 139.30
P Swayne, Left lane, (0.560) 5.725 248.48, def. D Taylor, (0.437) 6.007 232.67
Round 4 :
B Austin, Right lane, (0.464) 5.752 248.75, def. P Swayne, (0.615) 5.798 247.02
Fast forward to the 1999 Division race in Mission, BC, Canada. After Bucky played Pete like a fiddle at Pomona I decided that in order for Pete to stop being intimidated by Bucky I needed to lighten things up a bit. I went to our vinyl lettering guy and asked him to make me a set of "Northwest Hitter" stickers complete with boxing gloves like Bucky had on his car, except I had him add a red circle with a line through it like the no u-turn signs you see. I carried them in the trailer and finally got to use them in the semi final in Mission. With the 8 car divisional field we raced Russ Parker first round and won, then we were set to race Bucky second round. We were outrunning Bucky by about half a tenth again at this race, but this time I didn't want my driver to have another melt down. So I stuck the stickers on the side of the body after first round and off to the staging lanes we go. Pete had no clue I did it until I showed them to him in the staging lanes. Pete came unglued..."What did you do that for?" Then he laughed and said "You did it because of me, didn't you!" Yep.
I walked over to Bucky and I said, "Hey Bucky, I just need to show you something the guys made me do." He took one look and was p#ssed! Pete was watching all this and got a little scared. I told Pete we're just messing with him. He'll be fine. When they said to suit up Bucky stomped over with his helmet under his arm, stood there and faced the sticker on my car, never took his eyes off it, hoisted his helmet, slammed it on his head, strapped it on, stomped back over and climbed in his race car.
Pete looked at me and said something like "Bucky is going to kill you when this is over." I said "Naw, Bucky and I are pals and he knows why I did this. But you better be on your game because he's p#ssed!"
Pete stayed cool, and Bucky red lighted. Bucky ran it through with what he had been running all weekend, a 5.72. Pete ran it down anyway with a 5.64 for the win. After that not too many people intimidated Pete. He went on to win the event and the NHRA Pacific Division Championship actually wrapping it up early at the Noble, Oklahoma, division race.
Here's a video shot by Larry Pfister posted on youtube of the runs we made at the 1999 Mission division race. The first run is actually our race against Pat Austin in the final where we won. Both of us blew up toward the finish line and slowed, but Pat Austin did his impersonation of Jack Beckman by shredding the body into a hundred pieces off the car. The run against Bucky is at 4:30 into the video.
stitcherbob
Nitro Member
Randy, did you ever hear anything about an Austin who had an overweight body bar and got caught when it fell at the scales? I think it was at ETown
Sean D, shondoo
Nitro Member
Quick and funny (funny for me, at least) story about Marc's "intensity"....
I spent the first 24 years of my adult life as a springmaker. One day the boss, who obviously knew I was into racing asked me what I thought about us getting into the performance valve spring market. Long story short, I told him there were areas we could compete, while other areas would be pretty tough to catch up. The D-3 points meet in Indy was only a couple of weeks after this conversation, so I told him I would go down and poke around the alcohol pits. I said if we could make a spring to live in those things, we could literally build a spring for anything.
After visits to most of the other pit areas, I walk into Marc's pit (I think he was driving for George and Jane at the time). The crew was thrashing, as was Marc. A guy that wasn't doing much asked me if he could help me, so we start discussing the valve spring situation. Marc is back-and-forth, head down, thrashing non-stop. He must've been listening to us while working because in mid-stride, he stops right next to us, looks me right in the eye and says, "the steel springs are pieces of sh!t, but we can't afford to run the titanium. If you can make a steel spring that's better than these pieces of sh!t, I'll run the mother-f***ers RIGHT NOW!"
My wife at the time was with me, and her eyes were the size of hubcaps when he went back to work on the car. I was laughing my a$$ off because I had been around enough of the events to know he was wound pretty tight. But it's a day I'll never forget for sure! Lol!
Unrelated to the thread, but since you posted I wanted to pass along my appreciation for your Dad. One of the things I look forward to the most during the sportsman broadcasts is watching your Pops do that fist pump! I'm not even in the car and it fires me up EVERY TIME! Lol!
Sean D
Randy
Nitro Member
Can I tell a Marc White story?
When Marc was driving my TA/FC amost 13 years ago we would talk on the phone for hours while he was driving around Chicago and I was driving around the San Fernando Valley doing appraisals. One time about 10 minutes into our conversation Marc calmly asks "Will you excuse me one minute, please." OK. Then I hear the window going down, and in a calm voice Marc yells out "WHERE THE H#LL DID YOU GET YOUR F-ING DRIVER'S LICENSE YOU M#THER F-ER?" In the background I hear a similar response from the motorist Marc was being nice to. Then I hear the window go back up and in a soft quiet voice Marc calmly says... ""OK, I'm back..."
I told Big Mike this story one time and he laughed for 10 minutes. He said if anyone could get away with that it would be Marc.
Obviously, there's a lot joking going on with using you as the humorous person but just one more dig for the hell of it.
Everyone is having fun with the stories and memories of course, All good of course but Please, Let me put my spin on it Just for Christmas (Not Holidays! as it is supposed to be used as to not offend others), Picture this......
Sorry...but here it goes.
Marc, Dressed like SANTA (Billy Bob Thornton style) Standing in front of Walmart with a Salvation Army container Yelling "Hey you bastard...A goddam quarter?? I have a box of Girl Scout cookies that I gonna shove right up your a$$ if you don't dig me out at least a 5 spot for the people that need it you F$@K!"
Oh B.T.W. I'm gonna be the First to wish you, Mark... A Merry Christmas not happy holidays !
Enjoy and don't get mad at me, Just wanted to put a on your face! Joe
Everyone is having fun with the stories and memories of course, All good of course but Please, Let me put my spin on it Just for Christmas (Not Holidays! as it is supposed to be used as to not offend others), Picture this......
Sorry...but here it goes.
Marc, Dressed like SANTA (Billy Bob Thornton style) Standing in front of Walmart with a Salvation Army container Yelling "Hey you bastard...A goddam quarter?? I have a box of Girl Scout cookies that I gonna shove right up your a$$ if you don't dig me out at least a 5 spot for the people that need it you F$@K!"
Oh B.T.W. I'm gonna be the First to wish you, Mark... A Merry Christmas not happy holidays !
Enjoy and don't get mad at me, Just wanted to put a
on your face! Joe
TAFC 5 81
Nitro Member
RE the intimidating subject, back in the Pro Comp days we were in our second season of racing anything. In the first round of eliminations (1979 IHRA Springnationals in Bristol), our opponent (in a AADA) said "I stage last". He then asked "what kind of engine do you have"? Iron BBC was my answer (we had not yet figured out why our Rodeck w/ aluminum heads was underperforming). He responded "your crank will seize up before you could make me stage first". We didn't try any stunts and lost (he had a faster car). I attended the 1979 IHRA World Finals (w/o our car) and helped my mentor Jerry Gwynn (present with his AA/A). Gwynn qualified #5 in an 8 car field. That drew our nemesis from Bristol (who was #1 qualifier). He sent word to Gwynn he would not stage first as expected. Gwynn was ready (Milodon w/ Veney heads) and sat there and forced the other guy to stage first and then beat him with a holeshot.
TAFC 5 81
Nitro Member
I was 17 when the class came out, but it inspired me to go racing instead of just watching.
