Here's a cool story I want to share about this years U.S. Nationals. My relatives and were camping in the campground across from the track. It was Friday morning. My sister wanted to go find and visit the drag racing factories that were near. We have never seen them before. So, we hop in the car and find their factories. We stop in at Schumacher’s. They were having some car show or something. We drove around the other factories. We wanted to see if any of them were giving tours. My sister runs into the Pedregon shop, finds a man and asks if they are giving tours. He said all their stuff is over at the track and there was really nothing to see. He said if their stuff was there he would be happy to give a tour but at that time, all their stuff was at the track.
So, we take off again down the road. We see Bernstein's new and nice factory and stop in. My sister runs in and is in there for a few minutes. She runs out and says - come on in! When my sister went in she saw Kenny Bernstein and she asked for a tour. He asked how many were in the group. She said - just three. So he said Come on in! Kenny Bernstein gave us a complete personal tour around his brand new factory. That guy took us in almost every room. He explained what each room would probably be for. He answered questions we had for him. He was a super nice gentleman.
I had my camera but only took one or two pictures. One interesting thing he said was that he and his wife designed that factory with lots of rooms to make it more attractive to potential buyers if he ever decides to leave the drag racing business. He said it a few times that the building was designed not only for the team but also the future when he leaves drag racing.
Anyway, that was about the highlight of the whole event for us. A personal tour of Kenny Bernstein's new factory by Kenny himself!
He was a lot more talkative than Doug Kalitta! I really liked Doug because he had the same look on his face win or lose. I bought two Kalitta shirts that week. I went up to Doug at some tent. He was signing his autograph on some cardboard things and handing them out. I go up and say - Hi! I just bought two of your shirts! He says with a plain tone - ok. good. And that is it. lol.
I thought to myself - wow. He's the same guy in person as he is on ESPN2! I did not really know what think about that tho. I was a little disappointed. Actually, I was a lot disappointed. That night I got on the computer and was reading alt.autos.sport.nhra on usenet. To my surprise I see two posts talking about Doug and his attitude! They were saying Doug is very shy guy. Whatever. The two Kalitta shirts I got were cool looking!
