Hangin' With Jungle, Shirley, and Pam
By Rich Wilcox
We were at an 8-car show at New England Dragway, circa 1971. I had the Brutus car tethered to the rear of my '63 Futura and we were parked at the top of staging waiting for the word to bring 'em out. It started to rain pretty steady, so I headed for the driver's side of the car to wait out the shower. Just as I was closing the door, the passenger side opened up, the seat back got pulled forward, and into the back seat jumped Pam and then Shirley. Jungle climbed in shotgun and closed the door. Feature, if you will, that Shirley was dressed in her early "Cha-Cha" garb, Jungle had his firesuit pants and boots on, and Pam was... Pam! Fishnet top, no bra, killer cutoff jean shorts, and calf high white boots. Outrageous ... Y'know I have always thought that if a Funny Car could become a woman in the flesh ... but I digress!
The four of us were killing time shootin' the breeze... talking about this and that, about nothing in particular, about how the NED fans dug Funnies and how they really seemed to dig chicks with Funnies ... From behind me came Pam's voice... she matter of factly (and maybe even just a bit innocently) stated that she just didn't get why the guys dug her. Well, my jaw had to have hit the floorboard! I first looked at her in the rear view with every intention of making some wisecrack, but the tongue just wouldn't engage! So I glanced over my shoulder at Shirley who was giving Pam a classic who-you-tryin'-to-s**t look, and then my eyes darted back to meet Jungle's. The look on my face must have been priceless! He just winked, rolled his eyes and let a trace of a smile cross his face.
About that time one of us noticed that the rain had let up... thank God!! So we bailed out of the car and I got to catch my breath. As a side note: Before the rain cut loose, Jungle had walked out onto the starting line. His fire boots had a nice coating of rubber on the soles. While he was in the car, he had his left foot on the tranny tunnel. When he got out, there was a perfect foot print on the blue carpet. I sold the car to a kid from Maine about 2 or 3 months later. When I told him whose foot made the imprint, he had to have it. I got $200 more for the car than I was intending to ask for it just because of that footprint. Now ... that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!
Rev
