The Saga of the Iron Pegasus

By Bill McAteer... "Billy Mac 286"

In each person’s life, there are moments, events, or a series of situations that ultimately define who or what we are. The following story is an attempt to define “Me,” not that in the grand scheme of things, it matters all that much, but it just might be entertaining. So, sit back... prop your feet up and take a 20-year journey with me. You may want to strap your seat belts on, because at times, it’s a bumpy ride. I hope you enjoy...

I guess now is as good a time as any to introduce myself (drum roll, please)... I am a 45-year-old wannabe drag racer, who goes by the nickname of “Billy Mac.” I fell in love with drag racing at the tender age of eight years during the summer of 1969, when my older brother took me to an event at (now defunct) Fremont Raceway in Fremont, California. What we saw that day: Stockers and Super Stockers, some Factory Experimentals, along with some Gassers, kept me in awe for days after. I told my brother that day, “Some day, I’ll have me one.” He just looked at me and rolled his eyes. (My Dad would do the same thing when I would lie on the living room floor for hours drawing those cars... he would have preferred for me to be drawing horses or something similar... )

Well, in 1985, I stumbled across my current race car, a ‘69 Ford Mustang Coupe. And that was the beginning of a long and sometimes painful relationship with Hot Rodding. Until typing this, I had not made the connection of how truly apropos that car really is... I miss ya, Dad.

Being an “old-school” kind of guy, I’m a firm believer that a race car needs a name on its sides, a name that tells something about either the car or the driver. Names like the “Chi-Town Hustler,” “Brutus,” or “The Chizler” came to mind. Driver nicknames were often pretty colorful as well: “Big Daddy,” “The Bounty Hunter,” or “The Snake” and “The Mongoose.” Jerry Ruth claimed to be “The King,” so knowing there was only one way to beat a King, Ed McCulloch became “The Ace.” In today’s racing, there aren’t too many nicknames anymore. Tony Schumacher is “The Sarge” and Richie Stevens is known as “The Kid”... and believe me, they don’t call Rickie Smith “Tricky” for nothing...

So I tried to come up with a moniker for my car. Names like “Trojan Horse,” “War Horse,” “Crazy Horse,” and “Hobby Horse” all popped into my mind, but those names had already been used on a string of cars back in the ‘70s, mostly on Funny Cars. I even thought about “Lil’ Dreamer,” because it was a dream to have this car, but I don’t know... it just didn’t seem to “sing.” Then I started thinking about Rock ‘n Roll band names. “Iron Butterfly”... ”Led Zeppelin”... ”Iron Maiden”... and then my mind shifted to Greek mythology, Zeus and Apollo and stuff like that. Then I remembered ol’ Hercules and his flying horse, “Pegasus.” OK, maybe I was on to something here. A couple of days later, I was in the grocery store looking for a notebook, and on the cover of one was one of the neatest pictures I had ever seen! It was on a mechanical Pegasus, flying through a nighttime sky. That cinched it for me. From that instant on, my new Hot Rod would be known as the “Iron Pegasus.”

Having just acquired a suitable vehicle to convert into a race car and having given it its own personality, I made the decision to add safety equipment such as a roll bar, etc. Keep in mind, at the time I had a hard time just spelling the word “weld,” much less performing the task, but through trial and error, I taught myself how to do it. Another thing I had trouble with (and still do to this day) was coming up with the money to buy a cage kit, so I rummaged through a local scrap yard and found a couple of sticks of the right sized tubing. Not having the tools and equipment to “properly” bend that tubing, I made good use of three trees in my parents’ yard and tugged and pulled one of those 20-foot sticks into a roll bar.

Believe it or not, it actually looked pretty good, considering how it was made. A mechanic friend of mine offered me the engine and tranny out of a wrecked Lincoln Continental (460 & C-6) if I would take ‘em out. I gratefully accepted the offer and not long after, went to the track where, on the very first pass, the motor spun a bearing and destroyed the bottom end. A trend, unfortunately, that has repeated itself in varying ways over the years. Between 1985 and 1991, the chassis and cage was transformed several times with stuff I dug up at the scrap yard. Through it all, I managed to end up with a complete tube frame, but my construction techniques were not quite up to snuff and after finally making a few decent passes (a best of 7.38 in the eighth mile), my local track banned me from further competition until I had a car that met status quo.

I had done a considerable amount of horse trading (no pun intended) to get to this point (lettering race cars and trucks along with doing airbrush work, etc. in exchange for parts and services) and needed to employ the same method with a chassis shop over in Northwest Florida. They had a ’57 Chevy Super Pro car on which they wanted the fiberglass front end detailed to look “original.” I did the work on their car, and in April of 1992, I re-emerged with a professionally built custom chassis. Sigh... my dear friend, “Murphy” (of Murphy’s Law infamy) made his presence known once again, the very first time I was back at the track.

On the third pass, the motor broke a rod and I once again went on hiatus while trying to scrounge up another bullet to put under the hood. More of the horse trading business ensued and about a year later, I made it back to the track. I was getting progressively quicker and faster, but I was having nagging tranny problems, which kept my participation to a sporadic few trips down the strip over the course of the next couple of years. I did manage to dip into the low 6.90 range (eighth mile) during this time. In 1996, I competed at my first NHRA Divisional event in Reynolds, Georgia, where I made my first-ever quarter mile passes. (LOL)

After running eighth mile races for so long, that first trip down the quarter mile seemed like it went on forever! To make things worse, thanks to a case of nerves, I rolled through the starting-line lights before the Christmas Tree was activated and didn’t get any kind of a time slip. The only thing I did know what that, "Well... OK... we made it ONCE, anyway!” That weekend, I even managed to run a 10.93 on the 10.90 index of the Super Street heads-up class (in a losing effort in the first round on Sunday). After my quarter mile initiation, I made a couple of trips to my local track, then monies got tight and I parked my “’Stang” for the remainder of the year.

The year 1997 got off to a decent start and in February, I made it to the NHRA Division 2 season opener in Gainesville, Florida, and also to Orlando in early March. Then I got some good news. Because I had attended the Reynolds race the year before (and earned “grading points” there, necessary for National Events), I was eligible to enter the Southern Nationals in Atlanta, and I did just that. Hot Damn, I was going to a National Event! Yee HAWWW!! One of my horse traders owns a performance transmission shop, and he told me that all I needed to do was change from my C-6 trans to a Powerglide (with the required adaptors, etc.) and I would be able to run the 10.90 index with no problem... except “He” didn’t need “That” much lettering done at that time.

So I contacted Lucas Oil Products (who I had picked up as a “product” sponsor just prior to the beginning of the season) and requested some assistance in upgrading my program. I told Mr. Bob Patison at Lucas that I knew I would be taking a sling shot to a gun fight, even with the needed changes, but that if they would be willin’ to help, the ol’ Iron Pegasus would be a sling shot on steroids. (LOL) He called me later that night after reading my faxed letter and told me that I had written a funny letter, but that it had worked, and “How much did I need?” Now, I “could” tell you how much that amount was, but then I’d have to kill you, and I don’t feel up to goin’ to jail. But I do still have a photocopy of that check.

Lo and behold, Murphy showed up again and prevented me from making it to Atlanta. Oh, I was headed in that direction, but in my haste to get loaded up and get home to perhaps spend some time with my wife before I left that Wednesday night, I neglected to “fasten” my trailer to my truck, and, you guessed it: the trailer came loose. Approximately 15 miles from home, going over a small bridge, the trailer decided that it had a destination of its own... and that destination was a great big Oak Tree. Ouchhhh!!! My pretty pony car was in a bad way, as the front end was destroyed. The roof and quarter panels were OK (sort of) but that Oak Tree had made confetti out of my fiberglass front end and hood and bananas out of the front frame rails from the firewall forward. Are you wondering where the “funny” part comes in? Hmmm... Me, too. But read on.

To say I was devastated would be a major understatement, but I never once considered abandoning my quest. Call me crazy... call me hard-headed... call me obsessed... call me totally dedicated to this dream (nightmare?). At the time of the incident, I had a cell phone with me and I immediately called Lucas to let them know of my misfortunes. Here I was, sitting on the side of the road, looking down at my wrinkled-up race car, dialing my sponsor. I was fully prepared to just leave a message, seeing as how it was after midnight here in the East, but apparently at least one Lucas employee was working overtime and my call was answered. I relayed the story to Marty (I never did get his last name) and asked him to have Mr. Patison call me as soon as he got into the office the following morning.

Mr. Bob called around 11 AM and asked me if I could go on to Atlanta and give fellow Lucas-sponsored racer Hector Arana (Pro Stock Motorcycle) an extra set of hands and moral support. I told him that I was unsure if I could “mentally” make that trip right now and he just kinda let it go. Well, at about 10:30 Friday night, I informed my wife that I was going and about 48 hours after trashing my car, off to Atlanta I went. Had a great time, too. To this day, Hector and I are friends... kindred spirits, you might say, as we are both “Do It Yourselfers.” Sadly, though, Hector and Murphy are also acquainted, because he had nothing but trouble the whole time I was there... (I really hope that is a coincidence...).

Once I got back from Atlanta, I embarked on the daunting task of assessing the damage. What I found (to put it bluntly) pissed me off! What was supposed to be a mild steel chassis and cage was actually black iron water pipe... (GRRRR!!) And, several of the joints were NOT completely welded around... (Even more GRRRR!! With large doses of colorful expression thrown in for good measure that befitted the occasion!) The never-say-die instinct kicked in and I came to the conclusion that:

1)      I had built this thing right by myself several times before (badly, but that was beside the point)

2)      Major chassis shops around the country were now showing pictures of complete chassis in their advertising, so I would have something better to go by than just my imagination, and

3)      I had to get by rebuilding one more, once again.

I called around and found that I could order enough tubing to do a complete chassis AND have it shipped across the country (from Washington State) $150 cheaper than I could get it out of Atlanta... right here in my own state! I still haven’t figured that one out, but what’s done is done.

Right by myself, I started a “From the ground up” rebuild of my chassis. This time, I had acquired myself a pipe bender and could give those trees in the yard a break. Almost a year to the day after I wrecked the car, I returned to my local track where, as my luck would have it, Murphy awaited. Remember that “trend” I mentioned earlier? Yup... second pass... the motor expired while kicking a couple of rods out of the block. UGGGGHHHH!!! And ARRRRGGGHHHH!!!! (Every now and then, I get the feeling that I am beating my head against a wall, but as I stated, I’m hard-headed and it seems that neither the wall nor my head is willin’ to relent.)

So, another couple of years got frittered away trying to secure a new motor, and along with that, a new paint job, etc...