U S NATIONALS

[jim sanders]

too both Bob's : yep i missed alot of stuff, but heard alot of stories.. my first time at INDY was 1977... next trip was 1980...then every year for quite a while.... did the motel deal a couple times with wife or girlfriend... not as fun...as the campground....looking forward to rolling in gate 8 again this year with our bracket car deal.... soaking up the view and reminicing about all the good times i've had on the property

[Bob Kraemer]

Indy used to be call "The 7 day madness" because there were no set times to qualify. Drivers & crew members used to climb over the fences just to get in and work on there hot rods before the gates opened. When you were ready you dragged your car to the staging lanes to make a quailfying pass.
Last ditch qualifying was the best, if you wern't in the show and it was last ditch you used the old "10 10 10" rule. Speed the blower up 10%, add 10% nitro, advanced the mag 10%
The car was either going to haul ass, smoke and shake the tires or blow up or any combination of the three.

[jim sanders]

yep i have heard about the 10-10-10 deal...

[Iowa Al]

Went to Indy the first time in 83. Moats won TA/FC, but I had left on Sunday night, because I had to work Monday night. Wish I had stayed, but a 12 hour shift is a lot of money with a family.
Went 4 days in 87/88 with the wife. That burned her out, she has only gone to the drags twice in all the years since.
We sat at 1000' my favorite place to take photo's from the stands with a ton of great Canadians, one was even dressed up as Captain Canuck. They told great stories about sneaking speed part back into Canada.
We discovered Cracker Barrel and ate there a lot in 87/88.
Great memories.
Ia Al

[jim sanders]

AL the 1000ft club is famous at INDY... but we always went for top row of general admission on the west side closest to the campground gate and only for saturday and sunday qualifying...back then it was $25 a car/truck load to camp for the weekend no matter when you pulled in or when you left..get up early, first ones thru the gate and dash for the top row and call it your own.. always leaving someone up there to gaurd the spot !!sunday evening we would roll out and head back to St.Louis....when i went with the wife and once with a girlfriend we did sunday and monday with a motel and reserved seats... niether gal had a very good time.....

[RickO]

The east side campgrounds were a wild different world for this Iowa boy. Walking down that road to the left 30 Chaparral trailers and to the right a crazy atmosphere with for a beer "Show us you T@$s!" signs.......good times.....good times.
RO

[jim sanders]

i gotta get some of these campground pics scanned one year we went up in my red and white 74 suburban and lettered it with electrical tape as a mobile breast exam unit

[jim sanders]

another tidbit of the Raceview campground was guys would come around selling firewood.. $5 for all you could stack on your own forearms without any help full of ants and bugs but you just didn't care as i could get pretty chilly overnight after being in the sun all day.. also a trailer selling ice came in handy after 2 days... one year a group of bikers had iced kegs of draft beer for $.50 a cup... not a bad price if you had ran out before the tt brigrade started their march around the campground looking for willing females to flash

[SuperCamaro]

new link for CD:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... SE:IT&rd=1

[draglist]

Indy was a magical place. I went from about 1987 to 2000 (just when Force was coming into his own) and again with Jer, Cheryl, Robbie, Bandit, Pete, and all our other pals a year or so ago. It was always a magical time. That was about the time some good folks in the sport had discovered my little draglist booklet and kind of adopted me. Kepner introduced me to everyone. Ron Colson always made room in the UDRA/United Racer hotel suite for me to crash, and I was meeting and greeting the hundreds upon hundreds of racers I had recorded. It was always non stop action from 6am until midnight for four straight days. Then the trip back home. One time I drove it... all night straight, getting back to D.C. during morning rush hour. No way I should have been on the road, as I was hallucinating about being IN the drag race as I drove through the mountains of Western Maryland on my way back. Suffice to say, my fellow rush hour drivers gave me a WIDE berth the next morning... stupid, stupid, stupid. Perhaps my biggest regret was one time when I flew out of the race. I was at the Indy airport and directly across from me in line was Joe Hrudka, the gentleman who owned the Mr. Gasket companies and who put on the Top Fuel special points race (like the Bud Shootout). He noticed my drag gear and smiled at me. Like a dumb ass, I was too shy to go up and thank him for all he did for the sport. I also was out of draglist booklets and I would have loved to hand him one. I have a thousand memories from Indy that it would take a few beers to pull back out... bp